Gallery Notes: Chelsea (November 24, 2009)

Last Tuesday, I spent a few hours wandering the galleries in the Chelsea district of New York. This article presents some brief reviews of what I found.

In truth, the highlight of the afternoon was not inside the galleries, but out on the street. I wandered around my favorite neighborhoods architecturally speaking, and visited the High Line for the first time since it opened. Both the refurbished elevated structures and the surrounding post-industrial landscape are quite photogenic. I presented a couple of my photos on a previous post.

After spending time outside taking in the neighborhood at both street and aerial level, I came indoors to a solo exhibition of works by Dan Flavin at David Zwirner. Flavin’s large-scale pieces were series of fluorescent lights in alternating colors. The simplicity of the lines and lights and spare nature of the large white concrete rooms of the gallery made of a stark contrast with the intensity and energy of the city just outside. The way to experience these works was to take in the expanse from the center, and then slowly walk along the perimeter with the lights, a sort of walking meditation.

Another exhibit that lent itself to a more slow, contemplative viewing was Spencer Finch’s The Brain — is wider than the Sky. This exhibition consisted of three works. The Shield of Achilles (Night Sky over Troy 1184 B.C.) featured a series of cans hanging from the ceiling, each containing a light bulb and a small hole in its base to let out a point of light. Viewers were invited to lie on a mat below and gaze upward, as if looking at the night sky. Although the cans are meticulously arranged to represent ancient Greek constellations, I found myself thinking of them simply as an abstract array of lights and cylinders. Nearby, 366 (Emily Dickinson’s Micalous year) interpreted the 366 poems Dickenson wrote in 1862 as a colorful spiral labyrinth composed of candles, each of which is colored according to the corresponding poem. The candles are lit in sequence, one a day, so that when I saw the piece several of the candles were already melted. The third piece Paper Moon (Studio All at Night) consisted of gray four-sided shapes as was described by the artist as “a very boring piece and clearly not for everyone.”

Matthew Ritchie’s solo exhibition Line Shot at Andrea Rosen Gallery stood out for me, with the abstract, mathematical quality of both the sculptural and two-dimensional pieces. The swirling, intricate forms with circles, curves, latticework and polyhedra suggest both a mechanical or computer-generated origin, and an organic living structure at the same time, perhaps a large city in space or a rather complex molecule. The two dimensional pieces seem to be projections of the sculptures onto a flat surface, with added layers of color. I was particularly drawn to the title work of the exhibition, Line Shot, an animated feature film with moving versions of his projected sculptural forms, with floating text and spoken word, and a sound track built from metallic resonances – and sound that is very rich but also familiar and inviting. I was impressed to read about Ritchie’s past and present collaborations with physicists, musicians, writers and a host of people from other disciplines; I wish I had been around to see The Long Count, a related performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music back in October.

At Greene Naftali I saw Paul Chan’s sexually charged show Sade for Sade’s sake. At first glance, the drawings in the first gallery were simply abstract nude figures drawn with curving black lines, and reminded me a bit of the charcoal drawings of Reiko Muranaga. The sexual dimension becomes more apparent in the accompanying video animations, which feature the similar abstract-figurative shapes moving and convulsing while geometric shapes float in the background. Chan also created a set of fonts (available for download) in which individual keys are mapped to sexual phrases that can be used for generating live poetry or performances. In the gallery, he presents several large-scale panels presenting the character set for each font. In the center of this room was a computer keyboard in which the keys had been replaced with modernist geometric tombstones.

At Stricoff, I once again saw Catherine Mackey’s Wharves and Warehouses (I had previously seen her and her work at Open Studios. It was interesting to see her work, which focuses on the modern urban landscape, paired with the work of other artists in the gallery, such as Zachary Thornton’s woman in a yellow dress set against a dark background.

When I saw the sign Edward Burtynsky’s photographic series Burtynsky: Oil at Hasted Hunt Kraeutler Gallery, I was thinking, “oh, ok, another politically charged photo series…” and not expecting much. But the images were surprisingly beautiful. There were area views of open pit mines that had an abstract beauty with their curved contours and subtle shades, if one can dismiss the ugliness of the practice being shown. Other symbolic images included towers in oil fields, and a highway interchange from Los Angeles, a theme of which I am quite fond (and featured in an old Fun with Highways post).

