New York's first dedicated art week runs November 11 through 14. Chelsea's largest galleries scheduled their openings a week earlier. Tonight, Thursday, November 5, Hauser & Wirth, Pace, Sean Kelly and Luhring Augustine all hold opening receptions in the same two-hour window, 6 to 8 p.m.
When Art Week does arrive, its Chelsea events are smaller: a print studio demonstration, a gallery conversation, a few receptions, each with an RSVP link. If you live between West 20th and West 26th, those are two different Thursdays, and they make two very different evenings.
Tonight's Receptions, Block by Block
ARTnews announced Hauser & Wirth, Pace and Lisson among Art Week's blue-chip participants this August. All three galleries have put their new Chelsea shows on the calendar before the festival begins. Here is the run from south to north:
- Tina Kim Gallery, 525 West 21st Street. "Kim Tschang-Yeul: Recurrence" opens today and runs through December 19.
- Hauser & Wirth, 542 West 22nd Street. Zeng Fanzhi, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The show stays up until January 16.
- Lisson Gallery, 504 and 508 West 24th Street. "Yu Hong: Field of Asura" and the group show "Myth Migration" opened yesterday, November 4, and both run until January 9.
- Luhring Augustine, 531 West 24th Street. Jason Moran's "STACKS," with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The show runs through December 19.
- Pace, 540 West 25th Street. Two receptions at once from 6 to 8 p.m., for "Li Hei Di: the year of mud" and "Lucas Samaras: Boxes and Reconstructions." Both shows open to the public tomorrow, November 6. Li Hei Di closes December 19. Samaras stays until January 23.
- Sean Kelly, 475 Tenth Avenue. Kehinde Wiley's "What the Light Becomes," with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The gallery says the artist will be there. The show runs until December 23.
The receptions overlap exactly, so seeing all of them takes a plan. Sean Kelly sits well north of the others on Tenth Avenue, so it works best as the first or last stop. Hauser & Wirth on 22nd and Pace on 25th are the natural ends of a walk through the West 20s. Each gallery's page has the details on reception access.
Two more shows opened last week and sit on the same route. "Elaine de Kooning" is at Berry Campbell, 524 West 26th Street, through December 19. Galerie Lelong's "Mildred Thompson: Cosmos Calling" is at 528 West 26th Street through December 18.
Art Week's Chelsea Program Is a Different Kind of Evening
ARTnews called Art Week NYC the city's first dedicated art week. Artforum and ARTnews run it, and the New Museum is its institutional partner. In the ARTnews announcement, Artforum publisher Danielle McConnell said the goal was "to invite audiences to see art where it is best seen, at the galleries and museums across the city." That August piece counted 76 galleries. The festival's own directory now lists 79. Its Chelsea entries include David Zwirner, Gladstone, Paula Cooper, Pace, Hauser & Wirth, Lisson and Galerie Lelong.
The Art Week events calendar has 28 events in total. The Chelsea ones are these:
| Date | Gallery | What's happening | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu., Nov. 12 | Hales | Opening of Virginia Jaramillo's "Pause in Time" | 6–8 p.m. |
| Thu., Nov. 12 | Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl | Live printmaking demonstrations | 6–8 p.m. |
| Thu., Nov. 12 | Gazelli Art House, 545 W. 25th St. | Public reception for Harold Cohen | 6–8 p.m. |
| Fri., Nov. 13 | Alison Bradley Projects | Hiroko Takeda in conversation with Glenn Adamson | 6–8 p.m. |
Several of these evenings are built around a demonstration or a conversation. At Gemini, visitors watch Richard Serra's oilstick editions and Robert Rauschenberg's 1960s solvent transfer process demonstrated live, with etched plates and textured prints to look at up close. Hales is showing curvilinear paintings and handmade-paper collages by Virginia Jaramillo, born in 1939, whose career spans seven decades. At Alison Bradley Projects, the craft historian Glenn Adamson talks with Takeda about her experimental weaving.
