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    Azaleas

    3.5 star rating
    30 reviews
    1.6 Miles away from David Zwirner Gallery

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Recommended Reviews

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  • 5.0 star rating
    10/22/2014
    1 check-in

    A good friend mentioned to me that the Armory is offering a haunted house special called Hell in the Armory, it involves performance arts and BDSM scene that is meant to scare and provoke. Halloween is the biggest holiday in San Francisco for Peter Pans (yes it's also a birthday to a certain someone), and this could be one of the best, if not the best entertainment in town. Yet, before I had decided to go or not, I was sufficiently discouraged by the production value after having just returned from New York. You see, New York gets high concept art. There is nothing like Sleep No More NY. There is nothing like what's on display at David Zwirner Gallery: Marcel Dzama's Une Danse des Bouffons completed entranced me.  

    This is the difference between a superb art gallery and a provincial town like San Francisco. Even the highest provocateur like the Armory cannot produce the high concept art one would expect to see on any given day in Chelsea. David Zwirner Gallery puts up a phenomenal show. Two films played simultaneously while the art on the wall tells an intriguing story. Children sat through the film, not once but twice, equally mesmerized. Art is ageless.

    The space is quite lovely. Very airy and sparse. I'm biased of course because David Zwirner is German and German aesthetics appeals to me.

    Time Out magazine has given tourists an quintessential New York gallery to visit. Now how do I get myself a piece of Marcel Dzama?

  • 5.0 star rating
    11/22/2013

    I came here the other day to see "I Who Have Arrived in Heaven" by Yayoi Kusama. WHAT A SHOW!! Bring a camera and get there early! There was about a 30 min wait around 10:15 on a Thursday morning.  My friend said there was a 3 hour wait on a saturday.

    It's worth it. The visual stimulation one has by going into Yayoi Kusama's exhibits is unbounded. I would gladly do it again. And again. And again. Great pictures -- you're allowed to take pictures too, no flash!

    Best part: IT'S FREE!!!

  • 5.0 star rating
    11/22/2013
    1 check-in

    Came here for the Yayoi Kusama exhibition  ' I who have arrived in Heaven '

    Wow this was definitely one of the best exhibitions I have visited in years .

    there is a long line but its under control and the staff are very helpful and friendly .

    Would recommend visiting this show before it closes in December and take a camera .

    make sure you line up for both rooms as they are completely different .

  • 4.0 star rating
    6/28/2014
    2 check-ins

    Free food is the only way you can get me to a gallery (or at least a food theme with free admission - this had both). This space is pretty huge, fitting well with its gallery neighbors over here. Came for the exhibition "A Mercantile Novel", which was pretty interesting, but tastier than it was fascinating:

    "Oscar Murillo will recreate a candy-making factory inside the New York gallery (519 West 19th Street) in collaboration with Colombina, the premier food company in Colombia. Founded in Murillo's hometown of La Paila in the early twentieth century, Colombina has a strong history and connection with the artist, who was born in 1986 and moved with his parents to the United Kingdom in the 1990s. Murillo's mother and father both worked for the factory and many of his family members and childhood friends continue to be employed at the site."
    davidzwirner.com/exhibit…

  • 5.0 star rating
    7/20/2014
    1 check-in

    I came here for the first time today for an exhibition, and I have to admit this is the best exhibition that I have been to ever. There were lots of people and huge line, but it did move quite quickly. The staff is great here, they were really nice, friendly and helpful. You should check it out for yourself...

  • 4.0 star rating
    12/14/2013
    1 check-in ROTD 4/3/2014

    FINALLY got a chance to visit the 2 Yayoi Kusama infinity rooms recently and it was well worth the wait! It's more ideal to come on a weekday if you can, but if you can only make it on a weekend be sure to get here plenty early. I recommend getting here as early as 8:30am and toughing it out. If you arrive at this time, it'll probably be about a 1 hour wait only (for the The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away room) when the doors open at 10am. Luckily the "Love is Calling" room had no wait at all so we went to the Lights room (door closer to 11th Avenue) first and then immediately went into the Love room (door closer to 10th Avenue). I heard the wait for people at the back of the line was up to 5 hours, so dress very warmly and wear ALOT of layers on your feet, body and head.

    Although the wait can be long for the Light room, it can be fun if you bump into the right people on the line like my friend and I. We chatted it up with a few linemates the entire time and it was an absolute blast waiting with them. It's amazing the people you can meet randomly! We chatted about everything from who we were, our careers, schools to topics like movies, funny current events and personal experiences of waiting.

