Saturday, September 11, 2004
An Idiosyncratic Fall Show Round Up
For being such a beautiful, clear fall day, things were still sort of musty in Chelsea today.
The sidewalks on 24th St. were piled with wet garbage waiting to be carted away—carpeting, cardboard, and lots of trash bags. Gallery doors were propped open, and fans were in high demand.
Flooding on 24th St. received the most coverage this week, but the situation wasn’t limited to that block. Water came up through floor drains in galleries on 25th St. and even seeped through the walls of these buildings and flooded the back rooms of 26th St. galleries. But since real dealers always keep it up and off the floor—the inventory, that is—the flooding was more nuisance than disaster.
Not all the fall shows are open until next week, but there’s still plenty to see between 22nd and 26th Streets. Here are some highlights.
The sidewalks on 24th St. were piled with wet garbage waiting to be carted away—carpeting, cardboard, and lots of trash bags. Gallery doors were propped open, and fans were in high demand.
Flooding on 24th St. received the most coverage this week, but the situation wasn’t limited to that block. Water came up through floor drains in galleries on 25th St. and even seeped through the walls of these buildings and flooded the back rooms of 26th St. galleries. But since real dealers always keep it up and off the floor—the inventory, that is—the flooding was more nuisance than disaster.
Not all the fall shows are open until next week, but there’s still plenty to see between 22nd and 26th Streets. Here are some highlights.
- Best pair of heels: Elizabeth Gray’s Cliffwalk at ZieherSmith.
- Best celebrity portrait expunged from an exhibition’s website: Martha Stewart by Alex Katz at Pace Wildenstein. (For some reason, this work hasn’t sold yet. It’s yours for only $120,000, but if you hold out for a few more weeks I bet you could talk the gallery down.)
- Best photos of someone giving the finger to the White House, Eiffel Tower, Hong Kong skyline, and Tiananmen Square: Ai Weiwei at Robert Miller.
- Best gimmick: Long-Bin Chen sculpts with phone books at Plum Blossoms.
- Best photographs of Argentinean cousins: Alessandra Sanguinetti at Yossi Milo.
- Best paintings of candy, I mean nudes, I mean candy, I mean…: Will Cotton at Mary Boone.
- Best signage: At right, seen on a door at Luhring Augustine’s Pipilotti Rist show.
