THE ARTS IN NEW YORK CITY

I have never been to the Chelsea galleries. A cacophony of large buildings, the sounds of rumbling cars on the highway, the fresh familiar taste of river water in the air, and a relaxing cool breeze to accompany it, Chelsea was no doubt an aggravation of the senses. Everywhere you walked, each sense was awakened to something novel yet familiar. There were wide open spaces right next to desolate alleyways, seemingly abandoned warehouses ridden with graffiti, and the galleries themselves, all furnished with their own individual smell of either ancient books yellowed at the edges or the sour stench of molded bread. It was truly something to behold.

Just walking into each gallery was already an experience in and of itself. In fact, I could say that it was like walking into a separate microcosm of myriad shapes, colors, concepts, and textures each time. There simply was not enough time to explore a single gallery in depth, let alone all of them. Keeping this in mind, I was able to quickly discern between those pieces of art that really caught my eye and those that were simply just ill-equipped to override the toll that my empty stomach was taking on my attention span. One particular work of art, though certainly not the only, really grabbed my attention.

At first, it was hardly noticeable amidst the conglomerate of objects at Athe Pace Wildenstein Gallery (quite surely something many of you experienced regarding that gallery especially). However, after perhaps walking by the object ten or maybe twenty times I finally looked down and discovered it. It was a black frame of a cube and, hanging from diagonals crisscrossing the top of the frame, there was a light bulb. It was suspended maybe halfway down the overall height of the cube. Underneath the cube was a slab of glass on which there was a mock reflection of that circle of light a light bulb makes when the light is turned on. Simple enough. However, what was interesting about this piece was that the light bulb was completely black and the circle of “light” if you will was also black. When I saw it, I was almost taken aback at the conceptual complexity of a “black light.”

I know that it’s a very simple idea, something anyone could have come up with. But I think that that’s the beauty of art: it forces you to look at ideas in a very different light (no pun intended). For me, the black light bulb challenged convention and expectation. It also seemed to challenge that familiar state of Ying and Yang and whether or not it mattered in the end. After all, the light bulb was placed against a glaring white wall and white all around. Thus, in effect, the black light might well have been a shining bright light in the dark. There would be no distinction.

In conclusion, this was only one example of an art that I thought truly expressed something, a meaning, an emotion, a point of view and something that I liked and learned from. In almost all of the Chelsea galleries, there was no doubt a plethora of these and I do regret not being able to see all of them. I definitely will, however, return to the Chelsea galleries once again (or most likely more than that) during my leisure time to explore ALL of it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 at 8:25 pm and is filed under