Nordic countries provide the special Armory Focus in its third edition this year.  A Nordic Lounge at Pier 94 will feature 19 galleries from Helsinki,Copenhagen, Stockholm, Osla, Malmö, and Reykjavik while Armory Performance will include A Symphonic Poem about the Financial Situation in Iceland from Örn Alexander Ámundason, Performed by Metropolis Ensemble on Wednesday afternoon at the Wall Street Journal Media Lounge.

Elsewhere on Pier 94: Leon Golub’s Transparency, an installation created from works from an early 1990s series by the late artist, will feature at Ronald Feldman Booth 824.  CRG survey small paintings by LA-based Tomory Dodge at Booth 811.  On Stellar Rays has Clifford Owens at Both 521 and Horton Gallery has Wallace Whitney at Book 530.  Edward Tyler Nahem debuts new work from Andres Serrano at Booth 604.  Josée Bienvenu has a solo spot for Guatemala City-based Dario Escobar at Booth 526.  Winkleman, in their first presentation at the Armory Show, are devoting their booth, 536, to a solo spot for gallery artist Jennifer Dalton.

Uptown at the ever-confusing show at the Armory that isn’t the Armory Show, The Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory, P.P.O.W. presents important historic work in Fleshing out the Grid: David Wojnarowicz and Hunter Reynolds.  The Art Show tends to feature more blue chip historic materials than the Armory: Peter Freeman has prints, paintings and a photograph by James Ensor, for instance, while Philadelphia’s Locks Gallery Jennifer Bartlett’s paintings on baked enamel steel plates from the early 1970s until last year. Philip Pearlstein is the focus of a solo display there at Betty Cuningham Gallery

Some galleries of course bridge the divide and show at both.  Nicole Klagsbrun, for instance, has Xaviera Simmons at the Art Show at the Armory and Patrick Jackso at the The Armory Show at the piers, at Book 532, Pier 94.

And just to clarify (or perhaps intensify) the historic confusion, Fountains Art Fair takes place at the 69th Regiment Armory at 68 Lexington Ave, at 25th Street, the locale of the historic 1913 Armory Show from which the whole jamboree takes its name.  Bob Clyatt shows new sculpture at Lambert Fine Arts while Dacia Gallery features Tania Marmolejo among others.

Many arts organizations think beyond the box of any fair location.  Art Middle East, for instance, presents Amir Baradaran’s augmented reality installation, SamovAR and “The Tempest in the Teahouse” at 10 Downing Street on March 10 from 6-8 pm.

Neighborhoods entice visitors on themed days. The Lower East Side has its Armory Arts Week Day on Sunday March 7, featuring on the hour guided tours of the neighborhood leaving from the New Museum from noon to 3pm.  Saturday sees Soho Night: The Phaidon Store, for instance, at 83 Wooster, previews their newest collectors edition from Pawel Althamer.  And on March 10th it’s Brooklyn Armory Night in Williamsburg where selected Parker’s Box artists will project videos at local bars Banter’s, Clem’s and Iona, amongst them John Bjerklie’s Do Not Be Afraid, 2006.

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Stealing a march on the Armory in an early attack of fair fever, Studio Zürcher launches Salon Zürcher Monday night, February 28, in a show that transforms their Bleecker Street premises into a showcase for seven downtown and Brooklyn galleries, Zürcher themselves being one of them.  In view of the size and range of fairs in the offing, this is perhaps a homeopathic dose of the overdose to come

The gallery has been chopped up into booths, handsomely fitted with what are rather sturdy looking temporary walls for a fair.  Zürcher hosts six renowned galleries from the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, some of whom were pioneers of their respective neighborhoods.  It is a way for the New York satellite of the prominent Paris gallery to acknowledge peers among what could be called the “indie” dealers of the offbeat locales.  The idea of proprietors Bernard and Gwenolee Zürcher is that harried visitors to New York for the fairs week will not have time, but will have the desire, to sample the wonders of the Lower East Side and Brooklyn.

