On View

(Still from Reynold Reynold's Six Apartments, now at Roebling Hall)

Did a crawl through Chelsea today. Here’s some of what I saw:

1. Adrian Paci at Peter Blum on 29th. I very much enjoyed Paci’s videos at PS1 a few years back dealing with families separated by country. In the video on view here, the artist has a weeper and chanter mourn over his body, although he is still alive.

2. If you’re in to “experiences” you can walk into Antony Gormley’s room of dense steam at Sean Kelly also on 29th. I personally was too scared. The signs posted around the gallery warning claustrophobics and panic-types didn’t help.

3. Over at Roebling Hall on 26th and 11th, I was absorbed by Reynold Reynolds two-channel film installation that glimpses at lonely lives lived in separate apartments as well as well as bacteria and maggots. The camera work was a pleasure and the devastation tickles me pink.

4. Also on 26th, at James Cohan, I recommend Folkert de Jong’s decomposing harlequin figures stacked up on one another.

5. Isaac Julian’s multi-channel installation is too slick for me. It was hard to feel past the esthetic perfection. But, there’s a lot of talk about it, so you might want to check it out at Metro Pictures on 24th.

6. I liked the scale and sparseness of Charles Ray’s installation of three sculptures at Matthew Marks on 22nd. The gallery attendants sitting there in the practically empty space, almost sculptures themselves, are a scream. And the young boy playing with a toy car is appealingly forlorn.

7. I’ve heard so many complaints about Kara Walker’s cutouts being repetitive. But, I don’t buy into the critique, especially when seeing her diverse explorations into the medium at Sikkema Jenkins on 22nd. Here’s an artist whose appetite for form and content are equally large.