Chelsea

The crazy COSM (Chapel of Sacred mirrors)...

Discarded art found in a bin

A Saturday morning walk in Chelsea kind of failed when we realised that most of the galleries were closed due to Christmas etc. But we still soldiered on and found the ones that were open. Walking a good eight blocks between 10th and 11th, here are the highlights from the trip.

What we soon learned about Chelsea is that there are 500+ galleries clustered within this space, but most of them tend to be showing absolute crap. It is our job as the Chelsea walker to distinguish what is interesting and what isn't. Unfortunately, a good 95% will tend to fall in the 'not interesting' pile. Also unfortunately, Julian's gallery, Esso, was also closed until the 5th, a day after we would have already left New York. Darn.

So, who caught our eye? Kate Clark's taxidermy animals with human faces were successful in their oddness and we fell a little for Leah Montalto's paintings of crystal like meteors. We also were pretty happy with finding a nice Sol Lewitt in a fancier gallery.

We had a rather long chat with the gallery directory of Monkdogz, an urban gallery, who taught us a lesson about the New York art scene and what it takes to make it in the world. He also gave us a bottle of beverage. Thanks very much.

We also made the mistake of paying $5 to enter the 'Chapel of Sacred Mirrors', the gallery of Alex Grey where we saw some paintings of some rather explicit things. This cult-like museum creeped the bejeesus out of us. On my way out, I actually bumped into Mr. Grey himself, who proceeded to give me a polite smile, one which i reciprocated before gunning it out the door as fast as my legs would take me.

Later, we stumbled across the Balenciaga store, where we perused clothing we couldn't afford while a security guard told me to put my lens cap back on my camera. There was also a 'nice' sales assistant preening his plastered hair. The Comme des Garcons store was a lovely visit (more interesting than Balenciaga due to it's store layout). Everyone must experience walking through their tunnel door.

Chelsea perhaps would have been more alive on a non holiday time. Such a shame we didn't get to experience it in it's full glory.

- Agnes