I went gallery hopping in a different neighborhood. This time, it was the Lower East Side, which I had no idea had become a thriving art district. It makes Chelsea seem over pretentious. It is astonishing to me how many galleries there are; I don't know how they all survive. As always, part of the pleasure is stumbling upon artists you have never heard of. I was particularly excited by the work of Joanne Greenbaum, who paints large scale colorful abstract paintings that slowly reveal considerable sophistication in line and color. She uses color boldly, but in a way that gradually makes sense. It's nice to see painting without rhetoric. This show was at the Rachel Uffner Gallery on Suffolk Street, in a beautiful space with a large skylight for natural light. Some examples (the originals are about 9 feet high.):
Another intriguing show was by the Uzbeki artist Stas Volovik, who seemed to be channeling Kandinsky in some fashion.
And there were other shows of some interest, as well. The whole neighborhood is a typical New York mixture of the old and new, bordering Delancy Street and its housing projects, the increasingly chic Bowery, and Houston Street on the north. Art galleries, Chinatown, Little Italy and some of the grunge of the past all rub shoulders.
