Think Art

Third visit to NYC in 10 months: this time I got to visit the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on a gallery tour on 10/02/07. Do you know that Chelsea has the highest concentration of art galleries in the world? 300!!! I didn’t count. The walking tour took us to 8 art galleries and my feet screamed uncle.

Note to self: wear walking shoes; boots hurt.

Eye Opening: abstract paintings, self-portraits, computer animation, computer art, video art and sculptures. It was quite a mix of art forms. Some were confusing and some just didn't connect with me. Overall though, they were interesting and I walked away with admiration for those who have the imagination and the ability to express their thoughts and feelings.

One exhibit was all self-portraits of the artist, Julie Heffernan, wearing dead animals. What’s up with that? I thought it was kind of morbid yet the paintings were rich and colorful at the same time - very bipolar.

I really like Ugo Rondinone's 9-feet sculptures and there were 12 of them - EACH being sold for $200,000. Want one for your garden?? Want to guess what they were made of? Clay? Mud? Try aluminum. Would you have guessed? Complexity disguised in simple form.

Sol LeWitt's 3-D sculpture was giantic and powerful. It stood alone – grandly - in an empty exhibit room and what a visual impact!! The cube art was sketched with ordinary pencils on 4 large building sheetrock. It took 12 artists over hundreds of hours to make the art. Mr. LeWitt passed away in April 2007. He instructed to have this art be destroyed after the exhibition. Huh? Do you have to? They make beautiful room partitions. Wouldn’t that be more meaningful (for me anyway)???