Blown Away in Chelsea

Mostly I was blown away by the wind itself, tearing off the Hudson straight through the streets of Chelsea. How do we go from 90 degree weather to the 40s and 50s overnight: strange times and maybe my Nobel thesis.

Halloween is in the air in Chelsea. There are beautifully carved pumpkins in the Chelsea Market, and two really creepy figures will greet you at Matthew Marks. Chris Ofili is having his first exhibit in NYC since his bizzarro run in with would-be president Giuliani over his work in the Brooklyn Museum some five years ago. Many paintings that I wasn't impressed with, but his sculptures are quite good, especially the eerie Saint Sebastian, embedded with nails and steel shafts. That's penance.

Whether or not you like Tom Otterness's work -- I do -- you have to give him a lot of credit for producing some very complicated and polished work in his foundry -- he's got it down -- now at the brand new Marlborough, Chelsea. Another brand new, shiny space, Pace Prints is a load on the visual senses with a wallpapered gallery of sculptures and prints by Ryan McGinness. Day-glow stencil mania -- there seems to be a lot of this influence on younger artists, and McGinness is the Keith Haring of the genre. He appears to effortlessly spill it out.

Booty call! Julie Heffernan wowed me with her painting skill in her latest show, Booty, at PPOW. Her seminude self portraits are skirted in a wild array of fresh fruits, fresh killed rabbit and fowl and venison. A fair maiden in a world of death and folly, covered by a floral illusion -- not so far-fetched.

I liked Andre Pretorius's paintings at ZieherSmith, a riff on the young hipster NY art scene. The Show's So Nice at Monya Rowe, and especially nice were paintings by Josephine Halvorson and Amy Longnecker-Brown. Amy will solo in the next show.

A rare sight in Chelsea are the Cezannesque watercolor and oil tree studies by Sylvia Plimack Mangold at Alexander and Bonin, a good way to cleanse the art viewing pallette. Many shows are opening in the coming week -- check Artcal for picks and my Flickr site for more images and comments from this visit.