Chelsea.

Commercial art exhibition circuits are usually looked at with untrustworthy eyes and with discrimination from the alternative young or underground crowd, and without doubt there are many motives for this, because they showcase under their spotlight the best and the worst of the art world. Commercial circuits represent a world full of contradiction, a bit intangible for the artist and far from his reality: it’s strange that two universes that need each other so much have such a hard time getting to a sane equilibrium of mutual subsistence. In any case, though one can notice the imbalance, it is not something that particularly stands out. The active existence of alternative circuits that try to function commercially permits artists to live in tranquility, without needing to cross any kind of compromising borders, though both worlds should cross this imaginary line and work together: I believe that it is there where the public, the artists and art curators can find the big true benefit. Would it be possible to do so?

Going through the art galleries in Chelsea I felt very contradictory things. I went to incredible galleries, with very good work and, in the context of “looking around Chelsea”, very simple: where the work made the space, generating a sensation of respect towards the artist and his composition. I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence; maybe not profoundly knowing the system leads to distorting information or the reception of it, but the smaller spaces, less ostentatious, where those where contemporary art was privileged, work from younger and more experimental artists. There also galleries showcasing pieces that are part of the collective imaginary, nor good nor bad, though in ostentatious places. It is there where you inevitably ask yourself what is more important: that the place exists, which is in no doubt important, or the exposition, the work of curators exposing artists? I wondered because I did not want to see a Picasso showing there, o keep on watching pieces from the founding fathers of Pop Art: I’ve seen too much of them in this journey and though I won’t get tired of them, I feel that they are better shown in museums than in what these galleries represent to me, all the reprehensible of the private and commercial art circuits, at least in this city, where one expects that the commercial spaces would work with artists that aren’t in museum, with more creativity, being able to support themselves without trying to be the envious brother of the institutions.