Just since this past June, the Lower East Side has opened 15 new galleries, bringing its total number to around 115.  I don’t know when the explosion of galleries in what has become NYC’s hottest art neighborhood is going to abate, but it’s not going to be any time soon.  Within a year or two, I predict the L.E.S. will reach half the number of Chelsea’s 300 galleries, something that was unimaginable not too long ago.  More galleries means more chances of finding extraordinary exhibits for my gallery tours, and that’s exactly what is happening for my Sat. Oct. 1 Lower East Side gallery tour.  Highlights of this tour will include: (1) brilliantly cutting-edge computer art projected onto enormous crystalline sculptures, and (2) New Orleans artist Lorna Williams, of whom the NY Times said “Put her on your artists-under-25 watch list,” who’ll speak to our group about her haunting assemblages that evoke sex and birth. These are just 2 of 7 exhibits we’ll visit that day.

Technology in art is one of my passions and one of my specialties.  That being said, large scale computer art works are still a rarity, so it was with great joy that I encountered a series of room-filling computer art pieces that will be featured on my tour.  You won’t see any computer screens or keyboards at this show.  The works were designed on computer, and one piece utilizes 4 projectors to shine the dazzling, ever-changing abstract images onto a huge multi-faceted sculpture.  Three other pieces use one projector each on sculptures of varying sizes and shapes.  If you want to know where art is heading in the still-burgeoning digital age, this mind-expanding show alone is worth the price of admission to the tour.

In a different gallery, we’ll meet young African-American artist Lorna Williams when we visit her show of gorgeous and disturbing assemblages made of a combination of tree branches, bones, shells, bottles, and even the artist’s own dreadlocked hair.  Originally from New Orleans and now living in Philadelphia, Williams has agreed to be in town the weekend of our tour, to our good fortune, and we’ll hear her artistic process and interpretations in the time we’re in her gallery space, plus get a chance to ask her questions.  The New York Times, which reviews only around 4 art shows a week of the city’s 600 galleries, gave Williams’ current show a very favorable write-up.  This is a newly-discovered talent on a strong upward trajectory.

With a total of 7 stops of the freshest contemporary art on the Oct. 1 tour, this is an event not to be missed.  I’ll be leading two tours that day, at 1:00 PM and 3:45 PM, that will be identical.

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