A: is for art that releses us.

On Thursday Gagosian Chelsea located at 555 West 24th Street from 6 to 8 pm presents The Remix Paintings of German artist Georg Baselitz. Baselitz confronted the visceral realities of history and the human and cultural tragedies of a world in turmoil. "What I could never escape was Germany, and being German." says Georg. The Remix paintings are radical transubstantiation's, part-caricature, part ghost. The spontaneity with which they are executed gives rise to things in the past, present, and future. Remix also has to do with a mature artist's meditations on time, presence, failure and possibility. This is the first time that this work will be shown in the U.S. You can see it till December 22.

Ever since I met Johniene Papandreas I have been a fan of her work. Johniene transformed a design career in New York theatre into a business designing Corporate Theatre and Events before returning to fine art. Her large-scale paintings were recently featured in the Los Angeles Times announcing the prestigious 2007 ASID Greystone Mansion Design Showcase. I am fascinated with subtext. Reading between the lines and tuning into the unspoken. My portraits are of imagined, damaged, passionate, and hidden selves. Expressions captured in a moment, thoughts private, unobserved, before the retreat, before the walls go back up. Guided by past Masters who were passionate in their revelation of the human condition, Johniene seeks out the souls that populate their paintings. The complex expressions, hidden agendas, and faces stripped of artifice, laid bare by ecstasy. Lifting them out of their place and time she take them as models. I listen carefully and translate. Your eyes meet theirs. Something seems familiar, you connect, and across the centuries spirits speak.

I have always longed to have an apartment large enough that just one of her pieces could dominate the room. For me they are like dream catchers or Dorian's mirror and we could all use someplace to hide the recesses of our souls and that is a F.A.C.T.