Chelsea by the numbers

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 3 | October 13 - 19, 2006

Mitchell Algus Gallery

Find of the week: Mario Yrisarry at the Mitchell Algus Gallery, whose work is priced way below market. Pictured above is “Precincts,” (1965), acrylic/canvas.

By Richard Calderhead

In 1970, a painter could rent a work/live loft in Soho, then a run-down, derelict zone, for something like $300 a month. No amenities, but space and light galore.

The artists brought the galleries, the galleries brought the collectors, and the collectors brought the restaurants. Castelli, Ivan Karp and a hundred more sprang up on West Broadway to transform Soho into an Art Destination.

It was glorious while it lasted, but it wasn’t long before most of the galleries were priced out by high-end boutiques, along with the Condo Converters.

Where next? Gee...there were those wide-open spaces in Chelsea, west of 10th Avenue. So, desperate for space, in came the galleries. Official numbers are not readily available, but the figure I hear ranges somewhere between 300 and 400. It’s not that the rents are cheap in Chelsea. Today, a smallish gallery on an upper floor pays $7,000 a month. (This, mind you, for what just a couple of years ago were run-down carwash/repair spaces.) And recently, a fashionable, street-level gallery in the heart of the district was hit with $400,000 for renovations, far higher than originally quoted.

And as predicted, those Luxury Condos are now creeping in.

So call this Chelsea’s Golden Age of Art. It surely can’t get much better — right now it has everything your little heart might desire.

Like what, for example? How about something wild and crazy? Trot right up to 27th Street and see the just-opened exhibit at MonkDogz (www.monkdogz.com). As you walk in the door, you’ll be stunned at the sight of a huge nude...spread out on the canvas. Some Americans will think it portrays a crime scene; the (very) young Dutch painter Hans Meertens sees the female as simply floating in reverie on her mattress.

How about something more “cerebral?” On 25th Street you’ll find William Anastasi at the Baumgartner Gallery (www.baumgartnergallery.com), possibly the most Avant Garde gallery in all of Chelsea. Anastasi is one of Virginia Dwan’s Conceptual Art stars from the ‘70s, who is widely collected in Europe and hangs in an impressive number of American collections and museums. His recent uptown show got a smashingly good review in The Times.

Maybe you were thinking Picasso? Or Matisse? Right there on 10th Avenue, new gallery DJT (www.djtfineart.com ) has gorgeous prints and paintings by the towering giants of Modern Art. Priced appropriately, but fairly I might add.

At 11th Avenue and W. 25th St., you’ll find Stricoff Fine Art (www.stricoff.com); they try to keep their offerings below $10,000. I personally like Winston Snow’s color field paintings. Their current show is very clever: big, painted coffee table books. (See what I mean.)

The not-so-young painter Alan Kleiman, showing at nearby Robert Steele (www.robertsteelegallery.com), displays “perfect pitch” color field work, each celebrating a single color...but what color!

On the same block, really astute collectors have a buying opportunity at the Mitchell Algus Gallery (www.mitchellalgus.com), which represents Mario Yrisarry. His magical lines on colored canvas are simply superb. This painter got lost somewhere in the 1990s; his work is priced way below market.

Finally, bargain hunters can hope to bump into that clever young painter, Eric Doeringer (www.ericdoeringer.com), who often shows on W. 24th Street on sunny days. His self-proclaimed “Bootleg Paintings” are straight knockoffs in miniature of high profile painters. You can grab one for a couple of hundred dollars and astonish your dinner guests. Or buy six and line them up for a great look.

Long-time Manhattanite Richard Calderhead got his B.F.A. at San Diego State, studied and taught at the School of Visual Arts, writes frequently for design magazines, conducts collector workshops, coaches artists and gallery owners on trends in the art world, and this year, launched ArtNY, http://n-art-y.com, a site that helps collectors find the work they want and can afford.