An art tour of the Upper East Side is a different kind of tour from either Chelsea or The Lower East Side. Chelsea is crammed with galleries, side by side, layer upon layer, in converted warehouses on the streets and renovated storefronts on 10th Avenue. The Lower East Side is a storefront wonderland broken up by restaurants, coffee shops, artisanal beer joints and Hasidic garment merchants. But the Upper East Side is an artistic heaven tucked away in townhouses, office buildings and even the mezzanine of a five star hotel. You would not know to look at it that this is one of the premier locations for viewing (and buying) modern and contemporary art in the world. But, of course, it is.
Van Doren Waxter
The first two galleries we visited on the Upper East Side on Thursday provided us with both the old and the new, the borrowed and, interestingly, the blue. At Van Doren Waxter on East 73rd Street we were treated to “Joseph Cornell: A New Surrealism, Works from the 1930’s.” These were, of course, old. And borrowed, as Cornell appropriated images from many sources to create these fabulous small collages.
Galerie Perrotin
Across Madison Avenue, at Galerie Perrotin, John Henderson’s show “ A Revision” is all work of 2014 and one piece, “Untitled Painting,” is the only actual painting in the exhibition, and is a blue monochrome. With the exception of one video piece, the rest of the show is composed of works of dye sublimation on paper or copper electrotype. One of the gallery owners was kind enough to spend some time with us and to explain these techniques. Would that I could succinctly summarize what we learned. Suffice it to say that what appear to be multiple layers of collage are, in fact, quite flat and what appear to be heavily painted canvases are, in fact, a kind of copper mold—sculpture, if you will, that resembles painting.
Gagosian
Our tour then took us to Gagosian on Madison Avenue, where two of their three floors of gallery space are presently without any exhibitions and where, on one floor, there is a single site-specific work by Urs Fischer which is not advertised anywhere and for which no didactic material is provided. What you are seeing, what he or the gallery is calling it, well, we have no name for it. We stroll through two of Gagosian’s large rooms, one with walls painted in a lime green, the other in a almost unbearable pink, with the paint seemingly dripping onto and splattered on the floors. In one room a very large stone-like objects rotates above the floor, attached somehow to the wall, like one end of a barbeque spit. There are several other objects in the two rooms. A chair balancing on a bottle, a hand emerging from a clump of mud or shit…. Just where Urs Fischer is going with this I do not know. But it certainly makes for an interesting diversion off Madison. Our tour group moves on.
Leo Castelli Gallery
On east 77th we entered the building that still houses Leo Castelli. Entering the lobby is entering into an older, more stately, maybe a bit more European world. Everything works to bring you back to a more elegant, a quieter time. We were nine, so using the elevator would have taken three trips. Some of us took the stairs. The exhibition is worth every step and then some. It’s Rauschenberg,– two rooms of works from the 1970’s to 2008. A mini-retrospective and each work a gem and a wonderful example of what he could do with different media. The centerpiece of the show is Arcadian Survey (Spread), 1977, a seven foot by twenty-one foot work composed of a number of panels incorporating mirrors, fabric, paper, stencil and images from many, many sources and dealing with a variety of themes, All so very Rauschenberg—complex, intricate, stimulating, disturbing, and masterfully put together. That way of creating a balanced environment amidst all the disparate and sometimes conflicting elements that only Rauschenberg could manage.
Michael Werner Gallery
Down the street, at #4, is the Michael Werner Gallery, which is now showing a selection of paintings from Jorg Immendorff’s “Café Deutschland, “ a work not seen in this country for over thirty years. This is one of those places where the demands of the art tour take precedence over the spirit of art appreciation. We really can’t stay long and this work really requires one’s attention and time. There are at least half a dozen large and an equal number of small oil paintings, a relatively small sampling of the hundreds Immendorff produced starting in 1977. These are complex works filled with life, with energy, with characters and symbols and situations depicting, analyzing and critiquing a time and place that shaped the artist and the modern world. They are worth the time they demand.
Galerie Mourlot and Michelle Rosenfeld Gallery
From here we walked over to East 79th Street. Galerie Mourlot is in the basement of 16 East 79th and Michelle Rosenfeld on the first floor. In both galleries we were welcomed and given a tour of the art and an explanation of how the gallery functioned, the first as a source for fine graphic work, the second as a showcase of modern masters. Eric Mourlot is the third generation in his family to work in the print trade, his grandfather having begun the business in Paris. These days they are not doing any printing of their own, but their catalogue is quite extensive and the work we see on the walls instantly recognizable. Upstairs, Jason Rosenfeld is a second generation gallerist, his mother having founded the gallery. The walls here were covered in Harings, Judds, Hirst…. A wonderful collection of modern and contemporary pieces and a gallerist with no qualms about talking price. This is the secondary art market and Mr. Rosenfeld was very forthcoming about how that market functioned. It was a very refreshing educational experience.
We ended our tour there. I gave the group my suggestions for further adventures that day—The Wayne Thiebaud show next door at Aquavella, El Anatsui at Mnuchin and The Lauder Collection of cubist art and Thomas Hart Benton’s “America Today” at the Metropolitan Museum. Being left on the corner of Madison and 79th is not a bad place to begin the rest of your day.