Jerry Saltz repositions Chelsea’s excess and sprawl, offering a useful reframing of the place so many love to hate:
Staggering numbers of people now complain about how “big” and “out of control” the art world, especially Chelsea, is. True, 300 galleries in one neighborhood is daunting. Still, it’s absurd to claim, as many do, that a gallery is bad because it’s in Chelsea or better because it’s not. There’s a depressing never mentioned reason for the bigness of Chelsea. Shockingly, among Manhattan’s big-four museums, only the Met has galleries devoted to the permanent display of the art of the last 20 years. Visitors to MOMA, the Whitney, and the Guggenheim will only see whatever rotating contemporary shows happen to be up. Works of contemporary art cannot be studied over time. In other words, the very art these museums make such a fuss about being committed to is given almost no shrift at all. It’s great that these museums are buying contemporary art; it’s pathetic that they’re putting almost all of it into storage. Adding to the problem, Dia, one of New York’s most important institutions dedicated to rotating exhibitions of cutting-edge art, has moved out of the city altogether. Leaving Manhattan high and dry is unforgivable. Those who bemoan Chelsea’s bigness forget that whatever else it is, Chelsea is ipso facto the largest museum of contemporary art that we have.