Zürcher’s guests are Feature, Inc.; The Journal Gallery; Stephan Stoyanov Gallery; the Proposition; Parker’s Box; and Audio Visual Arts.  The show opens Monday night, 5-8, and might well qualify as first off the mark in Armory Week.

Until March 6, 33 Bleecker Street, between Lafayette Street and Bowery, New York City, 212 777 0790

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CHAMPAGNE ON ICE

A remarkable swell took place after the doors opened, and not just fare-goers making for the various courtesy bars. The powerful and glamorous A-list crowd amassed quickly, imbibed, and prepared to consume art. The mood was generally upbeat and optimistic, if not exactly replicating the feeding frenzy of the “bubble” years.

INEFFABLE OBJECTS OF DISPLACED DESIRE

THE SWEET SMELL OF TRANSGRESSION

Power Londoner Jay Jopling’s White Cube was right at the entrance, with a “real” Damien Hirst skull painting, a wall-scaled Gilbert and George and a seductively ominous work by New Yorker Phillips.

DEEP CONVERSATION

Perhaps they are discussing how you can display a giant yellow swastika and not have that be offensive. McEwen’s solo, “I Am Curious Yellow,” complete with matching carpet, aimed only to please.

SHIVER ME TIMBERS

Paris’s Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin continues to showcase flashy theatrical work from a cutting-edge international stable, very art-fair friendly. New Yorker Coffin’s absurdist hero was one of the few literally over-the-top pieces to be seen this year.

HAVE NUDE, WILL TRAVEL

Veteran master of pop figuration Wesley made a statement with this utilitarian suitcase at the booth of Chelsea gallerists Fredericks Freiser.

GERING IN FLIGHT

57th Street dealer Sandra Gering, now partnered with Madrid’s Javier Lopez, showcases a range of punchy, graphics-oriented work, including this wall-scaled gouache and graphite piece by James.

PYROTECHNICS AND PASSIONS

Nares strong solo at the large, centrally-positioned booth of Chelsea’s Paul Kasmin, featured huge iridescent iconic brushstrokes isolated against dark saturated colored grounds. One of Nares’s movies, with its percussive formal manipulations, was also on hand, adding ambience.

STRIPES AND STRIATIONS

In from St. Louis for a brief 36-hour stay, abstractionist Lundsager was working with Greenberg Van Doren Gallery to plan her solo exhibition, slated for the weekend. A representative work hangs behind her in the storage closet. “I love being here,” she said of New York and its buzzy environs, formerly her home.

A DISCERNING EYE

I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR

“They’re acrylic with silver plating,” he explained. “They’re very temporal.” Best of all, “they kind of record you,” he elaborated. This might explain their popularity. Both works were sold—and Kassay is among the fair’s “hot” young artists.

ALL DRESSED UP AND…

It turned out the lattes were free, if you know Armory Fair-founder Paul Morris, or had another “in.” It seemed like more people were “VIP” than not, judging by the shortage of seating. We’ll see how many make it to the MoMA party, still standing.

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A young, buoyant crowd, enlivened by the day’s nonstop art crush, landed on West 53rd Street to let loose at The Armory after-party to benefit The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

A VIEW FROM A BRIDGE

BACKED BY MOMA DONORS

PERFECT CRANIUM

THREE MUSES

MUSTACHIOED CONNECTION

HEARTTHROB TROUBADOUR

THE BEARDS HAVE IT

THAT’S MONEY

KEEPIN’ IT REAL

NECKLINES AND BYLINES

WHIRLING DERVISH

A TENDER GOODNIGHT

TO OBLIVION – AND BEYOND

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“The second year looks good,” commented Washburn, the type of dealer who makes returning to The Armory Fair Modern a pleasure. Her long-term dedication to a core group of New York School artists has paid off: she has material that no one else even has access to—rarities from estates and other connoisseur gems. Seen here: a 1960 Ray Parker and 1957 Nicolas Carone, with a 2006 Gwynn Murrill feline in the foreground.

