Chelsea Gallerista

Patrick Yacco of GeeksOut congratulates me on winning a PJ McQuade doodle of George Takei - and seems that George "liked" this photo on Facebook .  OK, it wasn't in Chelsea, but good as ... Last Friday I got an impromptu invite to an art raffle by my illustrator friend Justin Winslow . Oh how fun to be Justin's "fruit flyette" of an evening ... last time I mumbled "ok" to one of his texts I ended up in a place called the Rawhide staring up at an impressively gyrating, live advertisement for Iron Gym , one of which, like you, I own and have hanging, like yours, nowhere near a doorframe turning me into Wonder Woman or you into Big Arnie, unless you're a body conscious Chelsea boy. Yes, Chelsea is known for its gay population, although the plummet from gentrification to generification is fast turning it into another Duane Read/Rite Aide/Olive Garden 'burbia. But I digress. The event, organized by a very fun collective called  Geeks ...

Damien Hirst: Cathedral Print, Duomo 2007 - spotted at Phillips de Pury, Park Ave Evening Collections Article: 9,000 butterflies killed in Hirst's latest artwork VIDEO: Damien Hirst Retrospective at the Tate Modern, April 2012 In the space of hours my inbox has been deluged with news stories about mega-artist Damien Hirst. The first is about his  new website  complete with Hirst-cam. Two cameras (when they're switched on) are trained on his worktable, platoons of assistants and hopefully, fleeting glimpses of the man himself: www.damienhirst.com The second is about a new series of Hirst multiples selling at the 2012 Affordable Art Fair , a place where, the career-conscious have told me, an artist might start, spend one, maybe two seasons ("tops"), and hopefully never "need" to return. In this exhibit, his dealer Manifold Editions is offering his spot series as woodcuts , a word my brain unfortunately flummoxes with "woodblocks" and imme...

I popped up out of the subway in Athens to face a phalanx of police riot shields. In LA, Stephen Spielberg's mother proudly toured me through her shrine to her son's talent (it's on the way to the restroom of her diner). Then there was Occupy London with its dystopian yet fiercely activist vibe ... and the $10/night Kung Fu hostel buried in one of Hong Kong's buzzing cities-within-a-building with its Changi prison aesthetic and crazed woman who refused to budge from my bunk bed … SPOT PLANKING: One of the funnest things you can do in Geneva at the Gagosian Geneva gallery. Thanks to Johan @Gogo for being a great sport! My latest escapade was a complete departure from anything I've attempted before: the  Damien Hirst Spot Challenge  - a kind of global art scavenger hunt. The brief: dash across datelines visiting 11 galleries showing the artist's Spot Painting retrospective, get your official "been there, spotted that" card stamped, and as a ...

Thanks to Andrew Luk of Gagosian Hong Kong for this admirable composition. The painting was hung a little lower than the one in Athens - probably because everyone in Honkers is 5' nothing like me. Read my complete Spot Challenge chronicle The Gagosian Gallery Hong Kong was my last stop on the Spot Challenge. How awful to come all this way and fluff it ... but it nearly happened. Unable to secure a China Visa "on the fly" to visit my cousins in Beijing for a couple of days, I'd moved my onward flight forward. This meant I'd have to sit for a few hours at Beijing airport, then depart for Hong Kong same day, as the immigration rules dictate. (It was cheaper to do this than re-book the flight). An Etihad airlines officer summoned me to the counter. It appears, madam, you do not have a valid onward ticket out of Beijing. WTF? I'd spent an eternity at the Beehive Hostel in Rome calling the eternally inconvenient United Airlines office in the USA (can y...

I popped up in Athens to face a phalanx of police riot shields. In LA, Stephen Spielberg's mother showed me her wall of fame to her son (it's on the way to the restroom). Then there was Occupy London ... and the $10/night Kung Fu hostel in Hong Kong with its Changi prison aesthetics and woman who refused to budge from my bunk bed …  I just got back from doing the  Damien Hirst Spot Challenge  - a kind of global scavenger hunt where you had to dash around visiting all 11 galleries showing his Spot Paintings (NY-LA-London-Paris-Geneva-Rome-Athens-HK), and as a reward, receive a personally dedicated print. It was one of the maddest, funnest things I've ever done. Y ou can follow my journey by scanning  the posts before this one and clicking "older post" until you've had a gutful. The large Traffic Cone Bag was my get-spotted-and-get-away luggage. So this post should really be titled, The Joy of Carry On. I set myself up on a kind Chall...