Until January 21 530 West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues, 212.929.2262 Merlin James’s painting, “Flower Piece” (2001), is almost a manifesto of a will to evade categorization.  It hangs in a show spanning twenty years of his work at Sikkema Jenkins, his fourth with these dealers.  At first it looks like a dashed-off, … Continued

STEPHEN HARVEY: FLIGHTS Gallery Schlesinger until December 17 (24 E. 73rd Street, Second Floor, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, 212-734-3600). GWEN HARDIE: FACE PAINTINGS 2005 Dinter Fine Art until December 23 (547 W. 27th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, 212-947-2818). RICHARD WALKER: BEACON ROAD PAINTINGS Alexandre Gallery until December 30 (41 E. 57th Street, … Continued

WHY THEY WENT WILD FOR THE DIVINE SARAH Alphonse Mucha, color lithographs, from left: Tragique histoire d’Hamlet, 1899; La Samaritaine, 1897; Lorenzaccio, 1896. When “the Divine Sarah” died in 1923 a million people lined the streets of Paris between the Madeleine and the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt to see her cortege wend its way to Pere-Lachaise:  An impressive turnout … Continued

George Nick: Recent Paintings Tibor de Nagy Gallery 724 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 212-262-5050 November 16 to December 23 George Nick: An Artist’s Conscience New York Studio School (8 West 8th Street, New York, NY 212-673-6466 October 27 to December 10, 2005 Underneath the luscious surfaces of George Nick’s paintings lurks a contradiction. His … Continued

Michael Steinberg Fine Art 526 West 26th St. Suite 215 New York, NY 10001 Tel: 212.924.5770 September 8 to October 8, 2005 Katia Santibanez, a painter based in New York, has spoken of her work as “the relationship between nature, architecture, geometry, and the power of the mind.” Often organizing the picture plane into a … Continued

Yves Klein: Fire Paintings Michael Werner Gallery 4 East 77 Street New York NY 10021 November 1, 2005to January 14, 2006 Yves Klein: A Career Survery L&M Fine Arts 45 East 78th Street New York NY10021 October 25 to December 10 The French artist Yves Klein seemed to be a verb from outer space. The … Continued

Eighteen experts talk with Brian Appel on the $1,248,000 Richard Prince photograph that has set a new world auction record for photography. “There wasn’t really a plan. I’ve never been included in any photography based survey, museum show, photo magazine. I’ve heard that Peter Galassi hates my work. That he would never acknowledge it in … Continued

The Curiosity Shop Tanya Bonakdar Gallery 521 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011 19 Nov 2005 – 14 Jan 2006 Toys’R’U.S. (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth) Skarstedt Fine Art 1018 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10021 November 19 – December 21, 2005 “The Curiosity Shop” is a small, well constructed house cum store structure with … Continued

Dorsky Gallery 11-03 45th Avenue Long Island City, NY 11101 November 20 – January 30, 2006 Immediately to the left as one enters the Dorsky Gallery in Long Island City is a hypnotic carnival-like mirror made by the French artist Philippe Ramette. Punctuated within Its bent polished surface are several protrusions, which on closer inspection … Continued