Tag Archives: gallery hopping

Q: What is Thursday in the art world?

Posted on by
A: A night of gallery hopping; i.e. openings, wine, people watching, mingling and more.

I have a great list of exciting openings for tonight. I have a great new raincoat and umbrella just in case. Great, right? Except I’ll be hosting my boyfriend’s dad for dinner, which is, of course, lovely, but does not leave time for gallery hopping.

There’s no reason that the list should go to waste though. Enjoy and report back if you can. If not, hopefully I’ll be out there on Friday. Also, if you ever want to check out some openings and aren’t sure where to go, check out Artcards for a great and wide-ranging list of exhibitions. Openings are from 6 to 8 p.m.

This is my short list of things to see tonight. The long list occurs as you’re strolling through Chelsea and spot a crowd or a work that catches you’re eye. Hopefully, I’ll catch those shows and the ones listed below tomorrow.

The shows listed below are not to be missed, at least so I suspect/heard through the grapevine. Except for the last one, an installation, this list provides a very painterly tour of Chelsea. There are galleries outside of Chelsea (and I do want to write about them soon) but you can only fit so much into a day, right?

Am I missing a good show? Is something cool coming up? Tell me!

Ravels in Review Friday (already!)

Posted on by


Has another week really passed? It seems so here in Art Ravel’s land, which has been hopefully busy despite a recurrence of hangovers.

Reasons to be hopeful:

1) Spring has returned to Manhattan and gallery hopping can commence again, as I document here. Sure, in between then and now we had some freezing days, but a thaw is coming. *Could also be a reason to be hungover.

2) YouTube’s content gets more fun by the minute. See Richard Serra shovel Vaseline under Mathew Barney’s direction. Not to be missed.

3) A new play by Moises Kaufman shows us how to make time stand still, in addition to its other good qualities.

4) In another exorbitant claim, a man has discovered the secret of beauty. *Could also be a reason to be hungover.

5)I said goodbye to Culture Pundits, and hello to cool art magazines.

6) Asking questions about Kara Walker, rather than critique, in a further positive, hopeful effort.

And so what do I think sums up this week, its hopes, its hangovers?

Lobsters, obviously. Why? Ask the Surrealists, or read Signs of Spring.

Signs of Spring: LES Galleries

Posted on by

A thing of beauty may be a joy forever, but that’s not enough to drag me out after work in 20 degree weather to explore the nether regions of Chelsea. Gallery hopping is not so pleasant when you get frostbite.

The first sign of Spring emerged Wednesday night, when I, like a rabbit poking its twitching nose out of its hole, decided to stop by a gallery opening. I confess, it was only a subway stop away from home. On Stellar Ray‘s opening This-Has-Been was mentioned both in Artcards and MyOpenBar, and certainly some event was necessary to mark the passage of bunny-eared TVs. See how bunny similes keep popping up–another sign of Spring.

At On Stellar Ray’s opening devoted to the end of analog broadcasting, which had a full, rather French crowd, was a TV repurposed as a stove, some videos installations, a large blue wall painted on newspaper (which had little to do with TVs) and a lobster (which I’m certain was the Surrealist key to the whole show). Unfortunately, I never got Surrealism and the great mystery of how the lobster marks the switch from analog is lost on me. What can I say? I’m hopeless.

On my way from On Stellar Rays to my dinner date, imagine my surprise at running across two more galleries. One was forgettable, bu the other, Bridge, had an installation called Swarm that drew me in from across the street. Suspended from the ceiling were black or white geometric mobiles that formed a nebulous cloud slinking down toward a video installation at the end of the gallery. The artist Peter Macapia, who has a PhD in math, created the complex, angular designs of these small mobiles based on geometry and algorithms so that no two are alike. The effect of the installation over all was entrancing.

Then yesterday Heist Gallery on Essex had a new photography show by Andrea Tese up called Boats Against the Current, and on East Broadway I finally popped into LaViola Banks gallery. Signs of Spring on the Lower East Side–hopefully signs of things to come.