SITTING PRETTY

It just wouldn’t be an art fair proper, without Botero and Francis. And those two works provide a provenance for the future: the recent Damien Hirst spin painting directly beside.

THE HAVE KNOTS

A sidelong glance from Knoedler’s Anastasia Ehrich says it all—everyone loves Catherine Murphy’s paintings.

This solo show features the first works Murphy has ever made as a series. She became “obsessed with seeing repetitive things in her house,” I was told. In each, she depicts the ring stains that wood knots make through common house paint, leaving ghost-like circles. Murphy, a master of visual double entendre, locates these within larger plays of geometry and perception.

PAPERWORKS POWERHOUSE

Reinvigorated by their recent move to 11th Avenue, and their launching of the new Senior & Shopmaker space with a show of paper pieces by New York hometown hero, Thomas Nozkowski, these paired dealers are taking their act on the road in search of greater visibility.

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

Suggesting fractured reality, this piece was originally made by the French stripe master for a show at the Hirshhorn Museum, according to the New York dealers offering it.

FISTS OF FURY

Schultz is a globalist, with branch galleries in Seoul and Beijing and a pan-international neo-pop stable of artists. The work he stands before was sold at the outset of the fair for 130,000 euros, he told me. “Tonight, we eat good meat,” he crowed, with Teutonic glee, shaking his fists.

ECCENTRIC ABSTRACT

One hardly expects to see such outré sophistication coming out of a gallery from the rural heartland. Here, geometry is played against personal idiosyncratic vision by three extremists of post-war non-objectivism.

HAIL TO THE CHEF

Art writer Lilly Wei strikes a supplicating pose in the presence of Julian Schnabel’s massive 2007 self-portrait at Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki.

PHOTO BOOTH

From 20th Century photography masters to odd ephemera from newspaper vaults and police mug shot files, here’s a trove of American Studies-worthy artifacts. “The hippest buyers are museums, like the Metropolitan and the Modern,” Winter told me. “They’re willing to buy something more edgy than collectors.” He expanded, “in painting and sculpture, you don’t have the museums leading.” The reason?  “Maybe it’s because they don’t have to re-sell the stuff,” he added, wryly.

MARRIAGE COUNCIL

East End of Long Island veteran dealer Borghi mounted a series of Elaine de Kooning ink nudes, Portrait of Bill—An Intimate View, unflinching and direct. A show of comparative small works by the abstract expressionist couple rounded things out.

A DEALER’S SECRET

Parsons helped launch Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, and Mark Rothko, among others. Her own contribution as an artist is overshadowed. In this rangy survey, viewers were left to connect the many dots: with evocations of Forrest Bess, Milton Avery and Robert Motherwell.

TONGUE AND GROOVE

New York’s Gary Snyder/Project Space Gallery takes a curatorial approach, working the gap between pop and abstraction. Both artists pictured here were represented by Pace Gallery in the 1960s and then fell between the cracks. Maybe the time is right to take another look.

And that’s the art of art dealing at The Armory Show Modern—instinct and timing.

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Timed to open the same week as The Armory Show on the piers, the ADAA’s long-running fair is Blue Chip city, with high-end historical and contemporary offerings. The name confusion between the two fairs is an ongoing source of befuddlement to the general public—and probably part of some larger, intentional strategy.

ROLLING OUT THE GRAY CARPET

POWER PARTNERS

A preview and press conference kicked things off, with remarks from Mayor Bloomberg. Whisked in to the assembled, he responded to a heckler: “Am I here to buy art? Not today.” He went on to cite the economic facts: a projected $44 million in activity for the fairs overall, including some $1.8 in tax revenues. He estimated some 60,000 visitors for the combined events, with 60 percent of those coming from out-of-town.

FEELING VISIONARY

Charles Long, idiosyncratic sculptor of biomorphic follies, was on hand, overseeing the installation of his solo exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar’s booth. This comprises three wall-mounted Saarinen-inspired tables that have undergone surrealist transformations, their tops facing viewers, hiding strange agglomerations behind. Long says he’s giving us an “alternate reality” of “displaced gravitational force,” playing off of the modernist tables and chairs found ubiquitously in surrounding booths.

