Gallery Lafayette

"I don't really like that whole thing down there in S0H0. I feel like I've been Neo-Expressionisted to death," says Susan Michaels about all those $100,000 piles of broken crockery stuck on canvas. Mrs. Michaels, the Texas-born wife of Saturday Night Live wire Lome Michaels, is doing something about it. Her new Gallery Lafayette, located five unpretentious blocks north of S0H0 at 430 Lafayette Street, New York City, is in fact a cozy art-filled apartment replete with comfortable furniture, a working fireplace, and her brother sleeping in the bedroom. It has cozy hours to match, from five to nine Tuesday and Thursday evenings (when, presumably, her brother will be rousted), and by appointment. Featured artists include such friends and acquaintances as Saul Leiter, Sharon Haskell, Nord Haggerty, the late Marvin Israel, Alan Kleinberg, and Jean Pagliuso. Works will be small, modest, and with an average price of $1,000; come December, "Cheap but Gorgeous," a group show, will be mounted. "A friend of mine said, 'But, Susan, you don't know anything about the art world,' " recalls the ex-model. "I said, 'And I don't want to.' "

Fayette Hickox