Tag: Art Basel Miami Beach

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.

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Quick hits from Aqua and NADA. I’m always pretty happy with Aqua as a fair and this is a good year for Aqua although I guess it’s not as new as it was a couple of years back and as a result it’s hard to keep it on the hipster radar – all in all probably a good thing. One disappointment I had with Aqua this year is the fact that they did not have both the hotel as well as the Wynwood locations this year. It appears the Hotel location was given up – I’m guessing economic forces were involved in that decision.

I have a trickier relationship with the show at NADA. While there is a bunch of art I like there, In the back of my head I’m always thinking that the galleries are all on the same note, and that is not a particularly good thing. I’m sure there are subtleties that you miss at the fairs as it pertains to a galleries program but based on what you see, it is becoming a monoculture in a way I’m not overly comfortable with. I really think this is more a fair thing than when you are actually at the gallery proper.

Here are a few things I saw that made me happy.
+ Kris Graves Projects (Aqua) +KGP is a fairly new gallery in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, I first met Kris at Pocket Utopia and have been impressed with his program. He’s brought a bunch of his artists down with him this year and it’s a great mix of interesting things to see.

Alex Schneideman at Chandler Fine Art (Aqua). Love these. AS makes images that seem like stripped down abstractions but have an added layer of context that brings forth both a documentary approach to a minimal aesthetic, the only question I get with these is where to next?

Randall Scott Gallery (Aqua) The former DC gallery, now in New York has a great overview of his program as well – I was always a fan of his gallery when I was in DC and that continues here

Lori Nix at Miller Bloch (Aqua). I was surprised to see a series of black and white images of hers in the booth. I was caught off guard by these and think these might be worth exploring a bit more. (can’t find a photo – sorry)

Damiàn Navarro at Evergreene (NADA). I really like these amazing monochromatic paintings that share sensibilities with Morris Louis. These were starkly different from much of the other work at the fair – and in that stood out even further.

Sarah Crowner at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (NADA). Crowner sews panels together (not unlike Blinky Palermo) and then stretches and paints into these interesting and dynamic paintings. Her use of velvet alone is both surprising and gets far more than you would ever think possible from such a simple use of the material.

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I spent most of the day at art basel, because let’s be honest it is the best show in Miami. I know that a few people think that Basel is a bit conservative. I disagree, but whatever. There are a few stories that people are trying to move forward about the fair this year, but really these are so manufactured that they become rather uninteresting. Here are the few ones that people are trying to float out there and well I think it’s up to me to refute them.

1. Someone will talk about “Market Transparency”. The truth of the matter is Market Transparency is a child’s dream (with about the same grasp on reality) as it pertains to real world economics in an industry that is driven by privately held companies.

2. Art Basel is reinventing itself. This just makes me laugh. Yes the fair has redesigned the floor plan, and added a few new amenities. But face it, it’s an art fair and commerce is really the name of the game at the end of the day.

3. Sales are up or down. How would anyone know? Someone might get an honest answer from a couple of friends (off the record, of course) So that seems like a great way to gather empirical data on sales during the fair. Remember that part about privately held companies? Now you know what private means.

With that out of the way, here’s a few of the things that caught my eye earlier today.

Agnes Martin: I’m not naming the gallery but when an Agnes Martin is sagging on the stretcher – don’t put it on the wall here. It’s poor form. No I will not name the gallery.

Pace has a Robert Irwin that you could live with in your home (or even your bushwick apartment). The more interesting thing to me was it was made earlier this year. I’ll admit it kind of goes against what I thought he was doing lately. Although it’s been awhile since we last chatted on the phone (I kid, we don’t talk on the phone , we both prefer to text each other). However the fluorescent light based sculpture was strong and self contained.

Christopher Wool at a few galleries. You know I could complain about that but to be very honest here, I love his current work. The more of it I see the more I want to see.

Some German gallery (didn’t catch the name) has a pretty big (20 feet?) Anselm Keifer here – which must mean it’s a secondary market gallery because AK evidently is seriously anti art fairs. Or at least as far as his work is concerned.

Gagossian brought a bunch of early Warhol’s to the party – I’m surprised at this, it seems kind of obvious and can’t they sell them all year long anyway? However at Books and Books tonight I got to paw through the Gago produced catalog of Sonebend’s Warhol’s – that book is pretty amazing. These two items are probably connected, by the way.

Joel Shapiro has a suite of prints at Gemini GEL which I just love. They have been on a real roll lately with the Ellsworth Kelly print last year (see numerous posts on the subject in the blog) and these. Just great artworks. Please do go see them, I know printmaking is kind of the ignored third cousin of the art world these are honestly worth looking at.

Patti Smith at Robert Miller – PS has been taking photographs for just about forever and the images are strong yet personal – like an even more poetic version of Robert Frank.

I don’t even want to talk about this (below) at Deitch.

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