EMOTIONAL OVERLOAD

“Optimistic” is how gallery employee Allana Strong categorized the Vivian Horan Fine Art booth, with its mirror-surfaced words by local artist Rob Wynne. I asked Strong if she felt her own “invisible life” or “destiny” in their presence. “My destiny, I hope, is to have my own gallery in a few years,” she mused.

JAFFE JUMPS

Tibor de Nagy’s booth is given over to the remarkably sophisticated and exuberant abstractions of Shirley Jaffe, a true “American in Paris” expatriate working at the top of her form at age 87. The artist was in town for Tuesday evening’s planned festivities, to be followed soon by a proper show at the 57th Street gallery.

SPERO’S LIFE LINE

Another strong solo consisted of Nancy Spero’s 1996 piece, “Sheela-Na-Gig at Home,” a clothesline installation strung with unique prints of a female fertility god and various undergarments, accompanied by a video of the artist (1926-2009), which finishes with her saying, “I have to get the dishes done.” Asked if she could relate to Spero’s wry feminist predicament, Lelong director Sabbatino responded, “I have a dryer.”

MATCHING ENSEMBLES

Greenberg Van Doren mounted a fine 1950s-1960s survey of works from the estate of still-underrated ab-ex master James Brooks. The lush brushstrokes of his earlier canvases are pared down to gorgeous graphic Matissian elements in later cut-paper collages.

HEADS YOU WIN

Gallery Michael Werner, of Cologne and New York, juxtaposed modernist works of Francis Picabia with the neo-expressionism of Georg Baselitz and Eugene Leroix and a contemporary work by Thomas Houseago, an emerging talent from Los Angeles. The results are authoritative and convincing.

GERMAN SPOKEN HERE

GESTURE AND FORM

The survey of Roxy Paine drawings and sculptures at James Cohan’s brings a personal response to our post-industrial landscape. His artificial take on nature is showcased not only in “tree” studies, but also in the products of his sculpture and painting “machines.” Gallery employee Goodson spoke of the “accresive process” of dropping heated “low-density polyethylene” on a conveyer belt to pleasingly accidental results. Here’s hoping that fair attendees will make the natural connections to Brancusi and Arp.

This is Blue Chip, after all.

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This was a PIC OF THE FAIRS in March 2010

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This was an artcritical PIC OF THE FAIRS in March 2010

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Armory, First Day Weigh-In

What’s the best way to cope with a Recession–if you’re in the artworld? Expand. And how must you behave? With utter nonchalance, of course.

Hence the Armory–not content simply to be the behemoth fair of contemporary, primary-market work, now has added many mre thousand square feet of secondary-market work (“Modern” and “historically significant” are the official terms). All installed at Pier 92.

Think of this as the ADAA Fair for the ADD set. I, for one, found it much harder to concentrate on a sweet little Vuillard and a sort-of-fierce Jean-Michel Basquiat (both hanging in Boulakia of Paris’ booth) knowing the hooplah of Pier 94 beckoned nearby. For this critic, the splendor of the Armory on Park Ave (not to mention the classier air of Sanford Smith’s house management!) makes all the difference. That said, let me feed you a little “footage” from the artcritical Armory-Cam, as it does a 360-degree pan from the aisle: a Louise Nevelson on the wall of Locks of Philadelphia’s booth; a Sean Scully hard by at Hackett-Freedman of San Francisco; an (always-welcome) Philip Guston (from his later Woodstock years, of course) at James Goodman. No, our camera doesn’t exist; but if it had X-ray vision, you could also include a Wesselman or two, no doubt.
No big surprises.

Still, a nifty video installation from the Starn Twins at Stockholm’s Wetterling Gallery did delight. In it, you’ll watch a massive bamboo structure get built, then climbed-over–only to be dismantled from behind; all the better for the structure as a whole to expand forward, without taking up too much material. A good metaphor, that.