Some other quick notes. I saw early drawings of Jean-Michel Basquiat at Stellan Holm Gallery, which displayed the frenetic combinations of text, figures and shapes that characterize his paintings. Yvonne Jacquette’s intricate and detailed wood carvings featured familiar scenes from around New York City, including buildings, bridges and the waterfront. Hope Gangloff’s large canvases at Susan Inglett Gallery included one nude figure with a cell phone and beer, and another with a writing bad surrounded by abstract shapes, as well as several figures with interesting clothing. Robert Motherwell’s Works on Paper at the architecturally interesting Jim Kempner Fine Art were simple and quite calming, with little bits of detail to discover like cut sections from musical scores.

SF Open Studios, week 1

Just as it was last year, Open Studios is “art overload” – the sheer number of artists and artworks can be quite overwhelming, even just concentrating on a few studios in a small number of blocks in the Potrero Hill and Mission neighborhoods. I concentrated on a few areas of particular interest, such as pure abstraction, conceptual work, urban landscape, and use of technology, but also took notice of other themes such as animals (especially cats) and selected figurative works as well.

The first major stop was Art Explosion Studios on 17th Street (they now have several locations). I usually begin by seeking out larger abstract works (such as might be appropriate for the walls of CatSynth HQ). These could be single large paintings, or collections of smaller objects to form a whole. An example of the latter was Kally Kahn’s black-and-white “pincushion” series.

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Kally Kahn

[Click on any image in this article to enlarge.]

Very abstract and geometric, I did not immediately recognize them as pincushions until Kahn pointed it out. The brought to mind science fiction or microbial illustrations, and as such I thought of Miro’s Constellation. The coloring and texture also reminded of Julia Orshatz’s work I had seen a week or so earlier at First Thursday, although Kahn’s pincushions were rounder and less intricate.

In terms of larger abstract canvases, Heike Seefeldt’s Roller Coaster series stood out. Each 3-foot square canvas featured a central color and set of shapes (e.g., spirals, radial patterns, stripes, etc). Most made use of bright colors, but the Devastation sub-series featured darker colors, including one distinctive black canvas with more rectangular shapes.

Heike Seefeldt

Heike Seefeldt

Melisa Phillips

Melisa Phillips

I again found Melisa Phillips’ paintings, featuring stenciled text on large color fields as well as embedded abstract figurative images. She also presented some of her figurative drawings this year, but it was still the larger text-based works that got my attention. There is always the question with works that incorporate text about whether it is a purely visual element, or conveys meaning. Certainly, one recognizes the letters in these paintings as letters and thus as language, but for me part of the appeal is that they don’t appear to mean anything with regards to our normal use of language. (I found myself speaking with another artist, Megan Cutler, on the challenges of using text in art.)

Michelle Champlin’s large canvases featured cityscapes that were imaginary but were inspired by real cities, such as San Francisco.

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Michelle Champlin

At least one painting featured an outline of the Transamerica Pyramid; another was supposed to represent a neighborhood like the Tenderloin as seen at ground level and incorporated newspaper clippings into the background. Champlin said she was inspired by the cosmopolitan nature of the cities, and the coming together of many different people with different perspectives.

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Jhina Alvarado

Jhina Alvarado’s stark Forgotten Memories series was based on old photographs she collected. It seemed odd to possess “other people’s memories”, which led her to create these series where the people were presented on empty backgrounds, and their eyes covered with black boxes. Alvarado suggests that blocking out the eyes added anonymity, as well as some mystery to the figures, and to separate them from the memories of the original owners of the photographs.

Interestingly, some Alvarado’s work was displayed into the main hall next to another series of paintings in which the main figure’s eyes were hidden. Romolo R Nisnisan Jr’s In the eyes of a hakujin included a large portrait of a blindfolded Asian woman, supposedly a caricature of western mens’ perceptions of Asian women (or at least that’s what the poorly worded artist’s statement suggested).


On my way to Art Explosion, I stopped at a small studio on Potrero Avenue, featuring paintings by Calixto Robles. Several of his large paintings feature iconic and stylized images of jaguars.

Calixto Robles

Calixto Robles

Most were singular portraits like the examples above, although Robles sometimes incorporated them into other pictures with dreamlike or religious imagery.


Sevilla Granger

Sevilla Granger.

At 1890 Bryant Street, I met Sevilla Granger. Most of her canvases feature trees in silhouette surrounded by warm colors. The trees often have sharp bends in their branches and patterns reminiscent of the cypress trees along the California coast. Interestingly, these “arboreal portraits” are sometimes painted over initial abstract layers of paint that are never seen except as texture beneath the surface. She actually presented one of these preliminary images as a finished work, and found that it received a very positive reaction.

