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West Chelsea Street Art: alive and ungentrified

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Street/fine artist  Anthony Lister  puts a creepy face on Billy Marks dive Bar   ASK ANYONE who lives (as opposed to absentee-invests) in artsy West Chelsea and they'll tell you it's becoming "artless." All but the bluest of blue chip galleries are fleeing to (slightly) more affordable zip codes, no thanks to rampant "condo-mania."  Three of my favorites - Lori Bookstein Fine Art , Alexander and Bonin and Andrew Edlin , which formed an artsy little men-art a trois on 10th Ave have been swept away by the winds of gentrification. So it I was thrilled to discover that street artists are alive and doodling, pasting, spraying and "throwing up" (in a good way - I'll explain later) in the nabe, on a tour hosted by "recovering street artist," Patrick Waldo. Recovering from what, Patrick? A fall from a ladder at 2am while tagging an Absolut billboard?  "I got caught," said the impossibly tall, millennial-appar

Wait, what did I just watch? The Stinking Dawn of Gelitin at O'Flaherty's

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@ChelseaGallerista gets the cover of her book signed by Gelitin members Wolfgang Gantner and Ali Janka.  I've just sat through 90 minutes of simulated poop-wrestling, ass-painting, golden showering and anal laser-pointing loosely choreographed to a pounding, cacophonous "dada-thrash" soundtrack.  Fortunately, it was all on film, with no audience participation or plastic ponchos required ... yet.   I have just subjected myself to the US premier of "Stinking Dawn" (2019) , a pre-Covid film by Austrian cult art troupe Gelitin and conceptual artist Liam Gillick . The venue? The brand new east village location of  O'Flaherty's , an equally cultish gallery helmed by artist Jamian Juliano-Villani , the thrillingly plainspoken, chain-smoking painter of whatever the hell she wants (check out this  interview ). Recent shows by O'Flaherty's include sculptures by the late, great  Ashley Bicketron and Turner Prize nominee Anthea Hamilton .  The screening wa