justartinaround:

Here are some pictures from my trip to NYC last weekend. It was so great to tour through Chelsea with my friends Brian and Ally. We saw boat loads of stunning art, way too many galleries to hit in one day.

The Ai Weiwei sunflower seed installation was a more impressive that I thought it might be from reading about it. The seeds had an unexpected transcendent quality that stemming from the pure quantity of similar but unique handmade objects all pooled together.

I had never seen Matta’s late work and it really blew me away. He made most of these paintings at the Pace Gallery in his 70’s and 80’s during the 1980’s - late 1990’s but they were so fresh, young, and contemporary. They were painted with the confidence of experience and the grandeur of youth.

Koen van der Broek at the Friedman Benda Gallery was my favorite new discovery artist (although he’s well established, he’s new to me).

The Damien Hirst exhibit was the perfect end to our Chelsea tour. It was all dot paintings caped off by a ridiculous DH gift shop. If you’re not familiar, this article might help to explain why that gift shop is right where obscene and awesome meet on the absurd continuum: http://hyperallergic.com/44901/damien-hirst-power-to-piss-people-off/

And I didn’t take any pictures here but what a fantastic gallery, http://www.georgeadamsgallery.com. Andrew Lenaghan’s work was really top notch.