The Upper East Side galleries are most notable for their gorgeous mansions and townhouses.  When exhibits take place in these spaces, it’s hard not to take into account the artworks’ posh surroundings, with the result that the artwork can at times be strengthened and other times diminished in comparison.  Sometimes the artists, knowing in advance what the setting of their artwork will be, even play up to the luxurious settings.  It so happens that my Sat. Feb. 26 Upper East Side gallery tour will be particularly remarkable for the interplay between the artwork and the mansion environments in which some of them are placed.  One exhibit will be an extraordinary synergy between beautiful artwork and gorgeous setting; a second exhibit will be a somewhat jarring juxtaposition between the two; and the most interesting of all will be one in which the artist creates artwork that deliberately flouts the space it’s in, to humorous and disturbing effect.

One of the exhibits we’ll will visit on this tour is a 50-year career retrospective of abstract Color Field paintings by a female artist, whose works looks spectacular in the mansion space they’re being shown.  Indeed, a recent review in the New York Times called these paintings “radiant” and “striking.”  The gallery is housed in a mansion built over a century ago, renovated since then, of course, but still retaining its old world charm.  The works are serene and tastefully understated, as is the space that houses them.  Of course, abstract art was almost unheard of in the early 1900s, so it’s especially interesting to see how seamlessly the newer art and older architecture merge.

On another visit we’ll make – this time to a townhouse gallery with the most stately door I’ve encountered in New York City, a British artist of Caribbean descent is showing paintings that arguably cut against the elegance of the space in which they are situated.  The art consists of paintings of the tropical West Indies, green and lush, some with fences that exclude native Caribbean people – such as Jamaicans – from the wealthy resorts where rich white Westerners vacation.  The wildness of the foliage is in contrast to the serenity of the townhouse, and the implication of anti-Black prejudice strikes a jarring note.  Then again, one could also argue that the opulent Upper East Side is by its nature exclusionary, so perhaps the artwork is in its rightful place after all.

To me the most interesting stop on this tour are artworks – hybrids of sculpture and painting – that were created to intentionally provoke the space they’re in.  And this space happens to be about the most elegant mansion gallery I’ve ever seen, regardless of neighborhood or city.  The artist – one of the more incendiary alive – has created new work to challenge the very notion of high art situated in beautiful architecture.  I don’t want to give away the surprise, but he truly thumbs his nose at the notion of money in art, even as he stands to make a fortune from this very exhibit.  I give credit to the gallery as well for having the guts to let its magnificent space be the object of such subversive derision.

This tour will not only be IN the Upper East Side, but will in some ways be ABOUT the Upper East Side, and everything – positive and negative – it stands for.

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