Dance is part of an exhibition at the Jonathan Shorr Galleries.
WE’RE approaching August in Manhattan, when the island pulls a mini-Paris and coughs up a sizable chunk of its population, spraying the natives Jackson Pollock-like onto the beaches and into the country homes of the New York region.
That may mean easy restaurant reservations and plenty of room to play Frisbee in the park, but for those who love the energy of New York’s countless and varied art galleries, it’s a problem. Chelsea’s blocks of galleries become a ghost town in August. And on weekends, even the ghosts flee to the Hamptons.
But there are enough galleries open elsewhere in the city to fill a Saturday, many of them a few subway stops away in the adjoining neighborhoods of SoHo and the Lower East Side. They range from the one-guy-in-a-tiny-room-tending-to-works-of-emerging-artists kind to the elegantly appointed, lusciously air-conditioned places where both the prices and the ceilings can be astonishingly high. Some are even open on, gasp, Sunday.
Here’s a walking tour of eight galleries that plan to be open (at least most) August weekends. Schedules change, so make a list and call the next stop as you go. You can always substitute another place suggested by members of the staff of the last gallery. It’s a small rebel crowd, and they know who they are.
Start at the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side (near the F train at Delancey or the J at Essex). At the southern end is the energetic Cuchifritos, a nonprofit run by the Artists Alliance, which has a group show called “Working Space 07” scheduled to open on Saturday and to runthrough Sept. 8.
But there’s no point in deceiving you: The real reason to start the tour here is that you should have brunch at Shopsin’s, the legendary restaurant with the vast menu (just short of 40 varieties of French toast), which just moved there from its second West Village location. It replaced the cuchifrito (or Puerto Rican fried food) spot that the gallery was named after.
Where were we? Ah, art. Next stop: Sunday, on Eldridge Street, is another tiny space with an informal vibe that breaks only for a long Labor Day weekend starting Aug. 27. The gallery, which, according to its owner, Clayton Sean Horton, focuses on “periphery” and “overlooked” artists, has been open since October 2006. Its current exhibition focuses on Royal Robertson, a Louisiana folk artist who died in 1997, and Hilary Baldwin, a New York sculptor. Never heard of them? Exactly.
A couple blocks away at Thierry Goldberg Projects, a show called “No Melody Harder” features Jessica Williams and Allison Katz, two painters who are studying at Columbia. The name of the exhibition, which will open on Thursday, was inspired by a Gertrude Stein poem: “Dirt and not copper makes a color darker. It makes the shape so heavy and makes no melody harder.”
A brief zig and zag down the Bowery onto Spring lands you at Jen Bekman Gallery, which is scheduled to take down its cool group exhibition “A New American Portrait” on Thursday, and reopen on Aug. 8 with “Purple Hearts.” This solo show, by the photographer Nina Berman, looks at wounded soldiers back from Iraq. Ms. Berman won a World Press Photo Award for her wedding portrait of Ty Ziegel, a disfigured Marine sergeant, and his wife, Renée.
That’s it for the tiny galleries. Head down the Bowery and cut back east to Envoy, where “Elegy for the Summer of Love” is scheduled to open Aug. 8 and run through the month. It has images from 1960s New York and San Francisco by the French photographer Alain Dister.
Cross Little Italy into SoHo on Broome Street for a group show of realists and photographers represented by Arcadia Fine Arts. You’ll find everything from Jefferson Hayman’s deceivingly antique-looking gelatin-silver print photographs in found frames to Carlos Vega’s still lifes of fruit, including some tasty-looking persimmons. (O.K., you might be getting hungry again by this point.)
Then it’s up Broadway to the Westwood Gallery, a fifth-floor space that combines a coolly professional look with a pleasantly friendly staff. (Or maybe they’re just thankful to have someone to talk to on a Saturday in summer?) The exhibition, “Color Alert,” has paintings and monotypes inspired by the post-9/11 color-coded government terror alert levels. Also ask about the Warhol screen-prints-on-newsprint in the back.
Your final stop is “Inside/Out,” a group show at the Jonathan Shorr Gallery around the block. According to Mr. Shorr, who likes to set up shop with his Mac laptop on the sidewalk, the subversive-for-SoHo show is about illegal eavesdropping and video surveillance. “I’m trying to bring weird and strange back to New York,” he said.
The back wall is covered with bright, fancifully wacky paintings by Brian Leo, who calls himself a garage pop surrealist. (If you open the nearly hidden door to the left, you’ll find a tiny room filled with even more of his work). There’s a wide range of other artists there, too, including color-rich squares by the Chilean painter German Tagle.
It’s a good place to end, because Mr. Shorr is planning some outdoor events that run into the evening (call for details). A New York art gallery extending its weekend hours in August? Talk about subversive.
VISITOR INFORMATION
Cuchifritos, at the southern end of the Essex Street Market, 120 Essex Street, between Delancey and Rivington Streets, (212) 598-4124; www.aai-nyc.org/cuchifritos. Monday-Saturday, noon to 5:30 p.m.
Sunday, 237 Eldridge Street, between Houston and Stanton Streets, (212) 253-0700; www.sundaynyc.com. Wednesday-Sunday, noon to 6 p.m.
Thierry Goldberg Projects, 5 Rivington Street. between Chrystie Street and the Bowery, (212) 967-2260; www.thierrygoldberg.com. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m to 6 p.m.
Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring Street, between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street, (212) 219-0166; www.jenbekman.com. Wednesday-Saturday, noon to 6 p.m.
Envoy, 131 Chrystie Street, between Broome and Delancey Streets, (212) 226-4555; www.envoygallery.com. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Arcadia Fine Arts, 51 Greene Street, between Broome and Grand Streets, (212) 965-1387; www.arcadiafinearts.com. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Westwood Gallery, 568 Broadway, fifthfloor, between Prince and Houston Streets, (212) 925-5700; www.westwoodgallery.com. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. May close for part of August.
Jonathan Shorr Gallery, 109 Crosby Street, between Prince and Houston Streets, (212) 334-1199; www.jonathanshorrgallery.com. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
