Some NYC highlights:

The kindness of friends and fellow travelers

The easy loquaciousness of a city of professional talkers

Brilliant people and their sincere enthusiasm to share industry insights

Surprising phosphorescent rubber sculptures by Jeanne Silverthorne at McKee Gallery.

The psychologically pregnant, tough and beautiful sculptures by Lee Bul at Lehmann Maupin Gallery

The strange giant figurative sculptures in unexpected media by David Altmejd at Andrea Rosen Gallery

More (yes, more!) Olafur Eliasson art at MOMA and PS1. Yes, the big rotating mirrored ceiling is impressive, but so are the kaleidoscope windows and color spectrum screenprint series.

Neighborhood Public Radio‘s quirky storefront broadcast studio and friendly faces at the Whitney Biennial

The videos at the Whitney Biennial:
Javier Tellez’ blind people and an elephant,
Omer Fast’s exploration of memory with a soldier’s narrative,
Mika Rottenberg’s chick/chicken coop installation/video, whose video/installation at the Tate Modern last fall was extremely enjoyable as well,
Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke.
Also,
Ellen Harvey‘s Museum of Failure, which expresses her skepticism of art’s capacity in light and mirrors,
Heather Rowe’s Screen for the Rooms Behind,
photographs and shipped glass Fed Ex boxes by Walead Beshty

Vlatka Horvat’s temporary text-in-nature performances photographed and on display at Neuhoff Gallery

A delightful taste of sad-sack SF humor at Apex Art‘s Lots of Things Like This, a group show curated by Dave Eggers with Tucker Nichols and

Cao Guo-Qiang at the Guggenheim. Great use of the space. I loved the discreet installations in the wings, such as the shipwreck of china plates and cups, and the river constructed of yak skin with live snakes.

New York Magazine‘s fantastic graphic design

The International Studio and Curatorial Program‘s great new building in East Williamsburg, and esp. Satoshi Hashimoto for his futile video in which he buries himself in dirt.

Yoko Ono at Galerie Lelong
(A tangent: My mother loved the Beatles. She was introduced to their music by her Adult Education English instructor. She loved John Lennon’s voice, but she was also impressed that regardless of his wealth and fame, he married a Japanese woman. It was proof that anything is possible in America. Little did my mother know about Oko’s influence in Conceptual Art and Fluxus.)

Substraction, the surprising and humorous show of giant Ab Ex paintings at Deitch Projects.

Marco Breur & Arnold Helbling mail art with chromogenic paper at Von Lintel Gallery

Vintage Robert Colescott videos and mockumentary at Kravets Wheby

Some low-lights:

Overpriced food and coffee that tasted like coffee-flavored beverage.

Loads of corporate and secondary market galleries selling historic paintings by white men from the 20th century, as recent as the 1970s.