I’m excited to announce that my Chelsea “Best Exhibits” tour Sat. May 3 at 1:00 PM and 3:45 PM – already the most extraordinary tour of the month – will include a visit to a high-end gallery installation of a chocolate factory, where everyone on the tour will get free chocolate samples!  I went to the opening of this show, which was packed, and had 7 or 8 chocolates myself, so at least at the opening there were no limits on how many you could eat.  The Latino artist behind this unique concept is one of the fastest- rising artists of the year, though he hadn’t made a splash in New York until now.

Strangely enough, the gallery is not selling any of the artwork connected to this show.  Not the factory equipment, or the chocolates themselves, or any other aspect of the show.  And, believe me, this is a very commercial gallery, one of the 4 wealthiest in the world.  I guess the reason for the show is to keep the buzz going about this artist (if that’s the case it’s working, as I’m blogging about it myself).

Installation art – that is, huge room-filling works comprised of many components – is more common in Chelsea than anywhere else in the world, as Chelsea has so many enormous gallery spaces that can accommodate the size that installations take up.

This is not the first installation I’ve seen to give out free food as the concept of the art.  The only other one I can think of is Thai artist Rikrit Tiravanija, who made his fame by cooking Thai food and serving it in galleries and museums (most recently in the Museum of Modern Art).   But the chocolate factory you’ll see on my May 3 tour kicks it up a notch by creating an actual factory, complete with factory workers, rather than the more personal feel of the Thai artist’s home cooking.

Lest you think this tour will be all light-hearted, another of the 7 exhibits on this tour will be paintings and fabric art by a brave female Muslim artist whose visual exploration of women’s rights and prostitution – utterly taboo subjects in her faith – place her life at risk from its more fundamentalist practitioners.

There are only 3 more Chelsea “Best Exhibits” tours left before the gallery season ends on the last Saturday in June, and this one will certainly be the only one that will involve your gustatory senses.  It’s a can’t-miss experience!

Rafael Risemberg, Ph.D., Director
New York Gallery Tours