But, ahh, Pier 94 is full of buzz. And indeed, if there is a market bust, the work looks better than in recent years. White Cube of London’s booth bristles with the sort of high-end-ware-energy you want from the Armory Experience: a Damien Hirst dot painting; a Sarah Morris abstraction (which never does much for me, sorry); a Sam Taylor-Wood photo. Latin-American artist Doris Salcedo’s stainless steel chair is crumpled has no back; Antony Gormley’s metal lounge/bench is tortuously poked through with spiky holes. Ouch. Well, collectors are feeling a certain discomfort these days. Best to put it out in a cathartic way, and see if they can make themselves at home. Call it furniture for our uncertain times.

Thanks to Mexico City dealer Patricia Ortiz Monasterio for speaking with us so candidly in her (impressive) OMR gallery’s booth. “I’m not fooling myself,” she said of her expectations for sales. As for her wares, Peruvian-born artist and editor Aldo Chaparro’s text sculptures said what was on our mind. “Chaos” reads one; “Vertigo” another. The former, made of carpet, was colorless and somehow calming. Unrest is underfoot for sure; but there are shades of grey to every situation.

postscript: a couple of snaps each at Pulse and Volta

The post The Armory Show 2009 appeared first on artcritical.

Piers 90 and 92
12 Ave at 50 & 52 Street
New York City

March 10-13, 2006

The Not So Sweet Smell of Success

What can be said of a fair that was enormously successful financially while being aesthetically unsatisfying? Fair officials reported that more than 47,000 collectors, critics, and curators flocked to Piers 90 and 92 and spent more than $62 million, up from $45 million last year. “Feeding frenzy”, a term used by gallerists and collectors alike to describe Art Basel/Miami just three months earlier, seemed just as fitting here. So, why did we have a hard time liking the show? One could simply dismiss our evaluation by saying that our taste was out of step with that of the current crop of collectors. But, we think that our reaction may be more than just personal taste; it is a matter of the overall quality of the work in the show.

Fortunately, there are some benchmarks one can invoke that lend credence to our assertion. Specifically, in regard to quality, which is largely what we mean by aesthetically unsatisfying, there was the recent ADAA show at the 67rd Street Armory in February. In that show, there was a high correlation between the caliber of the artists and the examples of their work shown; i.e., good artists were represented by good works whether the artists were no longer living masters like Mark Rothko, Georgio Morandi, and Milton Avery or strong contemporary painters like Alex Katz and Stephen Westfall. Comparisons can also be made between the current Armory show and last year’s Armory Show; last year, both the artists sampled and the quality of the examples were better. For example, over the years, the Armory Show has exhibited very strong examples of the Scottish painter, Callum Innes, but not so this year, where the examples were undistinguished. Similarly, the Anish Kapoor and Julian Opie’s were not as strong. It was as if the stock of first-rate works had been exhausted.

By way of comparison, there were several concurrent one-person shows in New York galleries showing first-rate examples of first-rate painters (e.g. Dan Walsh at Paula Cooper, Thomas Nozkowski at Max Protech). If the Armory Show had to be characterized in a few words it represented the final capitulation of high art to low art. Alas, Andy Warhol would be high art in this context. If this sounds as if your reviewers are not politically correct, we confess to being guilty. We still believe in quality. It is not that we long for the sublime, just for well done art dealing with significant issues, be they aesthetic or topical. However, if one is not inclined to care about such matters, the show can be great fun. For us, the treasure hunt had a handful of gems to be found among the more than 2500 works on view.

Redeeming Features

If, at past New York Armory Shows, young Germans were featured and often excelled, this fair had a number of excellent galleries from Paris showing a range of witty and intriguing work. Our favorite was Galerie Frank Elbaz who showed the work of two artists unfamiliar to most New Yorkers—Olivier Babin (whose work is discussed in the Postmodern Minimalism Section below and Davide Balula who did a multi-media installation featuring David Warren’s all-important “black box”.This is a typical piece for Balula whose work centers around the interplay of sound, electronics and visual forms in an attempt to actively involve the viewer who is exposed to objects taken out of context.

