Chelsea Art Gallery Walk - Time to kill on Friday Afternoon

So it was a half day this Friday... thank you Chris Columbus!! We always knew we loved Italians !!

So...we made the rounds..and while most of what we saw totally killed time.. there were a few MAO thoughts and standouts..

First the very few standouts..

PPOW Gallery - Julie Heffernan's show Booty... great show..

amazing oil paintings.. thoughtful, and full of whimsical details..we could have looked at these self portraits for hours.. all sold.. not a surprise.

A very impressive show. Clearly this artist wasn't rushed, and she had some real thought and serious work behind all of these paintings. We love the tons of Witty art history references. The work is totally contemporary.. but in a very painterly style.. you just have to love it!

The show closes Oct 20th. This is one artist to watch.. and don't miss the show.

(Photo #1, Self Portrait as Raising Cain 2007, oil on canvas, 78 x 56 inches )

Here's one bloggers thoughts on the show, and here's one review. We're even sad we missed the book signing on Oct 6th. DAMN! 

Yossi Milo Gallery - Kohei Yoshiyuki, The Park..

we'd seen this work many times before,

but seeing it all on the walls,

is very voyeuristic impressive. I'm not sure if this is exactly the type of images most people would want to live with, but it's still very cool to see.

The Sunday NY Times (Philip Gefter) did a huge a bit over stretching

review a few weeks ago.

They dd a great reprint of the book which is amazing.. Plus they have signed copies in the gallery. Well worth picking up, since the original is impossible to get!

The show closes Oct 20th.

Now..a few of the many disappointments...

The Luhring Augustine Gallery - Larry Clark, Los Angeles 2003-2006. Has Larry done anything interesting since Teenage Lust in 1983? Even this book "Volume 1" from the show, is a total bore.

The Marlborough Chelsea Gallery - Tom Otterness, The public Unconscious, proving once an for all, bigger is not better. Dull, or Duller ?? The same thing this artist has done again, and again. The huge new Gallery Condo Tower ground floor space was even a disappointment.

Zach Feuer Gallery - Jules De Balincourt, Unknowing Man's Nature. We have generally loved this artist's work, so maybe we were expecting too much, but this work just seemed uninspired. Too much text, not enough imagery  & painting. Some of the paintings looked like total show filler!! All sold of course...Yikes!

But, We did like this one large "Think Globally, Act Locally, 2007" (Photo #2) painting. The Show closes Oct 13th.

OK.. that's enough art bitchiness for today. I'm sure our MAO email-box will be overflowing with hate mail gallerinas asking us to remove our disappointments. But hey.. why is every art review we read always glowing positive.. cause there's really some terrible crap out there in Chelsea....

FYI... These were just the disappointments, as in, artists we like their stuff, but who've done better shows in the past. Most likely, that was work created when these artists weren't pressed to mass produce/churn-out new art to feed the bloated gallery machine. Anyway..just a thought.

Happy Columbus Day!

Comments

[TommyB]

Hey MAO..
You are so wrong about the Jules De Balincourt show.
It's by far the strongest work the artist has produced to date.
So maybe you should stick to photography...

[Ruben Natal]

I kind of agree with MAO. Jules first show running as the same time as PS1 Greater New York was edgier and more interesting maybe because it the first one.
I really like his work and political connotations of our times.

Right now, I rather see more painting than some of the photography displayed currrently in Chelsea. Can somebody tell me why everybody is using white frames for photos?

In every other show everything is framed in white and the results sometimes are just rather trendy that effective for the art.

[Mike @ MAO]

Thanks Ruben,
I've noticed the White frames.. which I tend to hate!!
But I think since the photo prints are all getting so huge these days.. the white frames help hide the ridiculous size!

Plus the white frames look more similar to the very super contemporary non-framed/face mount on plexi we see today.

FYI, has very poor conservation qualities. With face monthed photos, once you scratch the Plexi..the face mounted image is damaged forever!

And I agree.. the first Jules show was more edgy and frankly...more interesting for me.

[anonymous]

Do you remember what some of these works were selling for? (Balincourt, Heffernan, mainly). That's always the hardest info to get.

[Art Brute]

Jules paintings started at (I think) around 8-10k roughly for the smallest. The largest for 140k. I think the paintings individually were really great especially the one Mao picked but I did feel like there was a lack of continuity and meaning between all of the works displayed. (I think these prices are about double what they were 1-2 years ago) And considering how much some photographers sell large photo editions for it doesn't seem out of line to get a unique wall size painting for this price?

[Lisa Hunter]

Thanks for the reviews, Mike, although frankly, I don't really need a review for the Yossi Milo Gallery. I tend to love everyone they show.

[Paddy Johnson]

Agreed on DeBalincourt. I wrote a prereview for flavorpill (which means looking at some jpegs and writing a few thoughts prior to actually seeing the show) but I was disappointed in person. The surfaces are all brought to the same "unfinished" level. Not very interesting.

[bob rob]

QUOTE: The surfaces are all brought to the same "unfinished" level. Not very interesting. — Yeah, but that's his "thing" kind of how Larry Rivers used to paint "unfinished" paintings - you either like it or you don't, so you can't really fault Jules for that. Some of the paintings were truly outstanding I thought — but a few of them seemed like filler.