Boo! Haunted House Art to See in Chelsea
Our Midtown residents are in for a treat…or a trick…at nearby Chelsea art galleries. There are dozens, even hundreds, of new exhibitions within that half-mile stretch between 19th and 28th Streets, not to mention the High Line, the terrific new UrbanSpace Meatpacking food and gift market, and all of the usual area restaurants and bars. So much to see and do! Lastmonth, we told you about the fun time we had exploring Chelsea art through books. Now we've disovered three must-see installations just in time for Halloween. Each of them are either insanely intricate and/or wonderfully interactive, that made us laugh, freaked us out, or threw us for a loop.
Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe: Stray Light Gray, at Marlborough
Glenwood favorites Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe are back in New York City with another crazy, creepy, ridiculously elaborate installation, this time at the Marlborough Gallery on 25th Street. Their piece is called Stray Light Grey, it requires that you climb through holes in the wall, a dirty bathroom, an elegant library, an abandoned OTB parlor, a plastic surgeon's office, a party store… it's really kind of nuts and totally a blast. Half the fun here is never knowing what awaits you in the next room (or how you're going to get there), and the other half is in lingering over the details. A must see.
Stray Light Grey ends October 27. Marlborough is located at 545 West 25th Street and is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. More info here.
Julian Hoeber at Harris Lieberman
There are some cool paintings and optically tricky wall sculptures at Julian Hoeber's Harris Lieberman exhibition, running now through October 20th on on West 26th Street. But the centerpiece of the show, and the reason it's worth the trip: Hoeber's bizarro DH#2, a shack of sorts built within the gallery based on the architecture of old-time roadside "gravitational mystery spots" that hucksters used to sucker the rubes into laying out a nickel to experience a purported rift in the earth's pull. Here Hoeber isn't trying to fool anyone–the mechanics of the thing are out in the open–but the effect remains of extreme disorientation. Full disclosure: we didn't dare actually enter DH#2, getting dizzy just by poking our heads in, but we've heard that it's a riot, albeit of the queasy-inducing variety.
The Justin Hoeber show ends October 20. Harris Lieberman is located at 508 West 26th Street and is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.
Thomas Hirschhorn: Concordia, Concordia, at Gladstone
This massive installation is guaranteed to stop you in your tracks. Inspired by the dramatic (and fatal) grounding / sinking of the cruise liner Concordia off the coast of Italy earlier this year, Thomas Hirschhorn's tremendous Concordia, Concordia offers a mind-blowing view of the inside a ship, caught in mid-capsize. There are no bodies here, thank goodness, but there is an enormous amount of wreckage and debris, and the overall effect, as a portrait of leisure and luxury upended, and ending in disaster, is in equal measure thrilling and disquieting. Great stuff.
Thomas Hirschhorn: Concordia, Concordia ends October 20. The Gladstone Chelsea Gallery is located at 530 West 21st Street, and is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. More info here.
Posted in NYC Events | Tagged Chelsea • Chelsea art • Halloween art • Jonah Freeman • Julian Hoeber • Justin Lowe • New York Haunted Houses • Thomas Hirschhorn