Some Very Good Painting

While the overall quality of painting at the Fair was disappointing, a growth area of ingenuity and creativity lies in the kind of high-tech beauty that Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe sees on TV and computer screens; it lurks on Photoshop and relishes glamour. The fair shone with the banality, not of evil, but of beauty—a model of beauty derived from the high tech world that captures our cultural moment. An eccentrically-shaped abstract painting by Aaron Curry at David Kordansky Gallery, for example,sat on the floor in a corner and glowed like a neon sign. Also appealing was Benjamin Edward’s painting at Greenberg Van Doren Gallery that used a dynamic deep space to create a glamorous urban landscape with multiple, superimposed images of fashionable people and fashionable architecture in a juxtaposition of urban utopia and dystopia.

An exciting geometric abstraction by Changha Hwang at Galería Marta Cervera used linear shapes with Gilbert-Rolfe’s type of high-tech colors. This painting synthesized Hofmann’s push-pull with the kind of rhythmic sensation of Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie taking them both to a higher power. There was even a Postmodern version of Rothko: Harland Miller’s painting at White Cube/Jay Jopling that used a Rothko composition frame, a lonely penguin, and words that played with the fact that the painter both designs covers for Penguin Books and writes novels for them. And for those devotees of good old straight painting, there was an exquisite shaped canvas by Sylvia Plimack Mangold from 1968 at Alexander and Bonin that did more than depict a floor; you felt like you could walk right up the wall. Perhaps, however, it is the younger painters who have the most to teach us. Works such as Miller’s and Edwards’ demonstrate that it is possible to juggle figurative and abstract elements successfully within the same painting.

Sex in the City

This was a Fair that flaunted sexuality. Amongst a plethora of crass, gratuitous displays of vaginas were also exemplary explorations of the erotic theme: Agnes Thurnauer’s painting, “Love Intercourse” at Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot was a take off on Manet’s barmaid at the Folies-Bergère that captured both her sadness and her sexiness, augmented by superimposed sentences that represented a range of sexual propositions—Postmodernism at its best. Then there was the self-confident, “I am in control” sexiness of Hanna Wilke (1974-1993) whose works at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc. included photos, a video, and vagina-like ceramics. If there was any doubt about sexual tease being a major trend at the Fair, the theme artist was John Wesley who is the master of amusing sexual send-ups.

More Postmodern Minimalism

We introduced the category of Postmodern Minimalism in our review of last year’s Armory Show: the artist takes a minimalist master such as Judd, Andre or Flavin and introduces a content dimension to compromise the purity of the minimalist aesthetic. One of the best examples in this category was an Andre-like series of 48 orange, blue and white bathroom scales arranged on the floor by Jacob Dahlgren at Galleri Charlotte Lund. A second strong example was Olivier Babin’s open black suitcase at Galerie Frank Elbaz. Sitting on the floor containing 10 narrow colored Moreno glass lights arranged in the order of a rainbow, it both simulates the visual punch of a Dan Flavin sculpture and takes it back to its commercial origins of a sampler of colors carried by a traveling bulb salesman. Also at the Fair was one of the pioneers of Postmodern Minimalism, Daniel Buren, who turns the traditional puritanical aesthetic of Minimalism into a funhouse of mirrors. Buren’s playful and visually satisfying pink and white striped wall installation at Galleria Continua seems endless; you step into a little alcove and are engulfed by what appears to be a long narrow corridor. This is smart art.