    As for the Light room, there is another 15 minute wait inside the gallery once you get in. In that time, you are given "booties" to wear on your feet to keep the infinity room clean. You also get a preview of the Light room as the door opens everytime to let the next person in. Once you get in, you are timed and given 60 seconds to do whatever you like in the room, including snap photos. I recommend snapping as many photos as possible at the start and then looking around after. As you walk in, you notice the pond of water surrounding your standing platform. The lights flicker throughout the 60 seconds and the room goes dark at one point as well. It's quite an interesting experience.

    After you're done, head straight to the Love room. Same scenario - Booties on and 60 seconds, however many people can go into the room at once. Once inside, you'll immediately notice all the colors and mirrors. Once again, snap as many photos as possible and then take a look around to appreciate it. After you leave, you get to go to a room where a "CREEPY" video of Yayoi Kusama is shown. It's a bit weird, but I guess the entire exhibit is. Overall, well worth the unique experience as it's being shown only a limited amount of time, so go quick before it ends!

  • 4.0 star rating
    12/29/2013
    1 check-in
    Listed in Artsy

    I finally understand the excitement and perseverance you cronut and ramen burger maniacs endure by waiting in line for hours. It's madness, I tell you.

    I've always been enthralled by the exhibitions David Zwirner has to offer but I am just too lazy to walk to almost the end of the West side. I came here with a friend at around 3:30 p.m. the day before the Yayoi Kusuma exhibit closed and the line went around in front of the gallery. Luckily, while we were at it, we made a few friends on line so they saved our spot while we visited the "Love is Calling" exhibit for 15 minutes, where lines were much smoother.

    After 3 and a half hours of waiting with the damn sweet aroma from the crepe truck lingering my nose, we finally get in and another line around the gallery. Not a bad thing, considering the paintings of Kusuma were also on display--a great way to keep our minds and frustrations to see the main display.

    By the time we were only a few steps away from entering the room, the workers assigning different groups of people to sit and slide down felt robotic. Yes, once you step into their gallery, they own you.
    They kept the timing very precise and wanted to finish as fast as possible--40 seconds per 2 people.  

    Now on to the actual room...
    It was absolutely gorgeous and the water made the room very calming and peaceful. One thing I didn't like much about it was that the lights were blinking. It was like having a seizure in the universe. Definitely don't use flash as they advise as it will hurt your eyes severely

  • 4.0 star rating
    11/24/2013
    ROTD 1/1/2014

    I came here to see Yayoi Kusama's I Who Have Arrived In Heaven. I wouldn't have known about it had it not been for a friend out in SF who sent me the link.

    It was a Saturday and I guess when things are hyped up... there are lines. We walked way to the back of one line only to realize it was for the infinity room and the wait was probably 3+ hours. No thanks. Someone outside trying to organize the chaos that was the line situation brought us to the line for the Love is Calling exhibit. We waited for maybe 15-30 minutes until we got inside. Were they colored tentacles? I'm not sure. You get to spend 1 minute inside and take as many photos as you want. The mirrored room definitely gives the place much more depth.

    Once you exit, there's a video of Yayoi singing one a poem about Manhattan, wearing a red wig and a polka dotted top. I think the dots are a consistent theme in her work.

    We then ventured over to the gallery. What a huge space. And her pieces, vibrant... so many eyes... so many faces... I noted to my plus one that I appreciated the imperfection in the pieces--every dot didn't need to be the same size. But I'm no art afiicionado so I'll leave the interpretation to the pros.

    Probably better to come on a weekday. I might come back for infinity room... caught a small glimpse of it as I was passing by the indoor part of the line--I think you can only fit 1-3 people in there at a time.

  • 3.0 star rating
    11/24/2013

    Came here for Yayoi Kusama's exhibit.

    We arrived after 9:30am on a cold cold Saturday and waited until 11 before we could see the light room that everyone was lining up for. The room itself was amazing. I loved it. But we were only allowed to be in the room for 45 seconds. I understand that this is a practical solution since a lot of people want to see it and the line is already long even with a 45 second restriction in place, but this really disrupted the viewing experience. It's hard to appreciate it in 45 seconds. The only thing you could really do is take some pictures, post online and try to relive it later.

    If I could go again, (though probably won't), I would want to try to just look and enjoy the room for the full 45 seconds and not worry about taking pictures.

    I don't know if the 45 seconds was worth the wait in the cold.

