Art Addict

Small Treasures

I discovered some treasures in Chicago. New artists and new galleries for me.

The first was found "upstairs" at Art Chicago. I was only able to spend a few hours at Art Chicago. The fair felt more cramped, most likely because of the lower ceilings and traditional booths that created a mall-like feeling. Tucked away in a corner of a booth shared by Galerie Anita Beckers (one of my favorites) and Galerie Martina Detterer, both from Frankfurt, Germany, were these...

Tossed into the corner like empties at a frat party, these life size gems by Lei Xue attracted a lot of smiles and snickers. Beautifully executed, the artist must sculpt the cans larger than life because they shrink when fired. Applied to the cans are traditional Chinese motifs and colors. Each "can" cost $2,000. The artist made 100 of them. These are the last available and no more are planned. Each can is unique.

Lei Xue, Drinking Tea, 2004-2008, bone china

Calling All Artists!

Paddy Johnson at Art Fag City has scooped me and blogged about the WEST PRIZE before I got a chance to. Thanks Paddy. Tell your artist friends to apply. It is free. I plan on sending as many people as I can to check out work on the "open to the public" site long before the winner is announced.

The picture above shows $125,000 in one-dollar-bills that we borrowed for our booth at the NEXT fair in Chicago last weekend to launch the prize and get the word out. Thanks to all of those generous souls who offered to "hang on to" the money for us until the winners are announced in October.

(Artwork installed behind the tower of cash is 'Michael Jordan, Save the World' by Norm Paris. The artists pictured stacking the cash are Drew Leshko and John Garrett Slaby.)

Chicago Rehash

Over the next few days I will be sharing some highlights, favorite artists, and experiences from NEXT Chicago. In summary, I had a great time and thought NEXT was one of the best fairs I had been to in a long while. I am biased, of course, because I had two booths there (the West Collection and Mixed Greens) and was in attendance for three days straight. I bought art, learned of a few new artists, and sat on a panel discussion about collecting art.

For starters, I must state the obvious and say that the work pictured below was my favorite. (Sorry, the pictures were taken with my phone.) It was so fun checking on it throughout the weekend and watching everyone's faces light up when they realized what was going on. Pictured here are two muscle cars that with the help of hydraulics very slowly crashed into each other - moving an inch at a time over the four day fair period. If you walked by too quickly you'd think you had seen a stationary sculpture. Jonathan Schipper is the artist and the piece is titled 'The Slow and Inevitable Death of American Muscle'. Love that!

Thursday

Friday

Saturday (Jonathan is pictured on the right with beard and beer)

Sunday

Monday

More pics of it here. Thanks to Joe and Susan at Pierogi for showing the work.

If I lived in Chicago...

...or planned to be in Chicago this weekend, I'd be sure to stop by NEXT. Not an art fair, at least in name, it is self-described as an "Invitational Exhibition of Emerging Art."

More international than any other young fair of contemporary art to date, NEXT boasts galleries from every important art city in the world, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Warsaw and Bucharest. The largest collection to date of significant art trends ever assembled, NEXT presents approximately 170 of the best young galleries from every major international center of art production.

I know, I know. Another bleepin' art fair. Like I said, if you are in Chicago this weekend...

I am going to be in Chicago this weekend, as it turns out, and am excited to be introduced to some of these international galleries whose artists I know very little or nothing about. Organizers/fair curators Christian Viveros-Faune and Kavi Gupta have worked hard to put together the "anti-fair" inviting collectors (like myself) to exhibit (and not sell) their collections at the fair. (There will, however, apparently be plenty of art to buy from the 170 galleries showing.)

They have also put together a great line-up of speakers and topics at their Talk Shop. I am personally hoping to go to the Value System: What Gives Art Value? talk on Friday, April 25, at 1 p.m. (The Merchandise Mart Conference Center, 2nd Floor. Panel includes: Jeffrey Grove, Toby Devan Lewis, and Michael Moses). Description of talk:

Inquiring minds want to know what gives art value in today’s market. A collector, an economist, a curator and an art lawyer discuss the ways in which criticism, exhibitions, sales and other relevant aspects impact and form the "value system" of contemporary art today.

This talk will be after my own panel discussion (yes, here's the plug) The Art of Buying Art (sound familiar?) on Friday, April 25, at 11:15 (Merchandise Mart 7th floor). Description:

This panel will encourage a loose discussion of the collecting experiences and models (however established or organic) employed by the panelists, their roads taken and avoided in establishing their collecting practice, the role art collecting plays in their lives, the sense of mission the panelists may or may not feel with regard to their collecting of contemporary art, and the obsession that may personally drive each of these individuals to commit their time, money and energies to collecting as a sustained activity.

Moderated by Heather Darcy. Panelists: Me, Breck Kling, Scott Miller, Andrew Leslie, and Kavi Gupta. See you there.

Overheard (unfortunately) at The Armory

I was standing outside of the Rona Hoffman Gallery booth admiring the fantastic Mickalene Thomas and Kehinde Wiley paintings hung on the booth's outer walls when three ladies in their 30's walked up next to me and began pointing and snickering at the paintings. One said that she was going to go and ask how much they cost. She came back and spewed this...

