I’m not prone to exaggeration, so when I say that my Sat. Nov. 9 ALL-NEW  Chelsea “Best Exhibits” tour will be my most extraordinary tour of the entire Fall season, covering the months September through December, I hope a lot of people take notice.  This is THE ONE!  It’s an event you’ll be talking about for months or years to come.

Not all of my gallery tours are created equal.  As a rule, my Chelsea tours are always that month’s most outstanding experiences, because in Chelsea I have 300 galleries from which to choose 7 extraordinary exhibits, vs. 125 galleries in the Lower East Side, 45 in Midtown, 40 in the Upper East Side, and 25 in Soho.  So a Chelsea gallery tour is always a safe bet.  But there are Chelsea tours, and then there are Chelsea tours when the stars align in such a way that each exhibit is absolutely breath-taking in innovation and execution, and the Nov. 9 tour is just such a tour.  It may even become the most extraordinary tour of the entire 10-month season from September through June, though it’s too early to make that claim yet.

One highlight of my Nov. 9 tour will be a brand-new monumental installation, selling in the tens of millions of dollars, by an artist many critics deem the greatest of our time!  You’ll also encounter an enormous video made of 10,000 mini-videos, with a shocking and delightful twist, that is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. These are just 2 of 7 shows that day.

It is remarkable to learn that Chelsea’s first gallery did not appear until 1994, and that in just a half-dozen years from that time there was a mass migration to Chelsea of over 200 galleries, mostly from Soho, which until then was the world’s center for galleries.  The main reason for the move was that real estate prices in Soho exploded in the 1980s and ‘90s, while Chelsea’s rents remained relatively low, since the neighborhood at the time was rather undesirable (prostitutes and drug dealers used to make their living in Chelsea at night).  Another important reason for the migration was that Chelsea, being at the time an industrial neighborhood – factories, storage facilities, car repair shops, etc. – had much larger open interiors than Soho, and so could accommodate the expanding size of contemporary art pieces, particularly enormous, room-filling installation artworks.  And Chelsea was in Manhattan, a critical requirement.

From the challenge of competing month after month with 300 neighboring galleries, Chelsea galleries have had to learn to exhibit art that stands out from the pack, in order to get noticed.  Hence, the variety of Chelsea art is unparalleled: painting, sculpture, photography, video art, computer art, fabric art, installation art, sound art, conceptual art, and more.

I’ll be offering TWO identical Chelsea tours Nov. 9 – at 1:00 PM and 3:45 PM – in order to accommodate everyone who wants to attend.  Tell your friends, and get ready to be amazed.

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