57th St - Villareal's Volume, Grossman's Volcanoes & Shields' Something...

Depending upon your tendency toward hypnosis, you might spend your entire Inspirational Lunch at Gering & López Gallery transfixed by Leo Villareal’s Volume. The longer you gaze into this massive cylindrical form, the more mesmerizing it becomes. With 20,000+ LEDs twinkling and dancing over mirrory stainless steel in endless combinations of patterns, tempos and degrees of luminescence, Villareal’s Volume is like a teleporter for your brain. You may forget where you are, why you came, and where you’re going, but you will feel certain that it was worth the trip.

If somehow you manage to tear your eyes away from Volume, venture up to see what’s going on at Greenberg Van Doren. (The show is entitled Something Goin’ On & On. Get it?) It’s a beautiful gallery space with a glorious skylight stretching the length of the main room, and there you will find Alan Shields’ colorful paintings, sculptures and works on paper. The way Shields layered his canvases with textures and colors is engrossing in an entirely different way. I especially like the zigzag stitching atop layers of handmade paper on the charming watercolor, Sweetie.  

Moving westward across 57^th Street, stop for some nourishment at The Great AmericanHealth Bar and sample the aptly named Tasty Avocado Salad. Then, if you’re up for it, squeeze in Nancy Grossman: Combustion Scapes at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. The show is an expression of how deeply Grossman was impressed by a visit to Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, where she flew by helicopter directly over the molten lava. Her resulting mixed media collages and assemblages are devastating in their starkness and simplicity, as well as in their direct reference to the overwhelming number of natural disasters currently plaguing our world. Opus Volcanus (triptych) is particularly haunting in it’s monochromatic presentation of mangled debris. 

Now that you’re thoroughly depressed, treat yourself to an insanely good compost cookie at Momofuku Milk Bar’s Midtown location. It will cheer you right up!

Ingredients:

Venues: Gering & López; Greenberg Van Doren; Michael Rosenfeld

Artists: Leo Villareal; Alan Shields; Nancy Grossman

Streets: 5^th Ave & 57^th St

Eats: The Great American Health Bar; Momofuku Milk Bar

Map: