Profile

Opened around 1968, Paula Cooper’s Chelsea incarnation is an ethereal space with an impossibly high-beamed ceiling and lots of soft, natural light. While hardly the spot to turn for what’s now, this venue impresses fans of Minimalism. All the heavy-hitters are here: Carl Andre and his macho wood, stone and steel works; Donald Judd and his famous steel wall “reliefs;” and Dan Flavin’s boundary-breaking neon light tubes. Also present are rigorous conceptual artist Sol LeWitt with his complex geometries, plans and instruction lists. Another member of the Cooper stable is brilliant French photographer and performance artist Sophie Calle, who places herself at the center of her art alternately as detective and fictional character. One photographic series was the result of her following a strange man through Italy and France for almost two weeks; for another she took a job as a maid in a Venetian hotel in order to catalog the various guests’ belongings and habits. — Alex Mar