When we were coming down to Manhattan with the band in the early eighties the gallery scene was clustered in the loft spaces of SoHo. Clothing designers moved in, the gritty old factory spaces went upscale and the galleries moved out. Today there are a hundred or so galleries in a five block area of Chelsea and although the art market is richer than ever or maybe because the art market is richer than ever the real estate values in that part of town are going though the roof. So galleries are are closing shop or moving out.
The big galleries that remain are becoming small museums with suited guards and blue chip artists. Just today we saw shows by the op art queen, Bridget Riley, the minimalist champion, Donald Judd, giant photo emulsion paintings from the nineties by Robert Rauschenberg, career spanning work from Brice Marden in three different Matthew Marks galleries, twenty five large Jeff Koons’ copies of El Grecos, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Manet and Picasso, each with three dimensional, blue reflective globes mounted directly in front of the paintings, a move that struck me as John Baldesarri without the humor.
Claes Oldenburg is still doing three dimensional, oversize, soft looking everyday objects and easily filled gallery with new work. We sat in Mary Hielman’s brightly colored chairs in the center of a gallery and marveled at her new shaped canvas paintings. I get these clunky looking chairs now. They are a port to an immensely more playful world. Beautiful Robert Motherwell collages from the seventies filled a gallery on 24th Street. Fantastic to see how he picked up motifs in scraps of paper, a discarded cigarette package, and created a dialog with it. We stumbled on a group of graphic and somewhat rude Carrol Dunham paintings. He’s always popping up on my Tumblr blog. Louise Fishman was at her own show, holding court in front of a wall of her luscious water colors. And of course admission to all these shows was free.
I’ve saved the best for last. Georgio Morandi is one of my favorite artists. He lived his whole live in the house he grew up in painting fairly small still lifes of bottles and vases that he often painted before arranging, theatrically staging actually, on a tabletop. David Zwirner gallery has mounted a knock-out show of his work. Please click the detail photo above to see the whole painting. It is near criminal to crop a Morandi as I have.
Although he died in the mid sixties his work is painterly like that of a master yet dramatically minimal at the same time. The mundane taken to extremes. He is quoted as saying, “Nothing is more abstract than reality.” He does so much with so little. Looking at his paintings is somehow a quieting and exhilarating experience at the same time.
Peggi spotted a familiar looking tall man with a white beard talking to the people behind the desk in the gallery. It was the LA art guru himself, John Baldessari!
1 Comment
I’ve never seen Morandi, that I can recall anyway. But, I see how you enjoy him. This is some of the most tactile work I’ve ever seen. I think the frame is not right for it though. Sounds like an amazing visual feast you’re having…enjoy!