Eyes of the Beholder

Since we got here about 5 months ago, we have only been to a couple of art galleries.  So we decided to have a gallery day.  We caught the C train to the heart of Chelsea, the part of the City that is rumored to be the art center of NYC.

We walked the Highline, getting into the artsy mood.  The Highline is a great place to set that mood.  We came down to street level and started searching for our 1^st destination – Metro Pictures.  This is a gallery that has been around since the 1980’s and has established itself in prominence in the New York art community.  We were met by an early 20-something at the front desk.  We interrupted his Snapchatting.  He pointed us toward the exhibits.

There was a front room, a back room and upstairs.  The exhibits were a combination paintings, and sculptures.  The works were not overwhelming though the gallery building was very impressive.  Large white walls with only a handful of pieces on each wall.  No plates describing the works on the walls.

Next we visited the Lippon Gallery.  Not sure about this.  There was one artist showing.  His work was either not finished or not good by my standards.  Jerry tried to explain it but it didn’t help.  His art was modern in that it had 3 or 4 geometrical shapes, each painted a different color.  He had pencil lines on the canvas and it looked like he hadn’t finished a paint by number set.  We left scratching our head.

Things got better at the Jim Kemper Fine Art gallery.  The pieces were good, but nothing really to call home about.  What got our attention the most was the prices they were asking for the art.  Nobody bought anything while we were there, though a rather direct curator spoke past her invisible viewers to the gallery manager.

I was feeling really disillusioned about the New York gallery scene when we came across the Taglialatella Gallery.  Now we’re talking art gallery.

Taglialatella Galleries

Right off the bat we walked into an Andy Warhol hanging.  From there it got better, not with famous names (to me) but with talent.  Russel Young’s Marilyn Monroe portraits done in diamond dust.  Mr. Brainwash.  He is a street artist from LA and his work is a social comment with humor.  And it is good.

Invader has a series of pieces of the Space Invader video games.  My favorite was Bansky. He is truly gifted and his artistic ability is matched by his sense of humor.  Nothing short of incredible.

Bansky

Jerry’s favorite was Logan Hicks.  This guy does large aerosol paintings using templates he designs from photographs. The details are incredible.  You can’t tell if it’s a painting or a photograph.  Either way you go, these are mesmerizing works of art.

Logan Hicks

We left being very impressed.  We would have left with several pieces of art but we would have needed a gazillion dollars and more than 550 sq. ft.  I thought about Gallery 3 in Bishop Arts.  Laura Lenhoff did an outstanding job there.  I think she could cut someplace of her own here in New York.

Lara Lenhoff

Disclaimer:  We do not have the rights to display art that was inside the galleries.  Short of leaving the blog void of images, we have substituted our own experiments in different art styles.