Michelle Andreano, NYC Contemporary Artists

John King's studio and his talk with us about being an artist in New York and not separating your everyday life ('real job') from your art was great, as well as his discussion and demonstration of his encaustic painting. It really brought to mind my crit with Frank Mann and his talking about how to integrate different Media together fully, Since John King's paintings managed to merge drawings into paintings. Seeing John King's Studio was also great because I love seeing how and where other people work.

After visiting John King, we went to a ton of galleries including OK Harris. Mimmo Roselli's work, 'Measuring the Space,' was a unique installation of rope that divided an otherwise plain room and completely changed the space. There were also the hyper-realistic paintings on aluminum by David T. Kessler and the intricate models of houses and other buildings.

Brian McGuinness, who we met on the street, had one piece of work in the Gana Art gallery as part of the show, “The Garden at 4 am.” Ghana featured works of art by unkown and well known artists. Several of the pieces were very skeletal, such as the 'Nox Pennatus' Sculpture, 'Xintian' (Laser cut piece), and 'Meditation on Illusion' (painted Bronze sculpture). My absolute favorite piece of the day was Nox Pennatus, the moving sculpture. Just the mechanical yet graceful form created a beautiful 'skeleton.'

The Broken Kilometer was one of my favorite things that we saw. Just the great contrast of this metal agianst the wood floor and white columns, as well as the literal depth of the piece. It made me wish there wasn't a barrier preventing me from going to the other end of the room and experiencing the piece from there. I also appreciated the Earth Room; in a similar way to the Broken Kilometer, it was suprising to see such a space in an assuming looking NY Building. Having the smell of earth in that urban setting was great.

Tony Ousler's 'Addictive Behaviors' exhibit, with the forest of cigarettes, lottery tickets, cell phone, and more was one of the more interesting 3-D exhibits, utilizing sight and sound. The cigarettes projected onto the columns

Paul Morrison was the featured artist at Cheim & Read. He was showing both painted canvas pieces with a very graphic illustration feel as well as large sculptures in the form of huge dandelion.

Manzoni: A Retrospective was representative of art that I don't appreciate – for example, the blank canvas, Artist's shit (literally), etc. The canvas that was soaked in clay and then formed into folds were interesting to me, primarily because of the use of liquid clay in a different way.

Shane McAdams, who got us into Pulse for free, gave an interesting intro to the fair, telling us about how Pulse is seen as more commercial and crass, as compared to the armory show. He also mentioned how many of the vendors were there only because they had paid for their spot before the economy's downturn; before that, many of the galleries and artists represented were able to make a significant amount of money over the past few years, sometimes more in that one weekend than a whole year at a gallery. The thing I most appreciated at the Caren Golden Fine Art space was the shopping cart with a huge sphere of sunglasses, ashtrays, and other glass objects.

Other artists at pulse that stood out to me were the Catharine Clark Gallery, with the artist Al Farrow and his religious architecture 'models' made of guns, bullets, and other weapons.

My last favorite piece was from the Museum of Arts & Design. They featured Invisible Cities, by Beatrice Coron, as part of their exhibition 'Slash:Paper under the knife.' I loved the skeletal forms and insane complexity of the piece.

The Glue Society had a photograph called 'Moses' which showed a airplane view of a parted ocean, but to me it felt very abstract and I loved the texture of the sand versus the ocean.

Jorge Manet, represented by the Galeria Horrach Moya, was the creator of the three-dimensional trees hanging in space which really caught my attention, since it was like seeing a surreal painting in 3-D.

The strangest thing I saw while we were in New York was the statue from the Glue Society of the huge pigeon with the man squatting on it's head. That was really unexpected, since at first it looked like just a sculpture of a pigeon.