If you want to take in some Chelsea galleries and only have an hour, you could check the listings and make a plan; that alone could take some time. Or you could pick a single block and hit the bricks. 

Each block is different, but if you want variety and high-density, some of the choice blocks include West 27th Street; West 26th Street, West 24th Street, and West 22nd Street. In addition, you could pay a visit to Printed Matter, on 10th Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets. Afterwards, if you still have time for a walk on the High Line, you could find a refreshing drink at one of the vendor carts.

Along with a friend visiting from France, I wandered through West 25^th Street on Tuesday, stopping in at Pace Gallery, Pace Wildenstein, Stux, Nancy Margolis, ClampArt, Marlborough Chelsea, and Cheim & Read (Map). Here’s a sample of what’s up:

At Nancy Margolis Gallery (523 W 25), the first solo exhibition of works by Andrea Dezsö is on view (above). Titled Without Myself, the show reveals the many sides of this multi-faceted artist. Born in Romania, growing up under a communist regime without TV and forbidden to travel, Dezsö immersed herself in books and art making. She explored nature and dreamed often of flight, space travel and otherworldly places. These themes continue to inflect her work, which takes form in a series of delicate tunnel books, paintings and drawings, all done in a palette restricted to black, white and silver. Intentionally subversive, these modern fairy tales subtly reveal the story of an artist caught between worlds.

At ClampArt (531 W 25), with works by Manjari Sharma filling the main space, Brian Clamp was hosting a group of students from Jordan Schaps’s class at the School of Visual Arts, with the artist present to discuss her work and process. For her first solo show in New York, the Mumbai-born artist has adopted a pantheon of Hindu deities, long the subject of devotional drawings, paintings and sculptures, as the subjects of her colossal photo-montages. Ms. Sharma photographed replications of six holy figures at various shrines, including Maa Laxmi, Lord Vishnu, Maa Durga and Lord Shiva. Her painstaking process, from casting to costume design to the final digital touches, bridges the space between art and spirituality, the present and the imagined. On view through Saturday, October 12.

At Pace (510 W 25), Irving Penn: On Location continues through October 26^th. For anyone interested in the intersection of photography and editorial design, this show is a must. Not only are some of the photographer’s most memorable images created for Vogue magazine on view; a selection of the magazine layouts and covers is also presented which are from the collection of Vince Aletti, author and co-curator of Avedon Fashion: 1944-2000 at the International Center of Photography. One of the interior galleries includes a display from Penn’s “corner” series, along with pages from his contact sheet notebooks. For the catalogue of Penn’s 1984 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, curator John Szarkowski wrote, “...Penn’s professional work elevates itself and its role by virtue of its great refinement of craft. The grace, wit, and inventiveness of his pattern-making, the lively and surprising eleganceof his line, and his sensitivity to the character, the idiosyncratic humors, of light, make Penn’s pictures, even the slighter ones, a pleasure for our eyes.” Photos above: Peggy Roalf

This just in from David Butow, on the West Coast, whose Seeing Buddha series is on view this week in LA, in a preview of a larger show planned for 2014. Opening Saturday, October 12, 5-9 pm, with an artist talk on Friday, October 11, 6:30 and 8:00 pm. StudioFive08, 508A Santa Monica Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA. Photo above: David Butow.