Chelsea Gallerista

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

A looker-maybe-collector guide to that great big art happening by the beach NOTE: As I prepare to attend the first post-Covid 2021 fair next week, this story covers a pre-Covid (2018) edition to give armchair booth-hoppers an insight into the machinations. Check out what's happening at  Art Basel Miami 2021 here A pre-reading quiz:  Is the above painting of...  a. An art collector on discovering they paid too much for a Christopher Wool? b. How  Liu Yiquan  felt after someone else bought that  $450m Da Vinci ? c. "Russian Roulette" by Eric Yahnker at  The Hole , spotted at the Untitled Art Fair? So much art, so little time ... She: "WANNA stay at my apartment and do Art Basel Miami"?  Me: "Does a chicken have hard lips?  CALL ME LATE to the party: my first-ever pilgrimage to this seaside artfest with decidedly "Suisse" cachet comes more than 6 years after the birth of this blog. What's my excuse? First, I live smack da