"The bitch won't tell me how much they are because they're sold. I don't get it anyway. Why would I want to look at black people on my walls all day?"

Unlike this one, here's a funny overheard.

PULSE (and a little LA Art thrown in)

Unlike James and Barry, I was only able to get to three of the six art fairs this weekend. (I am so impressed with their stamina!) I have already posted on the Armory. Here are my thoughts on Pulse and LA Art. (I am sorry that I didn't make it to ~scope as I have heard both good and bad and would liked to have seen for myself.)

I thoroughly enjoyed myself at PULSE. The number of galleries was perfect - not too many (Armory) and not too few (LA Art). I found it refreshing to see many galleries and artists that were new to me. There were three "fair picks" for me (all new-to-me artists from new-to-me galleries):

Ronald Moran at Mackey Gallery, Houston

I didn't know this artist nor this gallery but I was glad to discover both. The boots and entire booth - potenitally dangerous objects rendered innocuous - were inviting and intruiging. (The young fans in the photo were taking cell phone pics of the boots to send to friends.)

John Gerrard at Hilger Contemporary, Vienna

Detail of Smoke Tree I

I am not a techie and not usually drawn to works of art that involve a hard drive and monitor, but I found this piece visually, conceptually, and logistically stunning. The tree breathes on the screen (looks like smoke popping and oozing from the tree branches) in real time (which means that the program is set to a time - Austrian, to be exact - and the background changes subtly from day to night as it does and when it does in Austria) and in a 360-degree setting (which means that the monitor turns in a complete circle and what you see behind the tree changes as you turn the monitor). OK, so I said I wasn't a techie. Please forgive the lousy description. It really was amazing to see in person. Maybe this piece won't be as awe inspiring in 10 or 50 years when this technology is available to everyone, but it will still be beautiful. The one other cool thing about this piece is it is programmed to run for 300 years and at the end of the 300 years the tree dissolves on screen. It is in an edition of seven and all seven had sold at the fair (for $15,000) by the time I saw it on Saturday at 1:00.

Dionisio González at Fiedler Contemporary, Köln

Constant crowd around González's photo

This was one popular photograph at the fair. There always seemed to be a crowd surrounding it (I walked by a few times) and if you listened in on that crowd there were a lot of oo's and wow's and people saying things like "That's amazing" and "Can I live there?" and "How'd he do that?". I am a sucker for crowd pleasing work. It goes with my friendly-to-a-fault nature. I, too, thought this photo was beautiful and extremely well executed. These photos don't do the image justice. It was large and glossy and seemless and stunning. I promise.

Outside of my "picks", I have a few more favorites to share from PULSE:

Flavia da Rin at Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt

These photos were creepy, but I liked them. Maybe they'll appear too cute for me the next few times I see them, but they gave me a punch at the fair. I noticed them easily and liked that I couldnt think of any other photographs that seemed similar.

Erwin Olaf at Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris

Speaking of creepy, with not an ounce of cute... These photos are all set up in a studio - the artist hires the actors and builds the sets. Their weird "lost in time" quality appealled to me and the fact that I couldn't figure them out immediately prompted me to ask to see more. Magda, the gallery owner, was very nice. I like nice gallery owners, too.

I failed to take photos of some other work that I liked but felt I should list and link on the off chance that someone has read this far into this post and perhaps is looking for more great stuff:

Andrew Sutherland at sixspace (If the whole "tree limb" in the booth had been available I would have bought it, and I really enjoyed finally getting to meet abLA's Caryn Coleman in the flesh - speaking of really nice gallery owners.)

Zoe Crosher's photos of pools at DCKT (Because summer is almost here and they were $900.)

Leonardo Drew's rusted wall piece at Finesilver Gallery (Because it was a blast from the past - I bought a work of his in 1996 - and I appreciated seeing such a large work of art at a "smaller than the Armory" art fair. And I like Eleanor Williams.)

One last tid-bit on LA Art (The quiet art fair. But quiet or not, everything in which we inquired had sold, so they weren't doing too bad as a last minute fair)...

I loved seeing Richard Heller, as always, and had to end this post with another gush and push for Amy Bennett. (He has a solo show with her slated for January, 2007.) Gorgeous...

Seen and Bought at The Armory

I am embarrassed to admit that I failed to write down the information on this piece. I am going tomorrow and will be sure to catch it.

I was able to preview the Armory today during the "Press Preview." Like me, very few people at the "Press Preview" appeared to be Press. And, like me, a lot of people were buying art today. Many of the pieces I inquired about were sold "an hour ago." I predict that by tomorrow (Friday) afternoon anything worth buying at the Armory will have been bought. Like last year's Art Bsel|Miami Beach, this fair promises to be a buying frenzy.

A buying frenzy for what, though? Most of the art I saw today I had seen before. There were very few surprise artists and even fewer surprise works. There are many international galleries showing this year, but, most of them are showing artists represented by New York galleries.

