Spent the day at the Botanic Garden – beautiful (warm) October day. Spent yesterday reminding myself why I don’t spend more time wandering around the Chelsea galleries than I can possibly help. I feel like I have to do it every now and again, but wow is it depressing. There’s just so much painful stuff out there, and somehow those galleries all feel like a hybrid of used car sales lots blended with an operating room (that’s not exactly right, but it’s the closest I can get). That having been said, there were a couple of interesting things worth seeing.

Biggest surprise for me was a set of sculptures by Chris Offili at David Zwirner. I have really mixed feelings about his paintings – I think I always want to like them more than I end up actually liking them, but his Annunciation sculptures are – insanely gorgeous (you really need to see them in person, the shots on Zwirner’s web site don’t begin to do them justice). There’s a great photo show of Andre Kertesz’s late work polaroids at Silverstein Photography. Other photo shows worth seeing – some great cow portraits (really) by Lewis Stein at Charles Cowles. Some great WWII era b/w pieces at Alan Klotz.

Not a lot I can recommend in terms of painting shows – some really lovely landscapes about light by Stephen Pentak (oil on wood – beautiful, rich surfaces) at Kathryn Markel. Some really nice abstracts – Shirley Kaneda at Danese – interesting shapes, colors, nice crisp edges, interesting movement. Finally – an installation that has – possibilities. I don’t think it’s exactly working yet, but some interesting possibilities – Yael Kanarek at Bitforms.