Every event on the calendar has an RSVP link. Gazelli's listing calls its reception public but asks guests to confirm, since space is limited.
By Saturday, November 14, Art Week's attention has moved uptown. The ADAA Upper East Side Self-Guided Gallery Walk runs from noon to 5 p.m. Nearly 30 member galleries open their doors that afternoon, timed to the ADAA Fair at the Park Avenue Armory. The New Museum fills the same day with artist panels. The festival also advertises walking tours of Chelsea, Tribeca, the Upper East Side and the Lower East Side, but its calendar doesn't list a Chelsea tour date.
West 25th Street Is Where the Newcomers Landed
Three of the four Chelsea stops in that table are galleries you may have walked past without going in, and one of them only just opened. That fits a fall when the district's lineup has been changing.
The Art Newspaper reported in September that Garth Greenan had left his longtime space on West 20th Street for two storefronts in SoHo, at 10 and 25 Greene Street. He told the paper, "I realised that I didn't want to feel like I'm at a trade show every day."
Other galleries moved in at the same time, and they bunched together. The same Art Newspaper report described the dealer Victoria Mouraux Durand-Ruel opening her namesake gallery at 555 West 25th Street. She called Chelsea the "obvious choice since it's where the contemporary gallery community is today." Two doors down, the London- and Baku-based Gazelli Art House took the former Marlborough Gallery space at 545 West 25th Street for its first U.S. gallery. Its Harold Cohen show opens November 12 with 17 works. They range from large 1960s canvases to his Colored Maps of 1970–71, and the paintings laid the groundwork for AARON, his drawing program. The show runs through January 9.
The 555 building has more. Galerie Emmanuelle Grelier opened its new Chelsea space there on October 15 with "What Holds Us," which runs through December 5. Gallery Henoch, in the same building, opens Eric Zener's "Liminal Spaces" on November 12, the same night as Gazelli's reception. Put together, that stretch of West 25th Street makes a short Art Week evening of its own, with Pace's two new shows down the block.
Greenan's old block got a new gallery too. 47 Canal, named for its first home where Chinatown meets the Lower East Side, opened at 529 West 20th Street. Its current show is Cici Wu's "Auld Lang Syne (prelude)."
Closing Within the Next Two Weeks
Several shows in the neighborhood end in the next 11 days:
- Saturday, November 7: Cici Wu at 47 Canal, 529 West 20th Street, and John Evans at Gallery Henoch, 555 West 25th Street.
- Saturday, November 14: "Norman Lewis: Jumping Jive" at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, 100 11th Avenue.
- Monday, November 16: "Twilight Zone: Hidden Wonders of the Ocean" at ARTECHOUSE in Chelsea Market.
Before the First Stop or After the Last
This fall's openings add a few new places to start or end a gallery night. Bar CC, a walk-in cocktail bar from the Crane Club team, opened September 25 at 85 Tenth Avenue in the former Mel's space, according to Eater's September openings roundup. Before it opened, Eater described the plans: three intimate rooms, a wine list of more than 1,000 bottles, and a short menu built around caviar and live-fire cooking. It sits between West 15th and 16th Streets, south of the galleries, so it suits the end of a night.
Over on Eighth Avenue, Bar Lento opened October 1 at No. 158 as an Italian wine bar and bistro, per Eater's October roundup. In Chelsea Market, Alleva Dairy reopened in September.
Over on the water, the James Beard Foundation's Lamb Jam Finale takes over Pier 57 tonight at 6:30 p.m., the same evening as the gallery receptions. During Art Week, Hudson River Park runs Pier 57 Discovery Tank guided sessions on November 12 and 13 from 3 to 5 p.m., and on Saturday, November 14, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Galleries weigh their neighbors and foot traffic when they choose a block, and buyers weigh the same things. A storefront on West 25th Street and a loft near Tenth Avenue get priced through the same local lens. If you're wondering what this fall's changes mean for your own address, DTNYC Team can walk you through it block by block. Request a VIP Market Valuation.
