A few of my favorites...
I-CAN-SEE, 2003 by Brian Dewan shown in Pierogi's booth. The man sitting in the picture, the artist himself, was running the filmstrip machine which was timed to a recording that sounded like it came right out of the 60's discussing history and art history. The images flashing on the screen were drawings by the artist. There was a constant crowd surrounding this booth and while I was standing there I overheard a girl saying to her friend that she felt like she should be taking notes for the pop quiz that was sure to come at the end of the slide show. Joe Amrhein, the gallery owner, told me that the installation was for sale for $22,000 which includes the classroom and 10 film strips made by the artist. The artist may drop in on your installation every once in a while to run the film strip machine. This may not be a purchase for the new collector, but a great experience none-the-less.
This is a still from a video by a Stockholm artist named Lars Arrhenius. The video piece is titled The Street, 2004 and was being shown on a Mac laptop computer at Galleri Magnus Karlsson. The video consisted of the scene pictured above moving and changing as the clock on the upper right progressed rapidly through 24 hours. Each figure on the screen moved to a sound recording of nightly and daily noises... snoring, alarm clocks, street noises, babies crying, etc. In 20 minutes you get to experience an entire day with these figures. I was moved by this piece, finding joy in the celebratory movements of the figures giving birth, dancing at the disco, brushing their teeth, shuffling off to work; and, yet, at the same time noticing my dread that what is presented as human activity has an uncanny resemblance to an ant farm where all of our actions are at once predictable and monotonous. The video piece is meant to be projected in large format, an entire room perhaps, and costs $12,000.
I have been a long-standing fan of Marcel Dzama's drawings. This one was being shown at the David Zwirner Gallery and sells for $1,200. I began collecting Marcel Dzama drawings four years ago (purchasing the drawings for between $80 - $200) from the Richard Heller Gallery. Now may not be the best time to be collecting Dzama drawings as the prices have climbed steadily over the last four years, but they remain some of my favorite works and I was happy to see that all of his drawings had sold at the fair.
So, where can you, the budding collector, get in on great deals? I have to say that Richard Heller continues to show great up and coming artists and his booth at the Armory was the place to be for great deals. Run, don't walk, to his gallery (located in Santa Monica, California) and scoop up any and all of the work you can get your hands on.
I loved that installation at Pierogi, too. When I saw it, there was a kid (maybe 9 years old?) and an older woman, maybe in her 70s both sitting at the desks, dilligently writing and drawing with giant pencils on lined newsprint. It was almost as though they were in a schoolroom factory, churning out pieces for the gallery to then tack up on the wall and sell (which actually would have been really funny)! They were so focused, it really seemed to be a part of the piece. In fact, I thought it was a part of the piece until I saw your photograph without them!
Another favorite of mine at the Armory was a DVD and performance artifacts from a trio of Japanese performance artists who collectively go by the name of "Kathy." They are trained in classical ballet, but dance with fishnet stockings or wigs over their faces, make video pieces, black and white photographs of themselves standing in garden landscapes (kind of reminiscent of Anna Gaskell's Alice in Wonderland series). It's all done in a kind of retro-kitsch-pop-culture way, but with a definite edginess that is not all that innocent, very much like the kids in Tokyo that dress up all crazy on the weekends or after school in Shibuya-kei. Still trying to find more information about them! Apparently they did perform twice at the Armory, on Friday and Saturday, but I missed it. But the artifacts from the performance were transfixing and mysterious even without the live performance itself to complement them, which certainly says a lot!
Posted by: Renata | March 16, 2004 at 11:43 AM
I too was taken with Pierogi's piece and hope to buy it. Thanks. I would have guessed it was $95,000 instead of $22,000.
-Value hunter
Posted by: Value hunter | March 16, 2004 at 07:56 PM