The Gramercy International Art Fair has gone in four short years from an upstart newcomer to a venerable old guardian of the “young” scene. This year’s event returns to the musty old prep-school comissary-smelling Gramercy Hotel for three days this month, with over forty dealers from around the world selling items from $100 and up from their hotel rooms. Those coming include the Drawing Center (New York), Tomio Koyama (Tokyo), Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna), Patrick Painter (Vancouver/Hong Kong), Emmanuel Perrotin (Paris) and, of course, New York mainstays Matthew Marks, Pat Hearn, American Fine Arts and Morris Healy. The revels begin with a benefit cocktail for CRIA (Community Research Initiative on AIDS) on 3 May. 3-5, May, Gramercy Hotel, 2 Lexington Avenue, tel. +1 212 979 7591.
It had to happen: now that the Lee Krasner catalogue raisonée is out, Guild Hall has decided to mount “Women and Abstract Expressionism,” a chance to see the distaff side of your favourite action artist. Besides Pollock spouse Krasner, you’ll get to see work by David Smith’s ex-wife Dorothy Dehner, Elaine De Kooning, Betty Parsons and Joan Mitchell. A respite from Sag Beach this Memorial Day, 10 May-15 June, Guild Hall, 158 Main Street, East Hampton, tel. +1 516 324 0806.
Gallery 292, Howard Greenberg’s cabinet-sized exhibition space, earned a sterling reputation for the taste and style of fomer Greenberg director Sarah Morthland. Now is a good time to check out her successor, Tom Gitterman, with this show of raw, immediate photographs by Bruce Gilden from his award-winning new book Haiti (see The Art Newspaper, No. 68, March 1997, p. 17). Until 17 May, 120 Wooster Street, tel. +1 212 431 0292.
Stephan Balkenhol’s wood sculptures and reliefs have earned him a skyrocketing reputation. After taking London by storm last year with a stunning show at the Saatchi Gallery, he’s coming to Barbara Gladstone’s Saatchi-sized Chelsea space. Until 31 May, 515 West 24th Street, tel. +1 212 226 9300.
Glaswegian Julie Roberts wears her mordant Caledonian strain of humour proudly, painting coldly detailed medical instruments and doctors’ chairs with clean, sleek palette-knife strokes, setting her “subjects” against weirdly incandescent backgrounds—rather like Francis Bacon doing “The marathon man.” Sean Kelly, 22 May-3 June, 43 Mercer Street, tel. +1 212 343 2405.
Look for perennial dark horse Mark Tansey’s newest set of paintings at Curt Marcus Gallery. Tansey’s intricate, highly intellectual allegories have a small but devoted audience, and they’ve earned him that rarest of New York destinies—low-key but sustained success. Until 31 May, 578 Broadway, tel. +1 212 226 3200.
At the opposite end, sometime Spin magazine columnist, Sean Landers, brings adolescent abjection to “Eraserhead” levels of unsettling intensity at Andrea Rosen, inventing alter egos like “Clown,” “Mr Pippy” and “Space ape” to act out atavistic fantasies of failure. His new work continues a “confessional” series of imaginary written confessions—and, yes, Landers did grow up Catholic! Until 31 May, 130 Prince Street, tel. +1 212 941 0203).