Is publishing art dead? I don’t think so especially with new “publications” like The Thing Quarterly and North Drive Press stepping up to deliver some really interesting packages of high quality – low cost art objects.
This winter I received the latest North Drive Press and was thrilled with the package. Your mileage may vary, but these are really a lot of bang for the buck.
Here are the links:
http://www.northdrivepress.com/
http://thethingquarterly.com/
I apologize for the bad reference in the title, however I do have some good news to share with everyone.
Here’s the story: In June I was approached to show a few photographs at “Hon Fest” in Baltimore. I said yes or else this would not be a story you are reading. A collector there saw my work in the space and spoke to the owner that he was interested in purchasing some of the photo’s. Well long story short, he just bought every photo I was showing.
Yeah! (for me).
I want to come right out and thank John Starling at Smith Content for arranging the show as well as his devotion for pursuing the sale. John runs a great writing studio in baltimore with local as well as national clients – Follow this link to his site.
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Let’s start with my catching up with yesterday information about Flow.
Arthur Roger Gallery (New Orleans) is showing Nicole Charbonet (top) whose built and developed paintings are a new interest if mine – I became interested after seeing them in ArtPapers magazine and in person they are as strong as they seemed.
Kenise Barnes (Larchmont NT) is showing Robert Flynn (above) who does these amazing charcoal and graphite images of sod. I know this sounds weak – but it’s just the opposite. These are amazing images and deserve your attention. A recent work is based on trophies and “boy toys” (my phrase) – well worth searching out. I understand he also does some amazing sculpture of items found in Home Depot – it sounds good so I’m waiting for that.
Miller Block (Boston) is showing Lori Nix who was gotten enough words from me in the last few days. So you know that you should be looking at her work a good bit.
After Flow yesterday, I had even lower hopes for the Bridge show. So I walk in and am handed the second largest and physically intimidating catalog of the last week – its almost the size of “Parabola” that I mentioned on wednesday ok, it’s half that size – but its still big -like an old issue of “Interview”. Again Flow is probably the best of the fairs after ABMB and I was also surprised by the high quality at Bridge as well. I really did think these two shows were just me too art fairs – I was so wrong. Both of these shows have set the bar very high, in fact it might be that these “late bloomers” are the real future of what is going on in Miami for the next few years as far as growing the orbiting events. Neither one is using the whole location, nor are they tied to any single location giving these events the ability to grow and shrink with almost no downside. Don’t get me wrong, AQUA is a great event, however the AQUA Hotel is already full so what’s next? Other than a deeper editing in the gallery selection process, I’m not sure.
So lets get to what I saw… Johnnie Winona Ross (above) is showing a painting and a great set of prints at Elin Eagles-Smith (San Francisco) – since we last spoke about JWR – he has developed a waiting list for his paintings – but a few prints are still available. I’m as thrilled with his work as I was last year.
Trillium Press has some great things going forward, including a book of David Mamet Cartoons.
Front Room Gallery (Brooklyn) is showing works by Emily Roz Who creates large grids of images taken from movies and television. Using Polaroid film she is able to mimic the look and feel of images flickering on screen. She also is able to hold up a mirror depicting formula and genre of the american landscape.
PierreFrancois Ouellette (Quebec) is showing John Latour as a re-staging of his show, “Lost Words”. Latour is one of four who make up this show – his work occupies a space between Joseph Kosouth and edited FBI documents.
Andrew Edlin (NYC) is showing swiss photographer Mario del Curto (below) photographic the work of architect Richard Greaves. These feel like the work of someone photographing the folk art of the American south however most of these were shot in Canada – and it hardly matters. The images are eccentric and familiar, yet have are fascinating in a way thats hard to ignore them.
Back to AQUA
I meant to spend a few moments with Isaac Layman, however when I as there he was pretty busy with some folks so I put off the conversation with him for a later date. That said, lets touch on his work a little so you can see where my excitement is coming from. IL’s work sits in a relationship between the detail and the whole – it shows that the parts are more complicated than the larger whole. These images recall a sort of updated cubism that is all the more fascinating in that he is building images based of many smaller images toward a collective whole. A macro/micro type approach. Isaac Layman is showing at Soil
Platform had a number of nice Jaq Chartier’s paintings. These are always a strong and continue to impress me with the vernacular of the image that is built and referenced throughout all of the works.
Leave a CommentLet’s start with the celeb sightings today – frankly I’m tired and need to do the easy stuff first. Jay Z and Beyonce this was a total fluke. I was leaving through the most inconvenient door – because where I was going was right on the other side. I get my bag checked and the next thing I know – I’m looking at this really beautiful woman – with big eyes and the most perfect skin I’ve ever seen. Pretty amazing, so it took me a few moments to see the bodyguards – and then there was HOV. The amazing thing is that I always assumed that he was like 6’2″ in fact he is more like 5’10”. 5’10” nicely dressed though. It was then I realized who it was – I’m the worst on that stuff (although reading this week, you’d think it was all I do.
Dennis Hopper I attended the “art loves movies” event last night for a special screening of “Easy Rider”.(full disclosure – I had never seen this all the way through before) Hopper mentioned that at the time he was influenced by Allen Darcangelo, Ed Ruscha, and a few other of the california artists at the time. Funny thing you can really see this during the quieter road scenes, which granted act as a transition between scenes, but still the influence is there.
The secret mass transit system I think some people know this, but did you know there is a mass transit system that effectively links all the art fairs together? Here are the basics – every fair has a bus that goes from ABMB to the other events – AQUA, NADA, and ~pulse. So your basically looking at a web of bus trips that emulate from the big show at the convention center. This has probably saved me and a number of folks a ridiculous amount of money in cab fares.
