A preview of Chelsea’s most anticipated September gallery shows
In most New York galleries, the end of July marks the close of the summer group shows. Conceived as a way to recapitulate or wind down the season, the quality of many of these shows has degenerated. Some simply raid art graduate schools, hoping to pluck their brightest and best. Others represent a more craven capitulation to curatorial avarice with blue-chip resale potential weighing heavily in the selection of the overall group mix.
Most galleries will be closed or have limited hours for August.
Fear not, for September looms. The following is a brief survey of what some Chelsea galleries will present as their season openers come September, typically between September 1 and 18. (Check the Galleries Page for additional details in September.)
West 24th Street (the prime market indicator)
Luhring Augustine Gallery (luhringaugustine.com) will open with Pipolotti Rist, a Swiss video and installation artist. Rist is one of those artists who is liable to do almost anything. Her last show was a congested and often poetic conglomeration of the personal, tellingly combining sound with video.
Andrea Rosen Gallery (andrearosengallery.com) will show Annika Larsson, another European video artist.
Metro Pictures (artnet.com/galleries/Home.asp?gid=744) will show paintings by Gary Simmons. His work is generally beautifully executed and full of political and social references, including text.
Polish artist Miroslaw Balka promises to evoke the human condition through symbolic references to his childhood and personal experience with sculptures at Barbara Gladstone Gallery (gladstonegallery.com).
Matthew Marks Gallery (matthewmarks.com) will show photographs by Sam Taylor-Wood, famed for his sleek and large photographs, on 24th Street; Ugo Rondinone, who comes out of a Euro-, anything-goes tradition of installation and video, on 22nd Street; and Jonathan Hammer, known for beautifully handmade books and bindings, on 21st Street.
Gagosian Gallery (gagosian.com) will offer new paintings by Ellen Gallagher and George Baselitz. The new Gallaghers will most likely be huge and may not be particularly interesting, but new Baselitz paintings are always interesting.
22nd Street
303 Gallery (303gallery.com) will open with video by Jane and Louise Wilson, likely to be quirky, artfully photographed and addressing women’s issues.
Sonnabend Gallery (artdealers.org/members/sonnabend.html) will show many interior photographs by Candida Hofer, whose work is reminiscent of Andreas Gursky’s, but without the same digital manipulation.
At Brent Sikkema Gallery (brentsikkema.com), last year’s wunderkind Dana Schutz , Amy Sillman, a powerful and quirky “new” painting master, and the skilled draftswoman and stinging social commentator Kara Walker will share the gallery space.
Elsewhere in Chelsea
Cheim + Read (cheimread.com) will show new abstract paintings by the veteran artist Richmond Burton.
At Paula Cooper Gallery (artnet.com/gallery/264/Paula_Cooper_Gallery.html), Atssuko Tanaka’s paintings and drawings will be exhibited.
The bellwether venue Massimo Audiello (massimoaudiello.com) will have a debut painting show by Zachary Wollard, a poet turned painter. This is work with a zany and epic twist, looking as though…. well, a poet made it.
LFL Gallery (lflgallery.com), which is also known as a trend indicator, will show Phoebe Washburn, who makes massive installation sculptures, as well as Simone Shubuck.
Remember, these are only a few of the hundreds of galleries vying for your attention in September. Don’t forget the East Side, including 57th Street and the vicinity of Madison Avenue. There are sure to be some happy surprises and some grist for grumbling, but I bet you can’t wait.