Catherine Mackay’s paintings focus on the “visual urban experience”, and her new series Wharves and Warehouses continues this theme. I had seen Mackay’s work before, which featured familiar locations from San Francisco and New York. Unlike her previous paintings, which featured very think paint and strokes that obscured the industrial quality of the scenes, the current series is very finely textured and almost photographic in some cases.

Catherine Mackay

Catherine Mackay

I instantly recognized one of the piers from along the Embarcadero near the Bay Bridge, an area which has been a rich source of material for my own photographs – this led to an opportunity to share some of my own images and discuss our experiences with the urban landscape.

While some artists focused on a particular media, theme or technique, Mr. Rogers was focused on a single character “Bunnymatic.” As the name implies, bunnymatic is a sort of robot/bunny character, inspired at least in part by the characters of Sanrio (e.g., Hello Kitty, etc.). We see bunnymatic in a variety of media (painting, graphics, popsicle sticks, kinetic sculpture) and in a variety of situations, such as playing drums, partying, towering over a skyline, etc.

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Mr. Rogers. Bunnymatic.

Another comic/cartoon-like image that caught my attention was this one illustration by Matt Delight, featuring a young woman and her pet mollusk.

Matt Delight

Matt Delight


A block or so away was Project Artaud, which houses a warren or live/work artists’ spaces, studios, galleries and a large performance space (where the 2008 San Francisco Electronic Music Festival was held).

Around a corner, I came to the studio of Janet Scheuer, whose colorful paintings feature cats. In particular, they feature her cat who passed away at the venerable age of 21.

Janet Scheuer

Janet Scheuer

In another corridor, I heard electronic music coming from the studio of Saiman Li, where a small group was performing live. The walls were covered with a variety of objects, photos and conceptual works relating to Asian visual imagery and Asian identity.

Saiman Li

Saiman Li


I made a brief detour to Cellspace. I mostly know Cellspace as a performing arts venue rather than a place for visual art. I did see large black abstract sculptures by Corey Best in the main hall. I also saw a few minutes of a dance performance entitled “Happenstance of Social Blunders”. Basically, it seemed to be deliberately clumsy dancing, set to some light jazz music provided by a live band.


Silvia Poloto.  Observations in Deep Blue.

Silvia Poloto. Observations in Deep Blue.

Silvia Poloto.  Void.

Silvia Poloto. Void.

After Cellspace, I visited the private studio of Silvia Poloto. I have a small mixed-media piece of hers, and have always liked her very deliberate arrangements of geometric shapes, color fields, organic elements and the occasional snippet of text. Her studio, like her canvases, was clean and smart and organized and was well suited for displaying some of her larger works.

Some, such as the blue painting from her Observations series, resemble that original small piece and have a the look and feel of a rough drawing.  Others, like those in the Absense Presence series are very smooth and polished, and divided into sections with abstract shapes or photo-realistic elements in each.  A third series, Highland, appeared to combine both styles into a very tall narrow dimensions.

[Images from the artist’s website reproduced with permission.]


From Poloto’s studio, I wandered down Folsom Street to Workspace, Ltd., a large and inviting collection of studios in a converted old industrial building.

Perhaps one of the most unique collections of work I saw was that of John Zaklikowsi. His source materials are a combination of discarded electronics (hard drives, cell phones, etc.), gears and chains, and musical instruments, which he arranges into large and intricate sculptural works. Some are flat wall-mounted collages, including one titled Number Theory; but he also had a grand piano covered with electronics and embedded with flutes, a clarinet and even a tabla.

John Zaklikowsi

John Zaklikowsi

I did not try to play it.

The corridors and studios of Workspace, Ltd also featured a variety of more conventional work. Leslie Andelin’s The Big Bang was a huge canvas covered in rectangles. The bright greenish colors are not really my preference. I did like the industrial and abstract paintings by Amy Curkendall and Alex Zenger, with lots of straight lines and angles. Ali Saif had a large collection of darker abstract canvases, mostly black and silver, with bits of red and other colors – his titles suggested industrial themes like classic cars.

As 6pm approached I did find a place to “decompress” from the artistic and sensory overload. Delfina Piretti had set up a tent as a quiet space where people could compose images from their dreams. While I mostly just wanted a moment without any additional input, I did contribute a drawing, trying to unload a bit of everything from all the different themes and trends into a single image. I left it behind in the book, unlabeled and unsigned.