Chelsea Gallerista

Above: The view from the Standard Hotel's elevator - one you don't mind being stuck in The Standard Hotel - a shingle as chicly understated as the building is understatedly chic - has opened its lounge in the stratosphere. Straddling the wildly popular Highline aerial park, which I filmed just before it opened, this Polshek-designed, Andre Balazs-owned inn reminds me of the Jolly Gray Giant. I don't even know what the latest name of the lounge is - Manifest? Boom Boom ... Boom? The celebs have christened it of course, but this post is for us plebestrians who pass between the Giant's gray chino'd thighs, peering crotchward to see if those mile high performances are just a myth (Motel Sex? Boom boom). You enter the hotel through a Lego-like yellow cylinder and reappear in a small lobby flanked by two very cool, white egg-crate like partitions. The maid in me wonders if someone is hired to featherdust each and every hole ... The elevator to the lo...

From the Aperture website : During the 1994 genocide, hundreds of thousands of Rwandan women were subjected to massive sexual violence by members of the infamous Hutu militia groups, known as the Interhamwe. Among the most isolated survivors are women who have borne children as a result of those rapes. The number of children born from these atrocities is estimated around 20,000. Due to the stigma of rape and "having a child of the militia," the women’s communities and few surviving relatives have largely shunned them. Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape brings together Jonathan Torgovnik’s remarkable portraits of these women and children, and their harrowing first-hand testimonies. THIS exhibition was utterly harrowing, as it should be. It consisted of testimonial after testimonial by Rwanden women, describing their horrific ordeals at the hands - weapons, knives, broken bottles - of their captors. Each account was presented as a large portrait of t...

MOMA is nowhere near Chelsea, but occasionally I make my way up there on someone else's guest pass, and since this blog is mostly about art ... On this occasion it was to see a Tim Burton retrospective with graphic artist pal, Justin Winslow . I'm not a huge Tim Burton fan, but I appreciate the pathos in his work. He reminds me of one of Australia's greatest living melancholics, Michael Leunig . I'm just going to share a few of the ones I liked - the ones I got a shot of before being told "no photos." This the Tongue Twister. What kind of criterion is required to adequately twist a tongue, as this creature is so efficaciously effecting? Let's see now ... a striped bumble body, wicked-witch gloved hands, amphibious tentacles, waspy wings, and a 'do from HAIR. And a really scary, Joker-like countenance. But of course!   I really liked Burton's "Mars Attacks!" aliens. This one, in a glittery, swirly gown and bodice, took ...

One of Alison's deep, dark melancholy clowns. Watch her riveting Hobo movie . I love the  Alexander and Bonin Gallery . I pop in several times a week when I'm in the neighborhood, and loiter longer than is decent before works that enthrall, intrigue, transfix. Like this creepy clown, by LA artist Alison Schulnik . The eyes are like two tragic abysses, hollowed out from the thick, thick paint, perhaps with a finger. The strokes look like a supersize tube of each color - mainly black - was the actual brush. She must have gone through a truckload of tubes. Creepy the Clown's brethren come alive in a super trippy, melancholy claymation clip called Hobo the Clown on Alison's website. Those eyes spin and merge and spread and splatter as only claymation can. Check out her other videos . With the classic circus clown, the sad mouth is always over-exaggerated, the eyes reduced to "+" signs receding into a backdrop of pancake white. Yet here, it's like ...

My Photos | My movie (5 min) I've been a bit remiss in posting to this blog, but this gave me a reason to kick start it. The Highline is a repurposed, elevated railway trestle running from around 17th St to 30th St near Manhattan's western shore. It was slated for the scrap metal yard but an avid supporter group, Friends of the Highline, managed to convince people with deep pockets that it was worth developing into an elevated park. New York Times posted a nice overview, as did New York Post , so I won't re-swoon the swoonable. Suffice to say it's an intriguing execution merging public landscaping with art. Some of the choo-choo-inspired detailing seems a little cloying on first toe stub - like the raised bits suggesting uneven ground? - but when the plants - or rather, intentional weeds grow through the stylized railway runners, subtlety will prevail. It's a terrific place to watch the sun sink over Jersey. Some random personal observations: * ...

AFTER enthusiastically kicking off this blog, I'll admit the Manhattan winter bailed me up just outside the front door. Fortunately, the artsy mayhem begins as soon as I make it past the pooping chichuahuas and preening Sharpeis ... The first of these galleries is Postmasters which featured a very personal show by David Diao. The site features a concise roundup of his show entitled " I lived there until I was 6 ". From the Postmasters press release: David Diao left his home in China under extreme circumstances 59 years ago at the moment of the Communist takeover. The property was confiscated and made into the offices of the "Sichuan Daily." By the time of his first visit back 30 years later, the house had been demolished. For years Diao has sought to render his charged feelings about this loss into a group of paintings ... Essayist Philip Tinari writes: Using his memory and those of his assorted aunts and uncles, and calibrated by the fixed dimensio...

It's fitting that the very first entry in this blog is this "NFS" poster at the Jim Kempner gallery . Not for sale? Hard to believe, with the plethora of Obamabilia making profits of bailout proportions for the memento magnates. Yes, I'd have parted with $2.50 - maybe even $3, for a postcard of this image, but alas, it was just "something the publisher put together," according to the gallery attendant. For the uninitiated, HOPE is based on the famous LOVE poster and sculpture by famous pop artist Robert Indiana . Indiana donated all the proceeds of HOPE to the Obama campaign, raising more than $500,000. No wonder he won! I found myself dreaming of owning a LOVE/HOPE salt 'n' pepper set then slapped myself to regain my usual intolerance for contrived memorabilia. "Maybe the publisher will edition it," said the gallery assistant. If so, I hope she lets us inspect it for longer than she did the cool $380 snowglobe the staff member ups...