Chelsea is glimmering with subdued success. Among its current compelling shows are Sigmar Polke at David Zwirner gallery and Philip Guston at Hauser & Wirth. Art isn't all noisy fairs, these shows seem to say. Come. See our quiet, wealthy dignity.
Then, on 21st Street, there are a bunch of giant, monster sculptures that look like they want to kill you.
That's hyperbole, but it almost seems like this was planned. Going east to west, Gagosian, Gladstone and Paula Cooper galleries all present monumental works, all right next door to one another. If you want a roller coaster study in size, these are the shows to see.
Gagosian's titan is Richard Serra's NJ-1 (2015). As works by Serra go, this one is pacific. The far side of the sculpture seems to reach for the back wall, slanting in without imposing. There is something about the rust of the work that is calming. Serra's rust can look like wood, chocolate or the result of some violence, but this just glows. Serra has deferred the labyrinthine quality of his other work in favour of a clear path, so it's a sort of Zen prison—one you've chosen to go into. (The second half of the show on 24th street, ""ABOVE BELOW BETWIXT BETWEEN, EVERY WHICH WAY, SILENCE (FOR JOHN CAGE)” is also, as the title implies, fairly Zen.) When I went into NJ-1, two loud toddlers trundled along the path ahead of me, not at all disturbed by their predicament.
Anish Kapoor's She Wolf (2016) at Gladstone gallery is a whole other story. It is the carapace of some invading species the size of a truck, taking a break from doing God-knows-what and resting on an equally alien plinth. The surface of this work looks as if it has been the same for eons. There is a smell about it. Brine? May just be in your head. When you think of Kapoor, you think of reflective curves and public commissions, but certainly not narrative. Put She Wolf with the entrail-like works at Gladstone's 24th Street space (the second half of the show) and it's clear that Kapoor wants to upset those expectations. And you.
The centrepiece of Meg Webster's show at Paula Cooper feels like a response to all this masculine energy. Stick Structure (2016) is a wreath so large it makes anyone who enters it feel like a bird dropping by. It's not a nest, though. You don’t feel too welcome and the weaving is—as all sculptures in the show are—minimal. Everything is aimed, it seems, at showing us that nature is weirder than all that came before it. Nearby is five-foot dome of salt titled Mother Mound Salt (2016) that feels like a work by one of the Mono-ha group of Japanese artists, but the most impressive thing about the show is actually its lack of kumbaya-ness. In the front room, Solar Grow Room (2016) uses solar power to sustain a mini ecosystem under disco-like lights that seem to imply we don't deserve lush vegetation.
Richard Serra, Gagosian, New York, until 29 July
Anish Kapoor: Today You Will Be In Paradise, Gladstone Gallery, New York, until 11 June
Meg Webster, Paula Cooper Gallery, until 24 June