What a difference a week makes.  At the time I wrote my last blog about the 2011 gallery season about to open, 90% of Chelsea’s galleries were completely shut down, and the remaining 10% were mostly on the last legs of their typically weak slate of summer group shows.  Then this past Thursday and Friday about half of Chelsea’s 300 galleries had openings of their first-of-season’s solo shows all at once, and I managed to visit just about all of them, in order to prepare for my First-of-Season gallery tour last Saturday.  And what a fantastic tour it was!  This coming week most of the rest of Chelsea’s galleries come alive as well, just in time for my Chelsea “Best Exhibits” tour on Sat. Sept. 17.

Now that I know half of the exhibits that are out there, I can give some definitive highlights for the upcoming Sept. 17 tour: (1) a female artist’s gorgeous and cutting-edge video installation that incorporates images of YOU as you approach the artwork, (2) a South African artist’s searing photography show of children in Ghana who eke out a living in a terrifying way, and (3) a Korean artist’s stunning sculpture exhibit of his cultural displacement in the U.S.  These are just 3 of 7 shows we’ll visit.  The rest of the stops on the tour will be a couple more from the first-of-season tour, and perhaps one or two shows that are opening later this week that match their quality.  But I’ll be hard pressed to find much that was as magical as the exhibits on last week’s tour, which is why so many of those shows will be on this Saturday’s “Best Exhibits” tour.

I lead a scheduled “Best Exhibits” tour in Chelsea once a month – it is ALWAYS the best tour of the month, so if you’re going to go only on an occasional gallery tour, that’s the one to take.  And because gallery exhibits change over every 4 – 6 weeks, each month I lead a completely different “Best Exhibits” tour.  Of course, if you decide to book a private tour, it will also be a “Best Exhibits” tour, unless you request otherwise.

Meanwhile, a couple of hundred other gallery shows are to open in the Lower East Side, Soho, the Upper East Side, Midtown, and elsewhere, so I’ll have my hands full for quite some time to come.  Hey, I’m not complaining.  Not a day goes by when I don’t reflect on what a miracle it is that the “work” that I do is so damn interesting and rewarding.  I look forward to sharing with you the freshest art treasures that I find.  This Saturday, I hope, for your sake!

Rafael Risemberg, Ph.D.
Founder and Director
New York GalleryTours