Spent the Day at Scope and Art Asia. I thought Scope was really interesting this year. The problem with scope is it’s always trying to do that one thing that doesn’t make much sense in practice – while in concept it seems great. I’m referring to “The Market”. To me “The Market” felt a little bit like someone got really interested in ETSY and thought they would try to put something like that together here. In your web shorthand “The Market” = FAIL.
However I was really happy with the rest on Scope. The galleries had a lot of interesting work and you could really see the divergent approaches these galleries had in the presentation of the show. Maybe this is the thing that really works for Scope – the fact that I think they prefer galleries to bring no more than five different artists. This just makes for a very focused approach. Any way it really works for me.
I saw a few things that I enjoyed – I’m avoiding things you’ve seen elsewhere or before but focusing on what’s new to me.
Sara Carter at Aureus Contemporary. These grid and process based artworks were right at home in my heart. Where I’m usually more of a physical and minimal painter she is just the opposite – Lots of color and a thinness to the artwork that allows her layers to be built up over and over again.
Huang Yan at Exhibit A. I’m fairy new to the Chinese market and artist, I know a few but not a whole lot of them, and I have no idea how well Huang Yan is known, I do know that the work I saw was really strong. A combination of painting, bodyart and photography made for some very interesting viewing.