I first saw the David Smith show at 548 22nd right after arriving early and waiting an hour and a half for Yayoi Kusama, a line of two blocks mostly consisting of new outfits donned for the Instagram, about which the staff lectures the viewers ‘take the picture immediately; the time inside goes fast.’ Whatever concessions this show has to easily absorbed psychedelia it is real art and worth waiting for. The paintings on 19th street of her micro/macroscopic imagery can be seen by those in a hurry, I think, a rope separating them from rooms promising Infinity, while the uptown gallery of dot paintings is a quiet place to think. I see the Infinity Rooms primarily as collective portraiture for the internet age. A sculpture of hers is in the Delirious show at Met Breuer along with two scrolls of Spero’s Artaud Codex. Nothing is really “Must see,” one would be forced by such a voice to “Think” of infinity were it possible, an impossibility that is in general what I make the trip up for - other people’s tragic consciousnesses. But, as David Smith appears in the topic sentence, one predicts that I will lament (or rejoice) how quiet the show seems after the Yayoi scene two blocks away where the line ends. Predictable, but astonishing nonetheless - the Smith show is a huge offering of his early sculptural paintings and painterly sculptures. As it is the early work of a vital mind, you don’t have to recall earlier works to verify that it’s ‘real art.’ At 541 22nd do check out Rita McBride’s Particulates early and often - it will be there til June. On 24th there’s Pistoletto til Friday, Pace’s tribute to the 1964 collaboration between Richard Avedon and James Baldwin which displays no quotations from Baldwin, and til Jan 9, Jim Shaw’s Hillary Clinton as Mad Meg..
..along with various contortions of Trump’s face, a tribute to Courbet, Titian, The Cute Behemoth and religious ceremonies at 519, and Anna Conway’s narrative tableau at 514 West 26th til Saturday. At Goodman Guiseppe Penone places fossils and grains of sand next to their reproductions. But most of all, if you haven't seen the landscapes from the last five years of Arshile Gorky's life, mostly from private collections, put that at the top of your list (32 e 69th til Sat).