A couple of weeks ago Manhattan was thick with Texans, both touring and transplanted. On a single Thursday, I ran into Noah Simblist at Guild and Greyshkull Gallery in Soho. A few minutes later and a few blocks further downtown I found Lisa Cooley, late of Mixture Gallery in Houston, working at KS Arts. The last time I saw her was in Chelsea working at Nicole Klagsburn. KS Arts is an interesting undertaking that exhibits a mix of Outsider and Contemporary Art.
That evening I had arranged to meed David Quadrini at a book launch party for Brian Belott at Printed Matter. Belott is not a Texas but he is a very good artist who shows at Canada Gallery. David had in tow Erick Swenson, Cris Worley, from PanAmerican Galllery here in Dallas and who I understand can now be identified as Swenson's fiance. They were with Damian somebody who looked familiar from Dallas and who had just recently made the Big Apple transition. Swenson and crew were in town for his opening a couple of nights before at James Cohan Gallery.
From Printed Matter we moved en masse to Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, where I was now out of my depth. The opening was for Richie Budd, who I learned was a ex – Good Bad Art Collective from Denton. And althoug I didn't know this crowd it seemed that about half the attendees had UNT credentials. Budd's elaborate contraption was both videotaping the crowd and sending out showers of soap bubbles. Judging from the smell, it or one of the other pieces had already popped popcorn. It seemed like it would be more at home at an old Good Bad event that in Chelsea.