Enough negativity, though. (It really isn't me.) I had a lot of fun today and picked up some exciting art for my collection. I stayed away from the "big and flashy" and had more fun discovering and buying more intimate works. (Last year I went for big and flashy and walked away with two video pieces and two installations.)

As always there was a crowd gathered at Pierogi. This year it was to witness Jonathan Schipper's Invisible Sphere. I always enjoy Joe's booth (and gallery) because he has something for every type of collector - big spenders and conservative collectors. I picked up six drawings. Two by Darina Karpov, a young Russian artist living and working in New York. The image here doesn't do the work justice. (If you can even see the work in this image - Sorry!) They are beautifully drawn in ink and watercolor...balanced and poised from afar, and quirky and surprising up close. Each large drawing was priced at $2,500. Joe also had smaller ones selling for $1,200.

Darina Karpov, detail

I also picked up a few drawings by Martin Wilmner. I didn't get photographs so I've linked to Pierogi so you can check them out. The map piece I purchased at Pierogi was selling for $3,000.

Harris at Pierogi

While at Pierogi I had a star sighting (outside of the many art star sightings, of course). Doogie Howser, MD (aka Neil Patrick Harris) and friends seemed very interested in a lot of work at the booth and put a hold on a drawing by Darina Karpov.

Amy Bennett at Galleri Magnus Karlsson

The big winner for me this year (and a Buy, Buy, Buy! recommendation) goes to Amy Bennett. I immediately fell in love with these paintings for their beautiful finish (extremely high gloss) and wonderful imagery (I'm a sucker for anything suburbia-based). Hopper and Hockney with a feminine touch. These paintings were being shown by one of my favortie galleries (discovered at last year's Armory), Galleri Magnus Karlsson from Stockholm. Amy's from the United States - Brooklyn, to be exact - so it was odd to discover her at a Swedish gallery. She has also shown at Linda Warren Gallery in Chicago and has a show coming up in 2007 at Richard Heller Gallery in LA. Magnus Karlsson had four paintings available in his booth and three were sold by the time I got there. I purchased the last remaining painting. The prices for the works in the booth ranged from $2,000 - $7,000 depending on size. I also picked up a new video work by Lars Arrhenius showing in the booth.

Martin McMurray at Susanne Vielmetter/Los Angeles Projects

Martin McMurray and Susanne Vielmetterr/Los Angeles Projects - both artist and gallery are new to me. There are multiple paintings similar to the one pictured here (despots in cars) hung in a grid. These paintings gave me a giggle and, yet, I appreciate their naive and mature qualities. Each painting (roughly 20" x 24") is priced at $4,000. The one pictured is mine.

So, there you have it. My small and intimate glimpse into this year's Armory. I am happy to report that there are still "affordable" works available at the Armory, but, they are few and far between. On reflection of today's tour I am surprised that I can't recall any impressive photography. This is extremely odd for me because I am usually drawn to photography and most of my collection consists of it. A nice surprise to be wowed by drawings and paintings this time. I look forward to seeing and buying at Pulse and LA Art on Saturday. Check back for "Overheard at the Armory". There were some doozies...

Overheard at Scope ~ Hamptons

scope~hamptons art fair came and went like a summer fling. From July 15 - 17 roughly 40 galleries exhibited at Hampton Hall in Southampton, NY. This was the mini-me of art fairs. Fewer galleries, smaller booths, less artwork. I was able to see the entire fair moving at a leisurely stroll in about 30 minutes. But it is summer, after all, and it was nice not to have to put too much effort into viewing or purchasing art.

For an indepth review of the art see Ben Davis' purely positive review at artnet.

At the opening party at Hampton Hall I overheard a woman telling a dealer (in a very high-pitched squeak) that she was excited to come to the party and that she “had no idea that there would be all this cool art at the party.” She then asked, “Why would all of you bring all this art out here just for a party?”

Good question.

What a Collection!

Yesterday's MUG (Manhattan User's Guide) post included a link to a web site where collectors can "show off their stuff". What A Collection! allows anyone to create their own "collection website". Only one collector on the site claims to collect art, but the details reveal that she collects "dessert art plates". Even though there aren't any art collectors, I enjoyed checking out the weird and whacky stuff people spend their free time (or work time) searching for. As weird as thay all seemed at first, I quickly realized that their obsessions/addictions stem from the same nutty lobe in their brains as my obsession with art stems from. My favorites: bathtub postcards, condiment packets, Dew Drop Inn memorabilia, and scooters. Who knew that there are two people in the world collecting Diner Models?

PS - Ee gads! Sorry about the break in posts. I've been away for work and pleasure. Back now.

One Definition of a Collector

This quote was left in a comment on one of my recent posts and I thought it so poignant to this blog that I had to highlight it here...

There is a distinction to be drawn between true collectors and accumulators. Collectors are discriminating, accumulators act at random. Russel Lynes (1910-1991), Cultural Critic

Thank you for sharing Witold. Check out his artist recommendations.