December 21 2002, Saturday, 10am-6pm (n.b. closed Sundays and Mondays)

ZUMETA, BASQUE ARTIST - WHO HAS EXHIBITED IN CZECH REPUBLIC, FRANCE, GERMANY, MEXICO, SCOTLAND, SPAIN AND TENERIFE - DISPLAYS ABSTRACT ART AT HAIM CHANIN FINE ARTS, AN INTERESTING ART GALLERY IN 'NEW YORK, NEW YORK'

As the words of the song go, 'New York, New York, so good they named it twice' regular readers will realise that we are covering some events in the city for the second consecutive month. On this occasion let us look at Christmas shopping and art. If you take up the idea - listed above - of doing your Christmas shopping in New York, there is plenty to see and plenty to buy. Art enthusiasts should visit the Chelsea and Soho areas of the city where commercial art galleries are proliferating at an enormous rate. We only had time to see the former district in any great depth and enjoyed what we saw. But we did attend the openings of two new galleries, including the originally-decorated Martinez Gallery, located on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan Island. One evening, after attending an art auction on 52nd Street we dashed to Washington Square just in time to catch the opening of a collection of students' works, put together by several Latin American artists. It was here we met one of the exhibitors who informed us about the upcoming "Zumeta" exhibition, by the well-known Basque artist of the same name. Since the early sixties, Jose Luis Zumeta has exhibited in many countries including the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Mexico, Scotland, Spain and Tenerife so stepping across the Atlantic for another solo show would be a newsworthy event in itself, and sure enough the Basque media were present for the opening. As we spoke Spanish, and half a dozen Basque words, we had to visit it, along with another gallery we had just discovered - the "Museo del Barrio", which has floor upon floor of Latin American exhibits on New York's east side (i.e. east of Central Park). But there was a problem!