New York: Galleries 7 and 8

February 4, 2012, Saturday

My first weekend in town in a bit, and I went to Chelsea.

I'd spent plenty of time in airports and on airplanes to catch up with stacks of NYT.  One article I read was a Sunday Arts & Leisure feature on Doug Wheeler.  Wheeler is a founder of the Light & Space movement, but I'd never heard of him before, and I also did not know about the Light & Space movement.   However I've been to several James Turrell light installations, including the 2010 Dhatu at Gagosian at Britannia Street.  As the NYT article notes, "Mr. Wheeler’s role as a pioneer had been diminished in Mr. Irwin’s and Mr. Turrell’s favor, perhaps owing partly to the difficulty of both the work and the artist."

So I arrived excitedly at David Zwirner for the Wheeler, but there was a line waiting.  Even after I got inside the gallery, I had to wait.  I waited for a total of two hours, which to be fair, the gallery staff warned us about.  I used the time to flip through interesting old catalogues on display.  Coincidentally I had just seen art by Craig Kauffman, described by NYT as a "sculptor of plastic" in his obituary, and by Helen Pashgian at LACMA the week before.  All these West Coast artists had exhibited together, and I felt that I got to the party a bit late.

When it was finally my turn to see the Wheeler installation, I'd forgotten the story about the little boy in Bilbao from the NYT article, who did not realize that the "wall" in front of him was actually penetrable light.  I was unimpressed at first until I realized I was fooled by Wheeler's trompe l'oeil.  Once I stepped inside, I found that Wheeler had created a disorienting infinity environment in a room with no sharp corners.  The curved walls gave an illusory effect of never-ending tunnels.

On Kawara painting, courtesy of David Zwirner

Zwirner has three spaces on 19th Street -- 519, 525, 533.  The other spaces were showing On Kawara's date paintings ("Today" series).  Karen Rosenberg of the NYT quips, "Right now in Manhattan you can see a large group of astonishingly simple paintings, installed in multiple branches of a gallery, that demonstrate a single artist’s global reach...  Speaking broadly, you could say that one is about time and the other is about money."

I stopped at the two Gagosian outposts, of course, as well as at Mary Boone.  Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds installation from the Tate Modern was considerably downsized for the Chelsea incarnation.  I found it more accessible and the shimmering porcelain seeds were beautiful.

Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds, Tate Modern, January 23, 2011

 Previous Gagosian gallery visit:  Andreas Gursky opening, Nov. 4, 2011 (21st Street)