September is always the best time of the year for contemporary art. With the end of summer, families return from vacationing and get back into the swing of school and work. Participating in cultural programming returns to prominence and, with winter and the headaches of preparing for the holidays still a few months away, those interested in collecting art swarm gallery districts. Exploiting their patrons' fresh return, art dealers push forward their key exhibitions for the year. Coveted September exhibition slots are offered to the most valued gallery artists, in a signal to the market that these are the most exciting artists to watch, the thoroughbred race-horses competing for the triple crown of sales, critical review and buzz.

Though by no means an exhaustive list of the many amazing shows currently on display this month, The Ministry of Artistic Affairs shares the following selections from the many fantastic exhibitions we saw last week in New York City. All of the galleries are listed below with live links to their online version but if you have time to drop some NYC in the next few weeks, we highly recommend hitting each of these shows in person:

Ironically, Joe Fig's interest in painting led to his being, if anything, better known for his sculptures. In conjunction with interviewing various painters for his 2009 book Inside the Painter's Studio, he made well-received dioramalike models of their studios, which were exhibited along with audio of the interviews. Fig, who holds a BFA and an MFA from New York's School of Visual Arts, returned to painting in this recent show of eight canvases from 2010 and '11. Inspired by Ross King's 2006 book The Judgment of Paris: Manet, Meissonier and an Artistic Revolution, Fig painted historical or imagined scenes from those two artists' lives, maintaining a focus on their studios. His interviews with contemporary artists stressed the sustainability of an artistic profession, so he was drawn to King's study of painters with opposite career arcs: Meissonier, now obscure though flourishing in the 1860s, and the then-upstart Manet.

Some management gurus say there is no better time to start a new business than in the belly of a recessionary dip. While cautionary conservatism and fearful retreat seem to characterize conventional behavior during bad days, the contrarian view is that economic slowdowns are exactly the right times to gear up for upcoming growth cycles. With world markets bloodied like losing Ultimate Fighters, there are fantastic deals available in almost all categories, from real-estate to service contracts. Auctions abound with equipment and furniture available for cents on the dollar. Highly qualified yet unemployed business leaders, many of whom are flirting with desperation, are prospecting and available for hire. And with many investors still nursing third degree burns from stock market volatility, new ventures can leverage personal relationships to tap pools of financial resources usually destined for securities.

Cristin Tierney sees opportunity in current adverse conditions. On October 28, 2010, she opened her first gallery in a ground floor space in the ultra-important Chelsea art neighborhood of New York City. After two years of watching influential galleries close and art works remain unsold, she now perceives a thawing in the art market and believes it to be the beginning of the next bull-run. Tierney is not a naïve outsider. Prior to opening her gallery at 546 West 29th Street, she worked as an advisor for a number of high net worth private collectors and institutions throughout the United States. She holds a Masters degree from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and is half a dissertation away from her Ph.D. in Art History. She has taught at Christie’s Education in New York City and knows most of what can possibly be known about Modern and Contemporary artists and art market values.

Starting off with a warning shot across the bows of her many nearby gallery competitors, her very first exhibition features a solo effort by Peter Campus, long considered a ground breaking artist who practically invented video art. Campus, whose works have been collected by the MoMA, Guggenheim, Tate Modern, Renia Sofia, and Centre Pompidou, takes over the brand new gallery with a hypnotic seven-screen installation of video landscapes. Tierney figures starting off with a seminal figure in the history of video and new media art is probably a good idea.

In between frantic final preparations for the opening of her new gallery, The Ministry's Randy Gladman caught up with Tierney via email and asked her for her thoughts about starting a business in desperate times and what to buy with my last five grand.