Yesterday BC and I hiked up to Chelsea and visited a few galleries. Nan Goldin has a show up at Matthew Marks, same old moody saturated stuff. Next door we saw a show by Fischli+Weiss, a video of two people in a bear and a rat costume, stupidly frolicking in caves and across beautiful landscapes. The animal suits were effectively displayed, barely visible in floor-to-ceiling darkened glass vitrines. Kara Walker has a knockout show at Sikkema Jenkins, of drawings, paintings, cutouts, and a video, Eight Possible Beginnings. In the video, she uses cut-paper marionettes to paint a portrait of the African experience in Antebellum south. Very powerful, really disturbing, with totally gorgeous imagery. Max Protech has a nice show of abstract paintings by Thomas Nozkowski, nearly recognizable abstractions that bring to mind cityscapes, constellations, and Emily Wilson’s work, which really should be shown here. Sonnabend has a show up documenting collaborative work by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret made in India in the early 50’s, beautifully displayed furniture and architectural photographs. We bumped into Chuck Close, who didn’t say hi (he looks so little in person!), at Pace-Wildenstein, where Tara Donovan has a fabulous installation on display, of hundreds of thousands of stacked translucent plastic cups, laid out in a rectangle appx. 50′ x 60′ x 5′ high, and creating a magical topographical recyclable polar landscape. Tom Sanford has a show up at Leo Koenig which seemed hyped beyond anything I could make of it. His ambivalence to culture seems reflected in his ambivalence to paint and imagery. We ended our two-street Chelea gallery outing with a show of Basquiat “Heads” at Van de Weghe, which BC didn’t really like, but Basquiat’s spontaneity and convoluted narratives always draw me in. There are also some cool Marilyn Mintner photos on billboards throughout Chelsea, very effective venues for her glamourous grime scene investigations. More a-gallerying next week.
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