  • 5.0 star rating
    11/16/2013
    1 check-in

    I came here to see Yayoi Kusama's installations and paintings. I fell in love with her work when I saw it for the first time at the Tate Modern in London a few years ago and was thrilled to find out that her work was being shown at this gallery.

    We came before the gallery opened and there was already a line halfway down the block. Our wait time was about 30-45 minutes to see the exhibits, but it was definitely worth it. Bring a camera :)

    I hope to come back here soon as this gallery represents some really cool artists.

  • 4.0 star rating
    11/24/2013

    Went there for Yayoi Kasuma's "I Who Have Arrived in Heaven" exhibit and it is definitely worth experiencing. But the wait doe..came around 10:15 and got in the Infinity Room around 1:30 on a saturday.

    The employees were very nice guiding the visitors but had the people in lines going back and forth, splitting the lines then going from one side of the gallery to the the end of the block.

    The exhibit spans through the three galleries. The Infinity Room is what the long line is for but there was no wait to see Kasuma's paintings and other mirrored installation "Love is Calling".

    I would recommend going before they open at 10am

  • 4.0 star rating
    11/23/2013

    I visited the yayoi kusama exhibit today and waited about 2.5 hours in the cold for 45 seconds in the infinity room. It was such an awesome experience but the lines could have been MUCH more organized. I arrived around 9:45am right before the gallery opened at 10 and the line was already long. There was a lot of line cutting so the already long line was even longer. We were told to line up in a row of four hugging one side of the building then told to move and stand on the other side of the building. At that point the line was wrapped around the block but we were then told to walk back to the first location except people just arriving cut the line and didn't wait the 2 hours that most of us did. But the staff didn't really acknowledge that so besides the poor line organization ....It was a pretty darn unique experience.

    Once you get out of the room there's another infinity room with a much shorter wait. This one allows more than one person in at a time so it's kinda hard to get a pic just yourself. The room is full of bright vibrant colors and shapes aka kinda trippy.

    Oh yeah and admission is free!

  • 3.0 star rating
    1/1/2014

    I was online when I saw posts about Yayoi Kusama's "I Who Have Arrived In Heaven" exhibit being shown and the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea. I contacted my friends and we went to the exhibit straight after school (4pm on a Friday). We got there waiting on line to go to the infinity room for the line was long and the gallery closes at 6. We waited on the line for 20 minutes until we were told by a worker that they cut off the line for this room a long time ago.

    I'm glad the employees told us about the line being cut off however 3 out of the 4 I talked to were very snotty and obnoxious.

    Me and my friends decided to go to the "Love Room" and we got in that room in the matter of no time. Even though you're in the room for 60 seconds the lights are stunning.

    Yayoi Kusama's exhibit itself is epic and amazing, however I give the gallery 3/5 due to the rudeness of workers and disorganization of lines for both rooms.

  • 4.0 star rating
    4/16/2014

    I've been here twice, fortunately both were free exhibitions and very good ones at that. They favor contemporary art and that's fine with me. The staff was polite and friendly and the gallery space was decent.

  • 4.0 star rating
    11/30/2013
    1 check-in

    In order to see Yayoi' infinity room, be prepared for an insanely long line that reaches 2+ hours. I waited almost 3.5 in the freezing cold! This line was slow because it's 1 person in the room (although 2 & 3 is an option as well) for 30 seconds. The other installation barely had a line. I waited 2 minutes and you get 45 sec in the room with up to 10 people.

    Both installations were amazing. It was really beautiful! I subtracted one star because there has to be a better system to seeing the infinity room.

  • 4.0 star rating
    11/26/2013
    1 check-in

    ahh I'm debating a 3 star or 4 star. I came here last Saturday to check out "I Who Have Arrived in Heaven" by Yayoi Kusama. I got here at 10:45AM and it was down the block on west side highway. It was cold waiting on line till about 2:30PM. There wasn't any restrooms. Earlier in the day a staff was nice to bring this girl in front of me to a restroom. When i asked another staff for a restroom, they just told me "no restrooms".... Was it worth the wait? I'm not sure myself. Just to have about 1 minute in the infinity room by yourself. Taking a photo that looks like a "selfie". It wasn't the best photo but I guess I had nothing better to do that day and it's an experience. You don't have to go into the room alone. You can have a friend with you. Max I think I saw going in was 4 people. I had a friend with me but I wanted a picture myself so I went alone.

    Would I come back for this exhibit? Maybe on a weekday when there is no line. Weekend I would say don't even think about it.

    Besides that, yes it's free.

