Chelsea Gallerista

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

I popped out of the subway at Syntagma to a warm welcome Read my complete Spot Challenge chronicle T oday I headed for Athens, my penultimate stop in the Spot Challenge. A 9am Easyjet flight means I had my butt on the 6.10am airport bus at Roma Termini. This was a bargain flight: just 60 Euro or $US75.77. On the way to the airport I spotted ... at least three Damien Hirst Spot billboards! Am I the only one who saw them? Unfortunately, my compact Canon S100 wasn't fast enough to capture them for posterity as we whizzed by; my less compact Sony DSX-HX9V would have grabbed it in a flash. This was my first ever visit to Greece. The Gagosian Athens gallery was right around the corner from the subway interchange at Syntagma Square, the scene of ongoing skirmishes between students and police. I popped out of the subway to face a phalanx of riot shields. A few people - and a lot of teens wagging school - were milling around in the square. I got the feeling some e