Poor Chuck Webster. He delivered a monster painting (it is a crime for me to have cropped the photo of it so click through for the full thing) to his current show at Ziehersmith in Chelsea. The fine work in the rest of the show is not nearly as strong. This one is like a magnet. You are drawn to it. It is hard to look away. You must get closer and examine the surface because it has already convinced you that it is three dimensional. It is not. It has the meaty presence of a Guston. How is he going to top this?
I can’t figure out why there would be an Alice Neel show in Chelsea. Doesn’t someone already own all of her gorgeous paintings? She is a painter’s painter and my favorite woman artist hands down so I don’t really care why there is a show of hers in Chelsea, I’m just happy there is one.
I had jotted down the addresses of three shows in Chelsea in my little notebook and we saw all three along with a Cindy Sherman show and lots of instantly forgettable stuff. The third show on my list was a Brancusi photo show, beautiful arty black and white photos of his sculpture in the studio. This gallery was up on 24th Street so climbed the stairs to the High Line, an absolutely beautiful rooftop park on an old elevated train track. Even in New York City nature can can give art a good run for it’s money.
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