I bundled myself up

 I bundled myself up yesterday and took the long train ride into the city where I also took the bus after the train to the Chelsea art galleries and pretty much liked everything I saw. Guess my favorite show was the beautiful Richard Pousette-Dart show at Pace. I've always loved his paintings so this was a real treat for me. Also a lot of his beautiful sketchbooks and some of his sculptures which I'm not crazy over, but man I love his textures and color in his paintings. There was a wall of very small paintings on paper that were so strong and tender that I thought I would cry.

Also speaking of textures another big show of paintings with things attached to them by Anselm Kiefer at Gagosian. I thought it was uneven, not so much taken with his handling of paint, but they are overwhelming in size and mystery. His attaching of things, big things to the canvas are also hit and miss, and its all very wide screen and loud, but that is Gagosian isn't it? .

Much more intimate was the Betty Woodman show of late ceramics at the David Kordansky gallery. I admire good ceramicists like Woodman and her coloring and shapes are beautiful. Another big show is the Joan Mitchell extravaganza at Zwiner. The show is pretty (some would say gorgeous) and they are, but I've never been a big fan of her work so there. I also saw a nice show of John Baeder's roadside paintings of diners and other roadside attractions. Known for his detailed super realist works and I should add here my knowing him goes back to 1966 when I was 19 and working in the low level mat room of Ted Bates advertising where John was an art director and took a liking to me and my commercial work but we soon both left the ad mad men world to pursue our calling as artists. Finally I saw the Grant Wallace cuckoo show of his long lost art at the Rico/Maresca gallery that is a leading gallery of self taught folk and startling art works by lost and found people who turn out are marvelous artists. Little did they know that their work would be hoarded and hounded by rich collectors and gallery hound dogs. This Wallace guy did marvelous drawings rooted in visions and psychic messages, incorporating beautiful handwriting and calligraphy a favorite technique among self taught artists. He did these works in the 1900's and early 20's and they are now selling for big bucks. and I mean big bucks. Everything I saw here was big bucks in big spaces. That's ok this is new york city after all.