Chelsea Gallerista

A fast ride up to the bridge to Randall's Island, host to the giant Frieze tent Like a stream of visiting circuses, full of color and wonder, New York's art fairs - Scope, Pulse, Frieze, NADA, and a bunch of outliers - share one frustrating thing in common: they tend to converge on the same long weekend. This makes it tough for the average art nut like me to do them all justice, even with press passes and a fast folding bike. But this year I decided to gal-up and pay the pricey $46 to attend  Frieze New York , a "first tier" art fair, according to my art dealer friend. Now, there are plenty of highbrow rants about this much vaunted art spectacle, dramatically sited "offshore" on Randall's Island. So what follows is a lowbrow account of what caught my eye in both good and bad ways. A tent fit for an  octomom's  wedding!  I had my first flat tire in ages, stalling my grand entrance. You NEVER find glass on the road when  biking i

Mixed media artist Rodney Durso, founder of Artbridge Last week I found myself in a couple of small, personal Chelsea art events that signal the alternative ways art is being "done" these days - largely due to the economy. The traditional way: An established gallery in a prime location which is never open Sundays, and in fact, shuts promptly at 6pm weekdays, thus winnowing out the artless tire kickers. Staff, of whom you see only the very top of their heads behind the high reception desk, basically ignore you if you wander in without an appointment, because they are busy dealing in cyberspace ... unless you're an art target of course. The new way: slap up, pop up, art up. Let's look at three different "recession suppression" happenings I stumbled on in the same week: THE POP UP Rodney Durso  and  Blair Bradshaw : Together Again  Press Release Blair Bradshaw flanked by "Burr" and "Hamilton" Rodney Durso (

Beware of the cheap wine - and don't forget to look at the art  For those of you chasing around after Banksy's latest meticulously orchestrated stunt, his month long "New York street residency/scavenger hunt,"   the artist's Oct 18 edition is smack in the backyard of ChelseaGallerista, on W24th St at 10th Ave.  Typically, it pokes fun at someone, in this case the gallery scene itself.   Read/listen to Banksy's own cliff notes on W24th You touch de art, I break your face - but perhaps you would like me to take a photo for you?  Under the Highline, on a pebble-strewn private lot, are two paintings hanging in an impromptu "gallery space" that are apparently collaborations with Brazilian street art twins,  Os Gemeos  (you might have trouble reading Portuguese so just Google image them). A dorning an  80-foot wall of PS1 on 21st St    is one of the twins' signature pants-yanked-up-to-the-armpits big yellow men - itself a collaboration with