  • 4.0 star rating
    12/22/2013

    Waited more than 4 hours on a Saturday morning starting at 8:30am to see the Infinity Room along with the "Love is Calling" room. Both were very cool, and my friend and I actually enjoyed the "Love is Calling room" more, which had less than a 10 minute wait. The paintings were cool, too. I just think the gallery can figure out a way to keep close to a thousand people waiting for hours each day outside to see a room for 30(!) seconds. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time and I don't regret it, but it shouldn't have to take up your entire morning. The Infinity Room is actually quite small. It's the mirrors and the lights that make it look huge. You're also surrounded by water and the (very pushy) man in charge of the door tells you to be careful not to step in. The second room was way cooler, and you get to be there for maybe around a minute. Glad we checked this out.

  • 4.0 star rating
    11/16/2013
    1 check-in

    Went here for an exhibit of Yayoi Kusama's work. Loved the gallery and the program. Staff was nice, but the woman who was allowing people into the gallery wasn't assertive which lead to confusion.

    All in all I enjoyed the experience and will be back.

  • 4.0 star rating
    1/2/2014

    I saw an article about Yayoi Kusama's exhibit I Who Have Arrived In Heaven on My Modern Metropolis.  I tried three times to get into Infinity Mirrored Room - The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away.  I was unsuccessful all three times.  Love Is Calling was great though!  The poem Kusama wrote and was reading, "Residing in a Castle of Shed Tears," was beautiful, and her heart-wrenching voice positively added to the experience.  I can't say the same for her singing voice though during Manhattan Suicide Addict.  I did enjoy Kusama's paintings particularly the one using blue and metallic orange.

    Although I didn't make it into Infinity Mirrored Room, I appreciated the succinct manner in which it was explained that the line had been closed.

    I did not enjoy how disorganized and poorly controlled the line was.

  • 4.0 star rating
    7/21/2014

    Interesting and extremely well known gallery for contemporary art. Have been to a few openings over the years, and they're crowded. Recently saw a piece that included two Hollister models holding the door open - how witty! Zwirner seems keen at curation and seeking out NYC's up-and-coming artists. Definitely a good spot to visit with art-saavy friends.

  • 5.0 star rating
    4/15/2014

    This is my first 'gallery' review on Yelp although I'm in the art field. Reason being: Jordan Wolfson. Raspberry Poser was one of the best shows I've seen so far in 2014 and deserves a serious nod. I've followed Wolfson's career and am so pleased to see his much due success. That being said (or rather written), I am really writing this quick Yelp review to thank the very amenable staff at Zwirner for letting me squeeze in to see (or gaze) at the robotic witch 'lady.' I'll never hear the song Graceland the same way .... Go quickly to see floating condoms, cartoons, and have yourself amused and scared senseless by an animatronic fembot that foreshadows an (anti)erotic apocalypse.

  • 4.0 star rating
    12/21/2013

    I went to the gallery 12/19/13 around 12 PM. There are no lines to view the paintings, but the Infinity Room had a LONG line. I spoke to a girl who came at 8:30 and was still on the line. It was crazy! The exhibit (Love is Calling) has a much shorter line and you can always go in twice. I did that! The employees will time you once you step into the gallery, I only got to view the exhibit for 40 secs. You will have to take off your shoes to view the exhibit, remember to wear socks!  I don't think that a 4-6 hour wait to enter the Infinity room is worth 40 secs of viewing the exhibit. You could only take a selfie. Otherwise, it was a cool experience and I enjoyed it.

  • 5.0 star rating
    11/12/2013
    2 check-ins

    A gallery is a very utilitarian space. It's an empty room, preferably large, with white walls. The space itself is somewhat irrelevant.  It's what's shown to you, on those walls, that makes it a good or bad experience. The art I have seen pass through Zwirner's walls has been  aw inspiring      

              I  most recently saw Yayoi Kusama's exhibition, " I who have arrived in Heaven". Her critics find her work bubbly, effervescent  and without depth. They see her work as just stylized. Walking through Zwirner and seeing the rooms filled with her neon canvases, I had felt the same way. Until I stood in the line, that ran through the gallery and eventually entered one of her mirrored rooms. In one room, the walls and ceiling were covered with mirrors. Hanging from the ceiling and coming from the floor were brightly colored, inflatable stalactites and stalagmites. These glowing ,organic shapes were covered in polka dots. Those shapes were reflected  in all the facing mirrors. This created the illusion that you were standing in an entirely different world, with thousands of these shapes extending into infinity..All of the polka dots, made you feel like a tiny dot in the artificial universe. For a few seconds I was transported into another world. Art has never done this for me before.
             
