Art Basel Miami: Overview

For the first year since I began my career in the arts, I am lucky enough to be attending the Art Basel Miami festivities in Miami Florida this year. I arrived down here, to beautiful yet muggy weather, and began my foray into the world of art, fashion and celebrities who flock to Miami every December.

The opening night, I attended the "Oceanfront Welcome Party" which was free to the general public after the preview party for Art Basel at the Miami Convention Center. It was held in Collins Park on the beach next to the W Hotel, and included drinks and food. Artist Pae White has created an installation that a visitor could walk through while they are enjoying the myriad of events they are holding there everyday during the fair, including Art Perform, Art Video and a curated music program.

The highlight of my evening was catching a glimpse of Chuck Close, a contemporary artist whose career has spanned more than 30 years. He is most well known for his realist portraits (especially of himself) using a mosaic technique to create the impression of his model's faces.

Here is an example of his work:

Chuck Close

Emma

As you can see from this example, his work is usually done as a mosaic of a
person's face. This is interesting as it is a combination of impression and
classic portraiture. The even more interesting thing is that since 1988 he has
been paralyzed from the neck down due to a rare spinal artery collapse.
That hasn't stopped him from continuing his art career and creating some
of the most recognizable art in the 21st century.

As my trip progressed, I went to 5 different art fairs all together: Art Base
Miami, Art Miami, Pulse, Scope and Art Asia. I was unfortunately unable to
attend every fair, but by the end of the day a fair goer is exhausted and can only
take so much visual stimuli before a nap is in order. Some of the highlights of
the fair include:

Art Basel Miami:


This painting by Sylvester Stallone, although not my favorite,
garnered much attention from fair goers as well as the media.

This adorable tie sculpture, a whimsical addition to all the blue chip art


All the artwork by Ghada Amer, who along with two other artists gave a
wonderful artists talk on sex, politics and the Middle Eastern art scene.


The creative and mind blowing installations by Jacob Hashimoto. I can't believe they
installed this for a 5 day fair. And apparently, they all sold out, fantastic!

Art Miami:

Mondrian, re-imagined as a disco dress!


Karin Davie, one of my favorite printmakers


John Grillo, a living artist whose work can be included among Modern masters

Scope/Art Asia:

And one of my two favorite paintings I saw while in Miami, by artist Ran Hwang

and last but not least:

The meditative and contemplative artwork of artist Lee Sun-Don

There was plenty of other great art, as well as excited dealers who were actually selling things
which is great news for the arts. Let's hope next December is just as great for the fairs!

Joel Shapiro: New Prints at Gemini

As a follower of Contemporary art, Joel Shapiro happens to be one of my favorite sculptors. I am no where near an expert on his work, but I became familiar with his sculptures through a previous job, where an art collector had one of his large sculptures in her yard. Although Shapiro's sculptures in their basic form are pared down rectangular shapes, the balance and contrast of perceived movement in the work is impressive. The way he creates the sculptures, to me, they look like people in different states of motion. There could be a person balancing on a hi-wire, or someone kicking a soccer ball. I imagine this one to be a person taking a happy and triumphant stroll down the street swinging their arms:


It was to my great pleasure to learn of the edition of nine prints he created with Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles. Luckily for us New Yorkers, Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl has these prints on display in a show titled "Boat, Bird, Mother and Child" in their gallery on 980 Madison Avenue. From the website: "Shapiro's prints explore an elegant intersection between reductive geometric formalism and energetic figuration."

MY EXPERIENCE
I attended the opening of the show, and I must say, the screenprints are much different then I would have guessed. Before I viewed the prints, I would have wagered the prints would look similar to his rectangular sculptures, only this time they would be in 2-D. Instead, he still uses geometrical shapes, but as you can guess from the title of the exhibition, the prints look much more like boats, mothers, birds and children then his sculptures do. Similar to laying in the grass and imagining shapes in clouds, his forms can be viewed subjectively; one's imagination can run wild with what it perceives as the subject of each print. I always enjoy this type of art, as it is unique experience for each viewer.

Here is an example of one of the screenprints:

Boat, Bird, Mother and Child (d) , 2009 ( JS09-5322 )
5 color screenprint
28 1/2" x 36"
Edition of 38

Gemini at Joni Moisant Weyl
980 Madison Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, NY. 10075

Laurie Fendrich: Drawings From the South of France

Wednesday I was privy to an opening for a wonderful artist named Laurie Fendrich at Gary Snyder Project Space. For this series, she received a Brown Foundation fellowship and was off to the south of France to begin her endeavor. What she accomplished over the month was a series of drawings, Rayogram* like in appearance, but done all by hand and with black conte crayon no less. The dialog begins to be apparent after viewing several of the drawings together. The small, intimate drawings take on a life of their own with what appear to be repetitious characters that fade in and out of the dark and light compositions:





According the gallery director, she did one drawing per day, which after seeing the depth and detail of the work is pretty amazing. Along with the 32 drawings, the exhibition also included one of her paintings which used similar unique alien caricature forms, although this time they were in color. I found this quote about her work done a few years ago, “A salute to Russian Constructivism, a nod to Art Deco, a bow to 30’s American Modernism, more than a dash of loony cartoony pop culture. But the combos actually work, forming crisp compositions whose bright toylike colors, suave matings of geometric with biomorphic forms, and skilled painting give the work a decorous pizzazz.”

