Joa Baldinger's 'I want to Talk about You' Paintings Destroyed in Chelsea Gallery Flooding During Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy's floodwaters devastated the Chelsea art district, causing significant damage to numerous galleries. Among the first confirmed casualties was artist Joa Baldinger's major painting series 'I want to Talk about You,' which was completely destroyed. The works were displayed in the underground space of Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert gallery at West 19th Street when flooding occurred on Monday night. Baldinger's series drew inspiration from scenes in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1971 film 'Beware of a Holy Whore.' Previous paintings from this series had been exhibited in the Hamptons during summer 2010 and were reviewed on The New York Sun website. The gallery's subterranean bunker-like exhibition space was particularly vulnerable to the storm surge. artcritical reported the loss after restoring internet and power connections following the widespread outages caused by the hurricane. The publication expressed sympathy for all artists and galleries affected by the storm's aftermath.