Chelsea Gallerista

An albino Burmese Python - "a non-venomous constrictor." As if being creative on demand isn't already stressful enough, any party thrown by the advertising or design industries had better be an art-directed jaw dropper or you'll be sneered out of the room - from the slick promo poster down to the burlesque aerialist gyrating with an Albino Burmese Python. So all that and more was served up at the   Art Directors Club  Creative Carnival, a promo night for illustrators and their reps co-run by a portfolio company called Workbook . The loft-like Chelsea offices of the AD club was transformed into a circus space where 30 or so artists and illustrators sat ringside, engaged in a "life drawing" exercise of the slightly contorted kind ... Inside the ring, ladies in burlesque costumes (and skirts made from bananas) cracked whips, performed aerial acro-yoga and and fondled some pretty impressive creatures, like a yellow-hued  Albino Burmese Python . How do ...

A sweet show: Pamela with Gumdrops (left) and Billy's Cupcakes (right) If you glance back through this blog you'll note that I'm a huge contemporary art fan – the weirder and more subversive, the better. But I do appreciate a good still life, especially if its weird, subversive, or makes me want to eat it.  That seemed to be the gut sentiment of the enthused crowd who gathered in the lobby of a Greenwich Village apartment building to view "Sugar and Fat" by New York painter Pamela Talese . Cheese and Hermes Scarf: Had even the most vegan diehards dreaming of brie and crackers. OK, maybe not vegans ...  The paintings featured some iconic New York sweets and treats, offset by unusual backdrops to give them a this-is-Talese-not- Thiebaud twist. Plates of mini-cupcakes disappeared in a New York nanosecond (the Oreos lingered), and many people were mesmerized by the buttery slice of brie in "Cheese and Hermes Scarf." It was the first of the ...

CLICK ON PICTURES FOR A BIGGER VIEW A sweep around Columbus' temporary living room courtesy of the free Photosynth iPhone app There's nothing like visual juxtaposition to tickle the human psyche ... witness he of the giant soft hamburger, fan and wall sockets fame - Claes Oldenburg  (yes if you scroll down, that link does show a piece by Claes Oldenburg). The latest art stunt in New York City is Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi's Columbus on the Coffee Table , smack bang on a traffic island in Columbus Circle. OK, that's not the title of the work. It's actually called Discovering Columbus , playing on the fact that the man - actually a scoundrel and a butcher - discovered America. I like my title better. I must be the zillionth person to pose like this in front of the statue  The entrance was free, and ticket holders who booked online patiently waited to climb size flights of scaffolded stairs to get to the mock "living room." Naturally, the...

VIDEO: Dane Owen talks about the Boro, or "tattered rags" used to describe patched and repurposed kimonos. If you ever venture across the Brooklyn Bridge to Dumbo, possibly headed for the ultra-hip (in a rustic way)  Vinegar Hill House restaurant for brunch, make sure you stumble around the corner to visit Shibui . Dane recently restored this Japanese Step Tansu. From the Facebook post : "I would say it was early Meiji c1880. It was made with hand forged nails and hinges . Mortised and tenoned joinery. Hinoki wood frame. I have 3 other Kaidan on the website , one is a little smaller but they are real so they have to be big enough to get to the second floor and deep enough so you wont fall off."  It's a treasure trove of old Japan in a cavernous, cement floor garage. The owner Dane Owen, a Santa Fe native, pops up from behind a great wall of tansu (Japanese storage cabinets, no doubt the Ikea of old Japan at the time) as a walking Wikipedia of Jap...

Only in New York City! Someone from Downunder wrote me today, saying they'd been approached online by a Chelsea gallery offering representation. The offer came with a proviso that most painterly puritans run screaming from - a hefty upfront fee of $3000, and 30% of sales (which is less than the usual 50%). It is popularly known as a "vanity gallery," where you pay for the privilege of exposure. The question to ChelseaGallerista was, should I go for it? Well, you're looking at someone who's never taken the road well-pedaled. I made a career out of taking marketing to the nth degree by homestaying with customers year round as an invited family member. I rode a bike for a living and turned it into a platform for customer evangelism and content-driven advocacy. I look for the opportunity, not the objection. (You'll even find me asking an Amway salesperson, so what have you got that's new and good?). So, my take is about asking, rather than judging...

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...