Chelsea is a little pocket of streets in New York City to which most of the art galleries have moved to from their previous nesting spot in SoHo. (At least, that’s how I understand it.) You cannot go around Chelsea in one day and not feel overwhelmed. It’s just not possible. First, the trains are quite a walk from the actual vicinity of streets—especially if you get off at a farther away stop—and then, when you get there, all you will do is walk around and try to approach the next gallery and the next artists with a blank mind.
Here is what Chelsea looked like to me, with information on some of the artists/galleries to be supplied later on, if I have not given up on finding out! As is hinted at by the title, there will be a “part 2,” as we did return for a second look at the galleries we might’ve missed.
We saw these sculptures by Deborah Butterfield everywhere after seeing them here, at Danese Corey.
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Efrain Almeida, CRG Gallery
Jason Rhoades, David Zwirner Gallery
Alessandro Gallo, Jonathan LeVine Gallery
Subliminal messages
Roger Hiorns, Luhring Augustine
Dan Colen, Gagosian
Rachel Lee Hovnanian, Leila Heller Gallery
Somewhere over the rainbow
Fred Wilson, Pace Gallery
Paul Graham, Pace Gallery
And of course, The Highline:
Blue Bottle Coffee, where I tasted the world’s best ginger molasses cookie of my life. Five weeks later and I still regret not getting a second cookie.
A cute boy—the only cute boy we had seen in all of New York by that point—sat next to me while he was waiting for his drink and my sister accused me of ruining their meet-cute by sitting in between them.
Chelsea is one of the reasons why I want to live in New York. I didn’t really like a lot of the art (lol, sorry), but there’s just something satisfying about unearthing gems, no matter how few, while killing your feet on a beautiful, sunny afternoon in a beautiful part of town, where the light hits everything just right.
And then having a ginger molasses cookie afterward.