Chelsea Times...

I started off with with the Pace Wildenstein gallery. Here, Maya Lin's work was showing. I was excited to see since I haven't really seen much of her work other than the Vietnam Memorial. Her work shown was beautiful. Her Blue Lake Pass and Water Line were simple and stunning. It looked like a 3D topography of hills cut out of sliced wood, stacked together to show the contours of the changing elevation. The wire sculpture had the same feel with a grid pattern and the wire bent to show change in elevation. I wasn't surprised to see she was working with the concept of earth and topography, seeing as the Vietnam Memorial was so in tune with the landscape and earth.

Next I stopped by the Lehmann Maupin gallery and say the Juergen Teller exhibition. The show, entitled, "Paradis" consisted of multiple photographs of nude women in different rooms just standing or interacting with some of the scenery. Some photographs appeared to be in an art museum. The lighting of the photos was interesting...almost like fashion shoots. They seemed like fashion photography without the commercial lighting and colors. They actually kind of reminded me of American Apparel adds without the clothes...I felt like the photos were hung kind of strangely. Some were very close together, others very far apart and in such an open room. It felt a bit awkward, but then again, so did the photos themselves. I have to say, it was nice to see framed photographs...photos being treated right. :)

To end my trip I finished up the Aperture gallery and checked out some interesting stuff. There was work from multiple artists, but one that caught my eye were the photographs by Chuck Close. they were very striking, raw portraits of people. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to make it through a lot of the gallery, but these photos very very eye catching. I feel like we don't see so much photography with such emphasis on the face anymore. Very nice black and white... Another interesting group of photos were those by Edwin Zwakman. They were pictures of buildings that, when you got up close, you realize are just very detailed models. They were very convincing and well done.

Three very different, very interesting shows!