a x e s m u n d i: vernissages | NYC September 8: Gesamtkunstwerk

Chelsea and Hudson river view from the rooftop of the Maxwell Davidson Gallery.

Thursday marked the opening of the Chelsea fall season; a multitude of gallery presented major art exhibitions. The gesamtkunstwerk is present in the immersive installations, where the whole gallery space is involved, sometimes expanding then artwork from the walls to the ceiling and floor. The boundaries between object and space, gallery as container and contained art as objects are blurred. The art viewer becomes a participant in even a multi-sensorial experience, sometimes involving the sense of taste, like in After Pasteur, where samples are offered at a fermented milk-bar.

Ian Davenport at Paul Kasmin Gallery

George Grosz: Politics and Its Influence at David Nolan

NENDO at Friedman Benda

Sarah Cain "Dark Matter" at Galerie Lelong

Victor Vasarely "Analog" at Maxwell-Davidson

Lars Fisk "Mr. Softie" at Marlborough Gallery

The stairway at Paxis International Gallery

The Gesamtkunstwerk is highly present at Lehman Maupin, where the twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, known as OSGEMEOS. From the gallery statement the artists "transform multiple rooms into an immersive installation that combines drawing, painting, collage, mixed media sculpture, and kinetic and audio elements. These newest works represent an evolution of the style OSGEMEOS has honed over decades, while also returning to their early experimentation with diverse mediums, including new oil paintings. This exhibition will offer a heightened multi-sensory experience that embraces the power of human imagination and the vast possibilities in visually interpreting the subconscious." OSGEMEOS emerged in Brazil in the late 1980s as graffiti writers, influenced by New York street art.

OSGEMEOS "Silence of the Music" at Lehman Maupin

Hamish Fulton "Walking Artist" exhibition is of a different nature, yet based on Gesamtkunstwerk. In Hamish Fulton's work, making art comes from experiential practice, walking—which is translated into objects displayed on the gallery walls. Such approach—ephemera from an experience becoming artwork—is almost opposite to the site specific installation, where a physical place is transformed into an experiential ephemeral environment.