Gladstone Gallery

I would love to meet Barbara Gladstone. The only woman on Forbes recent list of richest art gallery owners, led by Larry Gagosian and trailing by David Zwirner, Hauser Wirth, and Pace, these galleries have holdings and carefully curated shows as good as the best NYC museum.
For this reason alone, a free trip usually provides a viewing of art that might only pass through private collectors hands.
The recent 10 piece Keith Haring show didn’t inspire me as much as Gagosians 20+ piece Basquiat show a year ago, with large scale Haring paintings and tapestries leaning on the safe side that might just appropriately fit a wealthy New Yorkers penthouse. Don’t forget it’s a business, these things sell in the half million plus range.
Still, Id earmark this art gallery cum art museum for future shows of my favorite superstar artists.
So go to Chelsea, the art galleries usually have a late night once a week, recently on Thursdays, where some offer free wine.

The Fall gallery openings evening started with a slightly hushed awe at Thomas Hirschhorn’s «Concordia, Concordia» at Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea, where in a Poseidon Adventure-​sque installation filled the gallery, which seemed tilted on its side with various forms of detritus, chairs and ship debris everywhere.

Was lucky enough to see the Kai Althoff exhibit while in town — beautiful. Two floors, both full of exciting art. Staff was a tad snooty despite the fact that they were largely engaged in browsing facebook, but when I asked for a business card it was provided — albeit without a smile.

One of the better galleries I came across while traipsing through Chelsea. Lots of space, both upstairs and down — and maybe two entrances, too? It was hard to be sure.
The installations in place for my visit took advantage of the available space (see the photo). Glad I stopped.

New York has a crazy art scene. This is where some of the most powerful art brokers in the world live and work. People who can make or break an artist, people who have curated shows with repercussions that have lasted for decades. Barbara Gladstone may very well be one of the few iconic figures of that world. She represents some of the most celebrated names in the art world today: Matthew Barney (of the Cremaster Cycle), Anish Kapoor (remember that concave/​convex mirror in Rockefeller?), Shirin Neshat (Iranian filmmaker who won a bunch of awards for Turbulence and Rapture).
In a documentary made about Matthew Barney’s project, Drawing Restraint 9 (the one with Bjork), people actually attributed Barney’s rise to stardom to Barbara Gladstone’s support for his work, early on.
Signature black bob, understated black dress, thin and sharp, Barbara Gladstone even looks the part of the quintessential Chelsea gallery owner. And she knows what she’s doing. Some of the shows at the gallery are better than others, but all are very carefully curated.
Last year I saw Anish Kapoor’s drawings (weird psychedelic blobby things — interesting, but sort of made you happy he went into sculpture and not drawing), sculptures by Banks Violette (fluorescent lights sticking out of wooden structures), and paintings by Caroll Dunham (underwhelming). Depending on your mood and what’s up when you go, it can be fascinating, awe-​inspiring, silly, disappointing, or vulgar. It can be hit or miss. But the Gladstone gallery is definitely a New York institution — perhaps not quite as daring as the young upstart galleries in Williamsburg, but worth checking out for sure.