three art shows

saturday was a perfect day to do the chelsea art thing... so that's exactly what dglass and i did. we had lots of laughs, ran into the gallery master eric, enjoyed a snack at that place across from the museum on 22nd street, and saw tons of art, highlighted by these three excellent shows:
1. richard serra at gagosian (555 w24th, through august 11). this show is amazing. serra creates huge sculptures from massive pieces of forged steel--all rusty and scarred and beautiful--and they sit there, filling the rooms with their presence, their density, their weight. it's humbling, it's mesmerizing, it's literally awesome.
2. dubuffet and basquiat at pace wildenstein (534 w25th, through june 17). i love basquiat, wasn't familiar with dubuffet, and although the linking here can be a little hokey (both painted something featuring a cow, and so here they are right next to each other), it does make sense, both thematically and stylistically. most important: both artists' creations are, to me, a total joy to look at, and there's plenty of them here.



















3. al hansen, in the back room at andrea rosen (525 w 24, through may). dglass knew about this guy, who does some nice imaginative things with type and collage--most notably, taking the hersey's logo, breaking it up text twist style into "hey" and "yeah" and "she" and so on. very cool. and, by the way, he's the grandfather of beck!