Image from Honey Space.

A new gallery opens in Chelsea unlike any other in the neighborhood. This gallery operates without staff; you walk into a windowless room that is left unoccupied while open (10-6 Tuesday to Saturday). Entering Honey Space feels like you are stepping into some early Christian tomb, a type of subterranean hide out. Presently, the entrance is tiled with Adam Stanforth’s works on panel, the inaugural artist. You have to stoop to get through the doorway; even in the middle of the day, the entrance to the dark, raw warehouse space can be threatening. Many people I saw walk in asked if it was a gallery at all; I happened upon it while walking down 11th street, entering without knowing what it was.

Photo by Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times.

How isolated the space feels from the rest of Chelsea reiterates just how far the gallery’s philosophy is from the norm. Honey Space intends to present site-specific work that takes into account its alternative operation. Due to the lack of staff, the viewer is entrusted to not damage the artwork or otherwise mistreat the space. This responsibility on the viewer is part of how Honey Space inverts the normal gallery structure. A gallery usually creates public space through presentation, and cordial service (especially if we are buying art). We the viewer walk around like ducks while everyone smiles at us – hopefully if they are nice enough, we might come back. In contrast to this, Honey Space hands the space over to us, to do with it what we will. We are left to interact with the art alone. The space functions without hierarchy, without separation; all are equitable and equally responsible for its event and its continuation. A challenge to everyone’s presumed idea of how a gallery, and a Chelsea gallery at that, needs to function.

Honey Space 148 11th Ave, between 22nd and 21st, New York, NY

El Anatsui: Zebra Crossing at Jack Shainman Gallery

The sculptures in the show are actually metallic tapestries, constructed out of flattened metal foils, like those found on a bottle of champagne. A very delicate wire construction holds these together – they’re all glitter and sway. Lots of fun, check it out. The metal gives it all a certain bitterness, that same taste you get when the champagne leaves that same wrapper on your tongue. Where did all these wrappers come from? Who left them on the ground? What became of those people? It’s all shadow and remnants. Whether we can know the stories or not, these tapestries are record keeping. People made these items, and El Anatsui wants to celebrate that.

“Zebra Crossing” on display through February 2nd at Jack Shainman Gallery. 513 West 20th St.

Photo by risknfun on flickr.

Michael Bell-Smith: Bouncing Lights Forever at Foxy Production

Windows screen-savers circa 1993, but with meaning. Potentially. The spare video loops are either projected or screened, just moving pixels, abstract and silent. If anything, the images are a sort of rendered starlight, though fated for far less viewers on the personal-sized t.v. screens. These works are memories, not substance. It is light and only light that creates this work, and the nature of the subject is as fleeting as the medium. It is that which doesn’t exist on which the work dwells: technology of the past, starlight in the city, the image that comes and goes without material presence. It’s only the flicker of the GIFs we have anymore, Bell-Smith suggests; zone out and wonder.

“Bouncing Lights Forever” on display through February 16th at Foxy Production. 617 West 27th St.

Image by Michael Bell-Smith, Glitter Bend, Courtesy Foxy Production

Locked up in Chelsea.

The Metrocard bike is cool and all, but this bike has antlers, one of which was probably broken sparring during the mating season. Plus, the fur covered fender is really effective against cold weather.

Last week, Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. wrote in the Daily News of the “almost Sodom and Gomorrah atmosphere” in Chelsea clubs. Few proposed measures from the City Council come as a surprise. They purport to improve security by improving surveillance. The NYPD is recommending ID scanners to weed out fake ids as well as record each person entering a club. Surveillance cameras (unmanned of course) would similarly invade patron’s privacy by tracking their comings and goings. Vallone explains the most important aspect of club security:

“Nightclub safety begins with the bouncers. They are the ones who decide who goes in, and more importantly who doesn’t. People look to them for help, especially those who are rendered vulnerable by alcohol.”

Adding more security staff might help, especially if they’ve been licensed, or at the bare minimum, have not been convicted of seven felonies. Although, hiring off-duty police officers might be money better spent.

Despite Vallone’s recognition that people are getting crunk up in Chelsea (or “rendered vulnerable by alcohol”), Councilwoman Melinda Katz wants to outlaw bottle service “because it makes people overly drunk.” Their takeaway message seems to be: on a 1 to 10 scale of drunkenness, be a 7. Without bottle service, you should learn to double fist and figure out another way to separate yourselves from the lowly have-nots.

Proving that even in Chicago it all come back to real estate, Chicagoist quotes Harlan Powell, an attorney representing clubs served violation notices for illegal bottle service:

“What customers are buying is not the actual drink, they’re buying real estate.”

Bottle Service! image from damndoozy.