NEW YORK—Gagosian had the biggest names — and drew the biggest crowds — yesterday evening with a Takashi Murakami–Anselm Reyle doubleheader in his 24th Street space, as Chelsea galleries continued to open their first shows of the season. Reyle, wearing a violet shirt that nearly matched his purple chrome sculptures (and the similarly hued dresses of some gallery assistants), was on hand to regale the throngs.

Bails of hay sat in the back-most room and had been spray-painted silver — presumably not too long before the opening, since the odor was still pungent. People strolled in, took one sniff, and quickly exited. They could find a refuge off in a side gallery, which contained a single, massive Murakami that featured skulls and rainbows. Viewers seemed entranced by the warm pink and gold glow it emanated, and they jockeyed for unobstructed views.

A few blocks south, Damián Ortega was holding court at Barbara Gladstone. His new seven-foot-tall sculptures are made of eroded brick and look as if they’ve been carefully spliced from the side of a building. Everything looks good in Gladstone’s 21st Street space, but these pieces were particularly elegant.

Over at P.P.O.W., George Boorujy’s ink drawings of landscapes and animals were similarly subtle. A ram tumbles to the ground in his Meadowlark (2009), while Chira-Mante-Kamui (2009) shows a brown bear looking impossibly mournful, kneeling over a felled bird.

As 7 p.m. approached — the evening’s halfway point — art tourists had a tough choice to make: head to Elizabeth Dee and company’s X Initiative for a screening of Charles Atlas’s legendary documentary of downtown New York in the 1980’s, Put Blood in the Music, or venture east to the School of Visual Arts Theater for a talk with writer and MacArthur "Genius Grant" winner Dave Hickey. It seemed that too many chose the latter: The crowd filled all 350 seats and overflowed onto the stage. Building security began turning people away before the talk began.

Hickey’s audience of young, flannel-clad art students clutched their notebooks, thrilled to be among the select few who made it inside. They seemed eager to record the words of their hierophant, and Hickey was characteristically willing to displease. "I’ve always felt that there are too many artists," Hickey began, gazing out at the mass that had come for him. "Lately I’ve begun to feel like there are way too many artists."

From there, Hickey mounted a vicious attack against today’s art world and the institutional structures that support it. "I don’t see any badasses," he said, surveying today’s art world. "There aren’t people like Lynda Benglis and Larry Clark, who will sip rejection like Cognac." He suggested that the solution to today’s mediocrity could be found in the "40 Year Rule" established by Robert Rauschenberg: "Go back about 40 years, find someone you really like, and steal shit."

There had seemed to be some solid work on view in Chelsea tonight, but Hickey was resolute in his condemnation of current practice. "It’s not random," he said of the success that some had just witnessed at galleries two blocks to the west. "But it’s pretty damn close." Generously, he included himself in that statement. "All of my competition died of AIDS," he said. "I’m still here."

As he exited from the side of the stage where he had been speaking, he remarked, "They only let Jerry and Roberta speak from the center," referring to New York’s reigning art critics, Saltz and Smith. He was only feigning disappointment, of course. It’s clear that he relishes his position on the periphery.