There are hundreds of good -- even great -- art spaces in New York's West Chelsea, the world's largest and most important contemporary art gallery district. It's a wonderful place to browse, but this is best done with an open mind. I've often been frustrated when visiting art fairs or gallery districts hoping to find work that matched an image I had in my mind. But that's the position I found myself in a few years ago, a few days before Christmas, as the sun set on a snowy West Chelsea day.
I was scouting for a client, looking for new pieces that were minimal and clean but not sterile. I wanted to find work that communicated more than tidy composition, a balance of forms, or the studied use of shade and color. After a week of walking the streets, climbing stairs, and searching through portfolios, I had a hotel room full of slides and prints of works that were almost right, but not quite.
Then, late on the last day, when I walked into the Ricco Maresca Gallery and saw their exhibition of photographs by Bonchang Koo, I knew my search had finally ended.