NADA This is a good show. Saw some really interesting stuff here – most of it I had not seem before. Murray Guy is showing Matthew Higgs (above), and other than having a great first name, his work is just great. While reusing book elements, he isolates them and allows the viewer to apply outside thinking to his work. This is not far from the process that William S. Burroughs and Bryon Gysin developed in the seminal book “The Third Mind”. Samson Projects (Boston) is showing the classical nudes of Gabriel Martinez. Galerie Olaf Stuber (Berlin) is showing just a couple of photos by Poison Idea. Galleri Christina Wilson, and White Columns had a few really interesting pieces as well.
Flow Art Fair is probably the best of the smaller fairs. I know this is saying quite a little bit. here’s the deal, the galleries are positioned below ABMB but above the NADA and AQUA fairs – and maybe this is just me but the quality seems higher than all of the rest (with the exception of ABMB). I was real dubious of the show – thinking it was just a me too type of event. A bought a Lori Nix(not the one above) from the Block Gallery in Boston. I was pretty giddy after that and completely ignored doing any kind of legitimate note taking. So sorry about that – I’m going back Saturday and I’ll have some real notes for you then.
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It’s going to be one busy town this weekend – I mean even breakfast was insane. at 10:30 on a thursday you would think breakfast was starting to slow – in fact it was just getting busier. Saturday morning this town just might explode. While the town is getting heated, so are some of the major collectors. The Art Newspaper which told the story yesterday about the hotels jacking up prices, the collectors are saying the same about the dealers. Leslie Waddington is quoted as saying, “What are they complaining about? dealers also hike the prices when things are going well.”
I’m thinking as the fair gets bigger, the next step will be the larger galleries hosting their own show around the fair – there are enough empty store fronts that a Pace or Gagossian could easily host their own event – catering to clients with a larger inventory, and more exclusivity. This has been the norm in traditional retail for years – shows within shows. I would not be surprised to see the mega galleries take this route at some point – soon.
AQUA Art Fair
Aqua had more ups and downs this year than last. However the highs are higher but the lows are much lower. I would rather not name names – and I will not. That said there are a few galleries here with the stink of trying to be too far ahead of some “avant-garde” curve, which is not going to come. However I would like to point out a few galleries that are really showing a rigorous and exciting program.
Steve Wolf Fine Arts out of San Francisco has a great showing of a number of artists. Soil from Seattle is an interesting artist co-op. Isaac Lymon (image above) has some very interesting photo/collage work – well worth looking into. I hope to interview him one-on-one Saturday. I’ll be sharing that conversation as long as my fingers hold out. Other Gallery (Winipeg) is the biggest pleasant surprise on the whole show. This gallery is showing innovative, original and somewhat quirky artworks. Michael Dumontier (bottom) is a real standout to me, with his reductive, simple and engaging artworks. Especially his “matchstick” works. Irivine Contemporary (DC) had a strong showing – especially interesting are the photo works of Kahn & Selesnick (below) whose work is showing in January. This is well staged work but not like a Gregory Crewdson – these have a depth and a feeling of authenticity – not of a fantasy, but of reality. Amy Kaufman at Trawick (SF) I could use a good bit of research on her work as it seemed interesting as well. Sixspace Culver City CA, has a interesting group of artists including Coop, and Glen E. Friedman.
More on AQUA later in the week.
ABMB – Art Positions
There is a type of High Art/ low art game that is being played in the Art Positions containers. Almost all of this work is forgettable and I hate saying this – I’m lead to believe that these are people with new ideas and approaches, however it seemed like it was a well organized attempt to take the mantle of cutting edge art from whoever is currently holding it and I have no idea who that is. Artists have been working on the high/low for quite awhile now – it’s not like this is a terribly new idea or even approach. So where are we going?
This dour thought has lead me to think about the long form video that is presented in the “black cube”. People rarely “sit” through these videos all the way – so I wonder about it’s long term power as an art form. Is there a better way to present this kind of work? I know that art needs to grow, and video is doing this – but where do we go from here? Because the current approach to presentation is about the worst possible.
ABMB
I saw a husband and wife buy a Warhol “Brillo Box” today and it was a great thing to watch – you could see the pride in the collectors buying it, you could see the happiness in the sellers selling it, then a pragmatic question came from the wife. “Is there a way to protect it when we entertain guests?” which was a great question because along with the pedestal that the “Brillo Box” was sitting this sculpture became the perfect height for all their friends to put empty glasses on during a party. So I sat back and listened to the five of them (husband, wife, gallery owner and two assistants) come up with ideas to temporarily protect the box. It was almost like a scene out of a sit com – charming as well as amusing. Still watching the couple buy that piece – beaming with pride – and I’ll admit a was proud for them as well.
INK
Ink was a charming and wonderful small show. At the same time it was held in hotel suites – which made it nice not to have to go into someone bathroom to look at the art for a change. The whole fair was different – very polished and sedate – but lacking that go, go, go, sell, sell sell approach of the other fairs. I had a lovely conversation with Diane Villani about how great it was to see Jennifer Bartletts “Rhapsody” at MoMA as well as her beautiful series of prints called “House”. If I could I would have bought them there and then. INK just had a happiness and calmness that has not been seen elsewhere.
If I’m not mistaken INK has come about due the Art Basel not inviting the Print House’s back to the big show – I do believe that there is a certain school of thought that believes the print arts are second to the other art disciplines. I can see this happening to the book/artist book crowd next – they have been relegated to a hallway out side of the show, but in the same building. The ateliers and books as art crowd needs to be represented under the big tent somehow – lets hope that INK can carry on, but that ABMB will find a way to bring some of the print houses back.
Tomorrow: Flow, Bridge and ~Scope art fairs
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