Smith Street Brooklyn Comes to Chelsea

If someone asked me, "What's your problem?"  I'd have to say "skin."  

Andy Warhol

Eighty Eight degrees inside on a sub zero-freezing night outside. Which was good. An abundance of arms necks legs with multicolored designs of dragons skulls clowns snakes pin up girls and geometric patterns floated around the space. Mostly old school classic images updated to the modern look. Even a Felix the Cat tattoo looks new on a young arm or leg.  Ghosts of Bert Grimm, Brooklyn Joe Leiber and Sailor Jerry whispered around the crowds. Friendly, sans-Chelsea attitude. Reminded us of Kustom Kulture openings in LA, big smiles and lots of laughs.

The works are screenprints and drawings for tattoos. One stuck out as a Skeleton reading or studying something like an Albrect Durer print, another was a sheet of crybabies. Ok. Maybe some were more successful than others.  Overall a cool exhibit and fun place to go, free beer and free tee's by Katsufumi Takihana.

These guys have the reputation for being the  best tattooers out there. We wish them good fortune in this transition to fine art.

Smith Street Tattoo Parlour at Art NowNY on 28th street. With Mullowney Printing and Raking Light Projects.

All Tomorrow's Parties

We went down to the Bowery or maybe the Lower East Side last week. That's the area near Orchard, Ethridge, and Chrystie streets. Our old memory of that area is dropping an inebriated drummer named Walter off at Ludlow and Stanton, a crime and drug addled corner.  All changed now. New galleries, restaurants, and a nice small ad agency with bikes in the window. The rents must be ok.  The biggest surprise was meeting some happy people in business. There is one place with cool books in the window like a library. We felt we could ask why and were told why in a nice way. Forgot now, maybe a publisher of some sort. 

But it was pleasant to chat with the owners about the spaces. In another gallery space we asked why is this room all white with nothing up? "Not all the time, but it's kind of nice don't you think?" came the answer with a smile. Berlin was like this five years ago. Gallerists would walk out from behind their desks and cheerfully talk with you. So was the East Village of long ago. You could sit and visit with Pat Hearn or Colin de Land in Vox Populi with it's dirt floors, peeling paint, and elegant chandelier. All Tomorrow's Parties played on an endless loop. 

This new gallery area seems different. They don't seem to be Bohemians, just young people working and enjoying what they do.  All is possible, they say. But avoid the Bowery which not so great. The New Museum is dreadful, the restaurant supply houses lining the street are much more interesting. The Poetry Club is unfortunately gone now. Some commercial galleries scream "over here!" from the windows. And you have to look both ways and run if you want to cross over the street.

Here is Lesley Heller and she's a gallerist, probably well known. She's showing some paintings of squiggly lines drawn over where the head should be in a portrait. Nice pieces. And she talked about art fairs, auctions and artists in the most open and friendly way. Which was a very pleasant surprise. We have all become used to deep-freeze Chelsea.  Stop, we say.  Enough of art storage vaults, cement floors gleaming in a morgue-like polish. Embalmed gallery assistants, heads down, slowly and mysteriously poking away at keyboards . Never look up! Says the Chelsea Gallery Assistants Training Manual.  

Portrait of a happy art dealer. Lesley Heller Workspace, currently showing Deborah Brown "Outer Limits" until March 9th.

 

Baa Baa Gas Station

We saw a sheep installation at a Chelsea gas station but first we should mention David Ryan’s show at Galerie Richard. It was funny because the gallery typist, who turned out to be the director, started waxing on about how the artists' work concerned layers of dreams stacked up against other layers of dreams. "Do you like to dream?" he asked us with a loopy grin. We all love the bullshit gallery people dispense. Anyway, the work was like Jean Arp on acid with brightly colored panels that look like they were made with one of those vacuum pump toy sets you had as a little kid that were made by Kenner or somebody like that. Some useful information we did find out was that Ryan first draws his work in Illustrator ( a computer program) and then has it constructed out of a high density plastic material.The sides of the work are layered and the whole work acts like a puzzle piece like in the game Jango. His titles are wacky with coordinates of places on earth and cryptic references to who knows what.

Then we walked around the corner and to see the gas station that used to be on 9th avenue and 24th street. We always hate gas stations in Manhattan because they charge these high prices, they don’t ever clean your windshield and you have to pay through tiny irregular hole in a scarred, thick plastic window. It was night by the time we turned the corner.The gas station was well lit even though it seemed totally abandoned. Surprise! Now the gas pumps are surrounded by rolling hills and a sheep farm. Grazing sheep look out in a curious manner. "You looking at me, pal?” A white fence encloses the bucolic scene protecting the artwork from both circling taxis and a curious public. We were looking for a gallery or museum guard but none was to be found. If this was  installed in a gallery we would have just passed by. Being out in public seems to do the trick and makes it the project so much more interesting. The installation is the work of Michael Shvo and the Paul Kasmin Gallery. Go see it. But fill up beforehand.

Artworld Confidential welcomes the writer and artist Tom McManus.