We had a good day in Chelsea on Saturday. I told a gallerist that we had seen no duds that day, and she handed me a pink highlighter to "mark my calendar!"

The shows:

Richard Aldrich, Kamrooz Aram, Amy Granat and Van Hanos at Oliver Kamm 5BE. The installation in the front mixing film/sound work (using scratched film) by Granat, combined with collage/works on paper and sculpture by Aldrich, is one of my favorite rooms in months. The combination of paintings and works on paper by Aram and Hanos in the "main" room is also wonderful.

Nancy de Holl and Kalup Linzy at Taxter & Spengemann. de Holl does photos (printed in a way similar to iris prints) of still lifes that are so brilliantly lit and arranged that I was sure they had paint on top of the photos. Linzy has several videos in the back that had us watching for a while, laughing much of the time. I think he is one to watch. We first saw his work in an Andrew Guenther-curated show at Capsule (see James).

Robert Gober at Matthew Marks. As James said, I felt like I was in church, but this time I mean it in a good way.

Marjetica Potrč at Max Protetch. Her drawings (including wall drawings) commenting on the social aspects -- for good and evil -- of architecture, are moving and beautiful to look at. Just ignore what the NY Times had to say. I think they were disappointed that there are no sculptures in this show.

Marjetica Potrč, The English Garden, 2005 (detail)

Marjetica Potrč, The English Garden, 2005 (installation view)

Stranger Town at Dinter Fine Art. This Taylor McKimens-curated show of "eight successful artists who have each risen to prominence in areas outside the walls of the established art world" includes musicians, successful commercial graphic artists, and lots of good drawing plus some video.

Ben Jones at Foxy Production. Ben is a member of Paper Rad, and this is his first solo show. I think the solo format has provided him with a chance to show the formalist/conceptual aspects of his work in a way that's rather difficult when doing the collaborative shows. I look forward to the future solo shows by other members at Foxy.

Ben Jones, Kay Nine's Lament (2005)
DVD, Commodore 64, and sculpture

Ben Jones, Dog Face (2005)
acrylic on canvas

Lastly, I loved the Mary Heilman show at 303 Gallery, but didn't like the "no photos allowed!" policy or the fact they don't send out e-mail announcements. They have decent images on their web site of individual works, but sometimes one wants to show the interesting placement of two images. Check out the image of Heaven on the site. That's the one everyone sees and says, "Is that one of her paintings?"