— Grace Glueck, The New York Times
January 17, 2003

Project Space

250 West 26th Street
4th Floor
New York, NY 10001
phone: 212 929 1351


*If you are unsure of what a Rayogram is, it is a series of photographs done by Man Ray using photo paper and the light projection machine. He placed various materials on the photo paper and exposed them to the light machine. He would then move them around, creating interesting light to dark ratios. Please find an example here: http://www2.kenyon.edu/artgallery/exhibitions/9899/douthat/manray.htm

Art Jail

My lovely co-worker, Joyce, (aside from bookkeeper extraordinaire) is an independent curator and recently put together an exhibiting titled "Gauge" at a space call Art Jail. From her website:

Gauge
Participating artists: Tiziana Agnello, John Gagliano, Preeya Jensen, Obermeier-Kraatz with ARTJAIL COLLABORATIVE (Sarah Kuhn, Henri Shedds, David Shull and Kyle Simon)

"Backcountry freedom is being able to shoot your gun, get naked, take risks, revel in the wild and face mortality. The participating artists' works consist of natural materials made of wood, metal, branches, rock, leather and bones, warped by the elements and perverted by vices. The exhibition provokes the audience to gauge the innocence as opposed to the ignorance of the proverbial redneck."

I attended the opening with my husband and we were impressed by the artwork in the show. From an installation involving a tree, dirt and other outside paraphernalia, sheet metal ripped to shreds with shotgun bullets, to the skeleton of a deer, all the artwork really took an interesting look at the backcountry theme from an artist's perspective. The opening was well attended with a band playing a set an hour into the opening and the Little Penguin wine and home made jumbalaya were a nice addition to the usual sour chardonnay you get at an opening. Altogether, a great exhibition to see especially if you are around the chinatown area.

GAUGE

ARTJAIL
50 Eldridge Street, 6th Floor
Between Hester & Canal Street
Metro: F on East Broadway / B,D on Grand Street

Art Jail: Emerging art in Chinatown

Hollis Taggert Galleries

October 8th, 2009, Hollis Taggert hosted an opening for their new show "Marking Modernism: A Decade with Carles, Dawson, and Maurer" which yours truly attended. The show was well hung and an interesting look at artists I am not very familiar with. Arthur Carles was represented well with a number of colorful and very "Modern" looking canvases. Some small canvases were hung along a corridor, which was a well curated space for such little "gems." Manierre Dawson's work, with the exception of a few well placed bright canvases, tended to all be in the beige family and blurred from one image to the next. His paintings were executed well, but not my favorite of the bunch. The prices ranged from the mid-twenties up to about $500,000, so we'll see how the gallery fares with their sales. I was unable to find any Maurer canvases as the exhibition was crowded, so I wasn't able to stroll into as many of the rooms as I would have liked. Overall, I enjoyed the survey of Modernism, but unfortunately was not blown away.

Kandinsky at the Guggenheim

The Guggenheim Museum's 50th anniversary is this fall, and they decided to launch a Vasily Kandinsky retrospective to celebrate. The exhibition consists of over 90 paintings and works on paper, including one of his most famous canvases, Composition No. 8 (the blog is cutting the canvas in half, my apologies:



I was lucky enough to attend opening night, and it was amazing to see so many of his works together. The exhibition was laid out chronologically, which may be a bit boring for the curators but makes an impact upon viewing. It is easy to see how his style progressed as he was influenced by events during the 20th century. You see his canvases start as realist/impressionist which in turn become very abstract, and once he reached influence by the Russians after World War II, his geometric style was realized. Later in his life, the canvases take on a an almost biomorphic feel as he was influenced much more by nature and science. Interestingly, his style drifts smaller as the years go on, and with more detail, which is sometimes the opposite for artists as their eyesight starts to go.

The exhibition is wonderful and encourage as many people to attend as possible.

Art Gallery Openings in Chelsea

The gallerists were out in droves on this chilly but lovely evening in September. Each year, after the dog days of summer have passed, all the galleries in West Chelsea open their doors to the throngs of art lovers and scene seekers who enjoy being out and around art. Last night was no exception! From West 20th street all the way up to West 29th street, people filled the street with glasses of cheap wine and beer, enjoying the culture around them. A few blocks south, the fashion world was also taking the city by storm with “Fashion’s Night Out,” an evening celebrating fashion and shopping in the city. All of the designer stores and large chains hosted parties with DJ’s, special guests, cocktails and raffles all in an effort to boost clothing and fashion sales in these not-so-happy economic times. What a night to live in New York City!