New York Galleries

Hi there
This blog is primarily going to track my visits and experiences within the New York Art scene. I have just begun a Masters degree in fine art at Pratt Institute, and given that I am new here I am making an effort of spending at least one or half a day each week, looking at contemporary galleries and the artists they represent, and more importantly at what they are doing in their work.
I will be looking at museums as well and also artists I find that of interest to me that may not be showing. I will also include write ups of artists that have been referred to me in my studies and why.

My first trip into Chelsea was pretty good. I was overwhelmed by the galleries and the sheer amount of them. Also by the amount of bad or second grade work that is out there and being presented as well. As one wonders: “How do these galleries keep going?” I’ll tell you when I find out.

So please respond and comment as you see fit. I am just exploring and I am not reviewing. These are my opinions and thoughts. I am not attempting to critique the work, except for my own reasons, which is simply to explore artists in New York and what they are doing right now.
I will list places by either gallery or artist or both. Most of these galleries or artists can be tracked down via google and some of the galleries sites have good links to the artists and their work.

Axis Gallery-Sam Nlengethwa
I visited the Axis Gallery run by Gary van Wyck. He is a South African and he and his wife, own and run a gallery that represents mainly SA artists. He is currently showing Sam Nlengethwa who is showing some silkscreen prints of simply coloured portraits of township life. His gallery space is really nice-open , airy and lofty and there are other galleries in his building too. He also deals in African artifacts as well and that seems to be the moneymaker for him. The gallery though has found it hard to educate Americans about both African and South African artists. He says that it is one of a million cultures that are readily available in NY and this I can understand. Everything is available here. Gary is generous and kind and I will be seeing him soon again.

Nicola Di Caprio- Silence is Sexy
BUIA Gallery
One of the nicer tongue in check shows I saw.
The space was clad with fake green grass at the entrance, with golf balls and putts standing against the wall. A record player sits on the ground spinning a single disk with a small hand, cocked as if a gun spinning and so pointing around the room.
Further down were several large thin paintings, which I later realized, were the edges of Cds. I liked that- a kind of over grown Cd collection. On later research I saw that she has done this with photographs a lot. I prefer the paintings. They are more sculptural and I think that painting is kind of dead and bland on most levels and it only really comes alive when it gets into other realms.

Sol Lewitt @ Paula Cooper Gallery.
Well if you know Sol Lewitt then you wont be surprised. But to my surprise we had someone in our seminar the other day who didn’t know him and was about to make his paintings so we sent her off to find him. Having said that they were very nice-drawings on paper both big and small with different colours. Flat colour painted as wash and then fat wavy lines that touch each other painted horizontally in ink. I would have found one painting like this very compelling, but he had several and they became very boring as a result. There was also a small steel sculpture which consisted of rectangular plate pieces flat on the floor to form a circular pattern-small in the centre and getting bigger as it goes out. I though he had lost it. It’s not that amazing and it’s not that compelling.

Mark Dion @ Tanya Danaker Gallery
He only had one work, which was part of a group show. It was a small terrarium ( self contained planter) made of glass and aluminium, built to look a bit like a trolley or wheelbarrow. The sides were clad with blue china looking porcelain tiles with birds drawn on them. I kind of thought it was badly made at first. I always look at the production and manufacture of such things.
It was badly welded and the glass ill fitting. When this happens it becomes distracting and more about the way it’s made than what is being said. But I did get further though. I began to think about the plant and how it related to New York that is a city struggling for space- so the idea of a portable/ moveable planter is very apt. One also thinks of things like what happens if the plant grows tall? and does it need water? I am going to do some reading on this later. I am interested in this man because I have just made a work using a plant and I feel that I may be dealing similar kinds of interrogations. The plant in a city like this can be dealt with in bizarre manners.
Another woman to look at who also makes terrariums is Paula Hayes. She has a website. She used to be an artist, and made backpacks which were terrariums-you could see the inner workings of the plants and also the tubes and source of water as well. There was something strange about having to carry around your plant on your back. Kind of like a pet- like the tiny dogs they have that they stuff in their handbags or just under the seat.

Chris Hanson and Hendrika Sonnenberg
Cohan and Leslie Gallery
This is the best work I have seen so far in NY. It is very well made sculpture that is sublime. It responds to its area and is simply beautiful.
They make life size replicas of urban things we see everyday like chain link fence, a bicycle chained to a pole, a street side rubbish bin and a trolley. The catch is that they make them very very accurately out of carved or extruded poly-foam. They actually make all the components for the bike, life size and glue them together. This need to recreate your local environment is a trend at present and seems to have been for some time. They have chosen soothing colours-baby blue and avocado green to work in and the sculptures are amazing. Being in the city the need to look at urban landscape is also very prevalent. These are also scenes that are specific to NY and I noticed them as a difference when I first arrived. Of course artists like these two, tend to make work, which stems from the locally unusual, but which has become the norm in context, which is an entire other discourse in itself that I will be exploring at soon. Local people often wont see this kind of thing anymore and they may need some reminding.

I have more but will keep it for later. All these galleries were in Chelsea in Manhattan. I really recommend looking up the last write up for images, but of course to see it in the flesh is another altogether