July 8 to August 12, 2016
170 Suffolk Street (between Houston and Stanton streets)
New York, 212 274 0064

Sticky, squishy, felty, rubbery. Plush, plump, porous.

Part cactus, part snowman-shaped Peep candy, a bulbous form stands a shy distance from the front doors. Shaded a dusty aquamarine, slightly blanched like the surface of freshly cut silicone, three cylindrical volumes perch one atop the other. In tumid contours, this shape vaguely gestures to that the class of object that contains canine chew toys, children’s building blocks, and paraphernalia for the sexually adventurous. Jayson Musson infuses Pedestrian (2014) with unexpected life, bringing the object to the physical scale of the human form. In the placement of this work, curator Feelings (whose book on soft art was published last year by Rizzoli) prepares us for the wealth of sensations to come, abstracted in objects that become bodily in their engagement of ours.

Temptingly tactile, Justin Adian’s works echo gestures that feel intimately human; in Yabba Dabba Doo (2016) a mitted hand crunches closed, while 2^nd Cousins (2016) gives a sidling sway that closes the awkward distance between a baby-boy-blue rectangle and a girlishly pink wave. Spongy, enamel-coated forms cling to gallery walls, creating pastel pop-out patterns detailed by crinkled material and real-life shadow. John Chamberlain’s Untitled (1967) seems to complete these flirtatious motions on the second floor of the gallery, comprised of two partial spheres that kiss, tenderly embracing to become whole.

Guy Goodwin’s cardboard cushions resemble the dotted patterning and depressions of upholstery, an allusion borne out in titles such as Springtime for Henry Grimes (2016). However, we are made sharply aware of the distinction between content and form as Goodwin’s cardboard amoebas stiffly sail through stippled seas. Weirdly plush in volume, these rigid surfaces model structures that they cannot possibly match, distorting internal integrity to achieve the uncanny quality of plastic food or fake hair.

The humble moving blankets that compose Sam Moyer’s series of Night Moves (2009) are impeccably folded, the original patterning of gray and neutral-toned expanses are divided by neat seams, joining one region to another. Regular, orderly ripples traverse each square plane. As with Goodwin’s unyielding bubbles, Moyer’s compositions fall eerily flat, less interested as they are in tactile pleasure, than in clean aestheticism.

Retaliating against hard lines and geometry, Lynda Benglis’s Untitled (1970) makes the fluid discrete in a colorful spill that fails to mar the floor of the gallery. Uneven blocks of color seep stickily in this flow frozen in diffusion, movement caught in permanence. By contrast, Erwin Wurm’s Internal (2016) dissolves that which should have integrity, warping the sturdy exoskeleton of a toaster.

Samara Golden’s pillowy figurative sculptures are tattooed with patterns that feel distinctly, embarrassingly American. Here is the body politic, striated by squiggly bacon strips, foreheads emblazoned with law books and hammering gavels. If we sit too hard and long on the couch — watching conventions, of course — will we too soak up its dull, grandmotherly floral ornamentation? The American flag flourishes across arms upraised in the pose of one of Picasso’s demoiselles. Eyes, painted over these designs and illuminated by a track of fierce gallery lights, look at us coyly sideways. Walk around to other side, and these same limp forms are illuminated by a blacklight that causes a very different relief to manifest: glowing skeletons, skulls, and bones fluoresce. Yet, for these two fronts, there is no substance, no interior.

Airy, insubstantial, empty, hollow, these various works find life in the inanimate and the object in the human. There may not be a whole lot in the way of content here, but that is proudly proclaimed by the exhibition title. This is about substance, but not the intellectual kind; texture is the name of the game and we are awarded with a crunchy, crinkly, plushy show that gives to our gaze as easily and as generously as it would under the weight of a hand. Touch with your eyes. I dare you to feel something.

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Art has found its place in the sun.  This week sees the tenth edition of Art Basel Miami, previewing Wednesday,  with a host of other fairs and art events also taking over the Art Deco Miami Beach neighborhood, the Design District, Wynwood and Downtown Miami.  artcritical will be covering the fairs day by day with highlights and personal reports from our regular correspondents and guests.

Art Basel Miami is the US sister event of Art Basel, the Swiss fair that has taken place on the Rhine since 1970.  The Miami iteration, launched in 2002,  quickly eclipsed the preexisting Art Miami and usurped Chicago, the nation’s previous front running expo.  Some say it has even overtaken its Swiss parent in terms of size, if not earnings.

But Miami is not just for 1%’ers, as our title cheekily implies.  With 40,000 visitors expected through this coming weekend Miami can make credible boasts to be the art Olympics.  Besides Art Basel Miami and the persistent – actually reinvigorated – original Art Miami there are over a dozen satellite (or should that be parasite?) fairs, whether informal, pop up fairs in hotels along Collins Avenue or substantial rivals like NADA, the New Art Dealers Association event, striking out at the Deauville Beach Resort in North Beach, where Rachel Uffner’s stand includes the work of Sara Greenberger Rafferty, or Pulse, in the Ice Palace, where Morgan Lehman features Sharon Louden.  And there are specialist fairs devoted to Asian art, photography, and design.

For all the offshoots and tolerated rivals  (in fact they are encouraged, as Art Basel even lays on free buses) Art Basel does remain the main event.  Aisle upon aisle of blue chip historic shows  (L&M Arts, for instance, with Andy Warhol drawings of the 1950s and ‘60s or Robert Miller with Louise Bourgeois) are cheek by jowl with the latest novelties, or simply fine offerings by mid-career artists like Alexander Ross, on display at David Nolan New York or Nabil Nahas at Sperone Westwater.

For the second year a group of (mostly) New York galleries will present Seven, antidote to the booth after booth overload of the biggies, in which the eponymous seven integrate their artists in a unified display.  Douglas Florian, for instance, is represented at Seven by BravinLee programs.

And this year more than others there are signs of concerted efforts to integrate all this frenzied commercial activity with museum and non-profit cultural centers across the city, offering hopefully more focused and thoughtful displays.  The Bass Museum of Art, for instance, offers a solo exhibition of Austrian sculptor Erwin Wurm while the reviving Miami Art Museum is showcasing Faith Ringgold paintings of the 1960s.

And many local galleries enter the fray  with curated group exhibitions.  Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art at 158 NW 91st Street presents a ten-person international line up, curated  by Omar Lopez-Chahoud, and including New York artists Franklin Evans and artcritical contributing editor Greg Lindquist.  The show is titled “you are here forever…” But as artists, collectors, dealers and casual perusers of art fair craziness must all realize, we are actually here for a weekend.

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