Photos Yes, But Not All German

Photography was well represented at this year’s fair with some new names. Rodney Graham’s “Allegory of Folly: Study for an Equestrian Monument in the Form of a Wind Vane” at the 303 Gallery is an at once haunting and monumental diptych transparency in a lighbox. The black-clad imperial figure of Erasmus is sitting backwards on his horse while reading a book. The legless white horse is mounted on a small stage at the top of two black steps, an arresting meditation on folly. Isaac Julien’s photograph at Metro Pictures of a man walking in a desert is visually striking. The pinks and blues are delicious with the sun low in the sky, indicating an imminent change in temperature—either to a hot desert sun or cold desert darkness. Jacob Dahlgren’s predominantly black and white photo, “General and Specific Works” at Galleri Charlotte Lund is no more than a foot square and features a busy urban street scene. Prominent is an orange and grey checked wall which becomes the subject of a very large modular painting displayed alongside it. These photographs are a welcome departure from the cool perfection of the German School.

Video Alive and Well

Most of the videos to be found during the fair were in a separate venue at DIVA in Lower Manhattan, but the Armory Show site had two visually compelling examples: Gary Hill’s astonishing video of a foot disappearing into a book with its pages turning back and forth at Donald Young Gallery, and, taking up the entire back wall of Pier 92, Wolfgang Staehle’s compelling real-time live video projection of Union City, New Jersey, which changed with the weather and the time of day. (Staehle is represented by Postmasters Gallery). It was a beautiful and strange sensation—almost as if the wall didn’t exist and one was looking out at the real scene.

Politics was generally AWOL at this fair, with less than a handful of works commenting on the use of violence as an inappropriate national strategy. In a video taken from Iranian television by Christoph Büchel shown at Maccarone, Inc., tension arose from the juxtaposition of the attractive colors and precision of soldiers marching in tight formation and the content of those formations, which included a swastika and a Star of David.

The Nature of Seeing: Fooling the Eye

Works that are difficult to categorize but repaid close looking included Fred Eerdekens’ quirky, handwritten metal piece at Spencer Brownstone. This looks totally abstract until light from above casts a shadow which forms the words, “A very short story with a lot of fiction in the middle and something real in the end”. At Georg Kargl there was also Gabi Trinkaus’ elegant portrait of a woman who turns out to be built up from the smallest collage units one could imagine. The overall impact is like a Chuck Close portrait seen from across a large room.

Panache and Wit

Another positive feature of the Fair was a good sampling of artists who produce works that have a certain degree of panache and wit. William Copley’s delightful coffee table chess set (after Breton) with wine decanters as chess pieces at Nolan/Eckman Gallery was a highlight. Copley was a close friend of Duchamp’s and loved his humor and his ability to make his life a work of art. Copley, although better known as a painter, gets this riff on readymades just right—it is sculptural, conceptual, and just plain fun.

Tony Feher’s eccentrically ingenious wall piece at D’Amelio Terras is made from blue painter’s tape and exists in the same visual field as his apparent take off on Eva Hesse’s rope-like piece, “Right After,” inspired in turn by Jackson Pollock. Feher’s version is bright red with a piece of string suspending a bottle. There is also a wild two-part installation by Valerie Hegarty at Guild & Greyshkul Gallery that referenced a 19th century trompe l’oiel still life, this one replete with stuffed crows. Nicely crafted and tightly structured, it yielded both a Poe-like eeriness and an amusing quality.

Then for reasons we don’t understand, this year, like last year, there is an interest in doors. We counted a least five full size examples–all different and all interesting. Two of the wittiest were Rodney Graham’s glitzy entirely sterling silver door at Lisson Gallery made from Elvis Presley’s actual screen door at Graceland and Terence Koh’s door at Peres Projects which contained a bit of black humor. Koh’s door opened into an all black glossy room with a light above a urinal—perhaps another tribute to Duchamp.

The Role of Art Fairs

Finally, when all is said and done, what is at issue here is the relevance and status of quality. Should art fairs simply hold up the mirror to current trends or should they try to set trends? Or more directly, has quality become irrelevant in this time of voracious buying appetites? The long established ADAA Show and the four-year old Basel/Miami fairs say no; the Armory Show, with us since 1994, if we judge by what art was exhibited this year, says yes. In closing, we offer a simple definition of quality—first-rate artists represented by first-rate works. Is this too much to ask?

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