               Before this. I had gone to see Philip-Lorca Dicorcia's Hustlers series, several times, before it was taken down. Dicorcia takes what looks like outdoor snapshots of private moments.Upon closer look, one finds they are perfectly lit to what looks like,to me, an eerie and almost creepy perfection. I find, Dicorcia shares a lot of similarities to the work of Edward Hopper. They both depict American landscapes with a very isolated and lonely feel to them.

  • 4.0 star rating
    3/7/2014

    Neat space and the exhibit was interesting! I missed Yayoi Kusama's light exhibit last year but hoping it comes back

  • 5.0 star rating
    11/22/2013
    1 check-in

    I went to see Yayoi Kusama's art installation "I Who Have Arrived In Heaven". The wait was about 30 min or so. Bring a book or something to do while you wait. I took a panoramic photo of the exhibit and a video. Because of that, I would go back again just to experience the art installation itself. It's worth two visits.

  • 3.0 star rating
    6/29/2013
    3 check-ins

    One of new York's top galleries. I always like going here. I'd give them five stars but I really did not appreciate their latest show, of new sculptures by Jeff Koons.
    It was very fancy birdbaths--all white plaster casts, each with a mirrored blue orb perched somewhere on it. The suite of sculptures mixed a range of visual references, from a copy of a famous old Hercules statue to a rather plain birdbath to the kind of inflatable snowman you'd see on a front lawn around Christmastime. Koons likes to even everything out--good taste or bad taste, it all ends up as lawn decorations.

    It's the expense that matters. Money is what makes all these things (from various socioeconomic contexts) essentially the same, it's money that gave them the same color and texture. The more money there is, the less difference. The more money you have the less there is that's unavailable to you. Koons's work is about this, and about how it works for him as an artist--how there's no material that can resist his vision because he can do anything with his touch. Like the delicate crinkles along the seams of the inflatable snowman--these are miraculously still visible, but hardened, permanent, and dead when cast in plaster. And the orbs twist the reflection of the people who look into them, everyone becomes a warped bluish shadow. In the twenty-first century the distinction between high and low culture doesn't matter anymore--and why should it?--but Koons keeps shoving it in your face, he likes to remind you that it used to be there, until money made it go away. He likes to remind us of the meaninglessness or arbitrariness of taste. Taste is one of the five senses. Taste is a bodily response, and it's personal--it's each of us gives one or three or five stars in a review. But Koons hoards all the tastes for himself here, as the object of his vision, suffocating taste to death and shutting it away from the rest of us behind the immaculate, unimpeachable finish of his work.

    Kitsch and desire and beauty and bad taste are all important subjects for art--but if you want to see an artist do them well you can just check out any of the three Paul McCarthy who has three shows up right now, in which he outdoes Jeff Koons in all of them. In his work there's life and it resists his vision, it resists the material, and that difference is where he finds art.

  • 5.0 star rating
    12/21/2013

    The staff was ALWAYS incredibly cool, calm, and collected (and SO nice!) throughout the chaos surrounding Kusama's exhibit. Sure, they were a little unorganized at times,  but hey, they gave it their best shot at trying to manage us crazies!

  • 4.0 star rating
    6/30/2009

    This is a nice open gallery with high ceilings and plenty of space and light.  They represent the estate of Alice Neel and we got a little explanatory tour of her works from a stylish employee wearing some open-toed purple suede flats that I wanted to steal.  But back to the gallery.  Did you know that clit rings existed in the early 1900s?  Because they did, they were the size of wedding rings, and Alice Neel painted them.

  • 4.0 star rating
    2/16/2011
    1 check-in

    A spacious gallery with incredible light and ambience.  I recently came here last weekend for a photography exhibition (Philip Lorca DiCorcia).  The layout was impeccable.  It's almost too white in some of the other galleries. Huge walls with one small print strain on the eyes- but that's minor.

  • 5.0 star rating
    1/8/2008
    First to Review

    The David Zwirner Gallery is an incredibly large space with fantastic lighting.  I saw Thomas Ruff's large pixellated photographs (and by that I mean simulated large pixels in Ruff scale photos) of both placid, perhaps banal scenes juxtaposed with ones which tap into the national psyche (the World Trade Center, atomic bomb tests, etc).  This is a great gallery to see work like Ruff's, as the effect of his photos is lost if you can't play with the distance between you and the photograph.

    The gallery also represents Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Luc Tuymans, and Chris Ofili, whom I really like.

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