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A Quick Walk Through Frieze Yields 10 Artists to Watch

October 14, 2014 by Elena Soboleva

Elena Soboleva (@elenasoboleva) is a Specialist at Artsy.

Will Boone, GOLIAD. Courtesy of Jonathan Viner, London

Sail past the crowds admiring Kusamas, Condos, and Emins. There will be plenty more in the next fair and the one after. Instead, this week at Regent’s Park, stop by these 10 booths and galleries to check out what’s really new. And I don’t mean Christian Rosa new; you’re not going to find the majority of these Under the Influence while at Phillips nor at Christie’s First Open, quite yet. With strong examples of sculpture and installation, these artists invade London and push material boundaries and art fair-goers’ attention spans, while challenging viewers to elevate their cognition.

Musson_JMu80_StoneRiver4

Jayson Musson – Salon 94 – Booth A1

Unleashing ‘Hennessy Youngman’ persona on the U.K. in the form of cryptic pseudo-iconographic canvases, (based on comic book perceptions of what ‘modern art looks like’) Musson rewrites pop-culture with his own unique take. He currently has a show at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in his hometown of Philadelphia with Alex Da Corte, and this week brings his humor to the Brits.

Michael Rey, Knimpp, 2014. Courtesy the artist and Office Baroque, Brussels

Michael Rey  – Office Baroque – Booth B11 

Hailing from L.A., Rey’s “IBJECTS” are hybrid forms which occupy a space between between image and object. Made from oil on plasticine clay on panel, the works are flat near-recognizable shapes that intersect painting and sculpture with holes, which the artist calls “orifices, points, or measures of space.”

Ben Schumacher – Croy Nielsen – Focus, Booth J7

After curating a summer show with Berlin’s leading space for emerging talent, Croy Nielsen, Ben Schumacher presents his analog-meets-digital sculptures at Frieze. Packing more information than any press release could convey or hard drive could contain, his elaborate systems push the limits of conceptualization into sleek forms.

Michael Dean. n (Working Title), 2013. Courtesy always Supportico Lopez, BerlinMichael Dean – Supportico Lopez – Focus, Booth G21

Drooping, tongue-like, and corporeal in essence, Michael Dean’s “Analogue” series (left), are equally evocative and lethargic while propped against the walls. Berlin gallery Suportico Lopez is bringing his sculptures to Frieze along with some excellent pieces by Zin Taylor and Steven Bishop, promising an all-round great booth.

Laure Prouvost – MOT International – Main, Booth F7 

For a mid-fair respite, melt into one of Prouvost’s films. This pixie-cut, French queen of video, who unexpectedly claimed the Turner prize last year, has recently turned the hearts and eyes of many Americans her way. MOT presents Grandma’s Dream, 2013 which compliments the Turner Prize piece and employs whispers to tell a personal narrative.

Ante Timmermans – Barbara Seiler – Focus, Booth J12 

Presenting an enveloping installation that delves into philosophical tropes of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot along with a five-member dance troupe, Belgian artist Timmermans brings his laborious drawings and performances to Frieze. He synthesizes repeating motifs such as the donkey, a traditional animal of burden, along with symbols of order and control. 

Jonas Wood. Orange Orchid Clipping, 2014. Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles

Jonas Wood – David Kordansky Gallery – Main, Booth C1

Bringing West Coast cool to the grey U.K. shores, Kordansky presents a booth including L.A.-based Jonas Wood, an artist who American collectors have been chasing for couple of years (and whose works have made it to Phillips). Wood creates collages, which then in turn he paints; the final, flat effect is akin to something that Matisse would’ve created, had he been living circa now and a devoted NBA fan. In his works exquisite fauna and hip-hop culture collide.

Virginia Overton – Freymond-Guth Fine Arts Ltd. – Focus, Booth H17

Working in abstract sculptural forms that tend to challenge the nature of the materials used, Overton creates pieces with rigor and poise. For Frieze, she is in the Focus section upheaving and upending her practice and the floorboards.

Justin Adian. Photo by Elena Soboleva. Courtesy of the Artist

Justin Adian at Skarstedt + Eddie Martinez at Timothy Taylor + Will Boone at Jonathan Viner Gallery 

Recalling the American generation of manly AbEx personas, this is what happens when you take New York’s bearded boys (Boone has yet to grow his) and transplant them to London. These three, who are all friends back at home, will be occupying London and your Instagram feed—and they’ll be having more fun than anyone else, along with the Half Gallery and Karma crew. 

Justin Adian’s well-deserved first solo show in UK at Skarstedt opened this Monday. His warped and malleable forms have a quality which is irresistible in person. Playing with tension between canvas and wall, sculpture and painting, the ‘Backlit’ works cast iridescent shadows.

Sunday Art Fair 

Lastly, if you really want to see some great emerging art, make your way over to The Sunday Fair just down the street from Frieze. There you will find Zürich’s BolteLang, London’s Seventeen Gallery, New York’ s Laurel Gitlen and Kate Werble, and Detroit’s What Pipeline. All 24 participating galleries are carefully chosen and excel at curatorially driven art installation and artists who are way more substance than hype.

Photo credits: Will Boone, GOLIAD. Courtesy of Jonathan Viner, London; Jayson Musson, Stone River IV, 2014. Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York; Michael Rey, Knimpp, 2014. Courtesy the artist and Office Baroque, Brussels; Michael Dean. n (Working Title), 2013. Courtesy always Supportico Lopez, Berlin; Jonas Wood. Orange Orchid Clipping, 2014. Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles; Justin Adian. Photo by Elena Soboleva.

Elena Soboleva: My Armory Show Top Ten

February 28, 2014 by Elena Soboleva

Elena Soboleva 2014Elena Soboleva is a Specialist at Artsy, and one of the guides at the Armory Show. @elenasoboleva

So here is a look at ten booths you should check out when you are at the Armory Show in New York next week. (Full disclosure: my insider art knowledge comes from working on the Armory Show preview for Artsy, which has partnered with the fair for the second year in a row to bring it online, and provide me with ample opportunity to contemplate the works ahead of the VIP opening.)

With an impressive list of over 200 galleries and a highly competitive selection process, this iteration of the fair is bound to have a self-assured vibe of not trying too hard. Many big names such as James Cohan, Sikkema Jenkins and Thaddaeus Ropac are new, while a multitude of younger European and Asian galleries, both new and returning, will be showing fresh talent coming to light. This year’s curatorial focus is China, which is extremely relevant, but far from my area of expertise, so I leave it to people who know far more.

Skip the Israel Lund at Roberts & Tilton.  There’s a 100% chance it’s long-sold, months before it was created, to a bigger collector than you.  If you really want to try your luck, maybe add yourself to the wait list for one of the Harold Ancarts at CLEARING Gallery, which sit there like fine tropical birds—to be desired but not captured. You might even spot a few of these rare breeds, if you get the coveted invite to the Hort’s Sunday Armory Brunch—and if the Horts have them, then what are the chances for the rest of us.

Instead, let’s talk about emerging painters and new media. Here are the booths I am most excited to see at this year’s Armory Show.

Hayal Pozanti Technocream (Image courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman Gallery)
Hayal Pozanti
Technocream
(Image courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman Gallery)

Jessica Silverman Gallery  (Pier 94 – Contemporary, Booth 761)

The booth is part of the inaugural edition of Armory Presents, a curatorially tight section of the fair dedicated to newly-established dealers and younger artists. The San Francisco gallery, and preeminent outpost of emerging talent on the West Coast, will present Hayal Pozanti’s new series of paintings.  With names like Technocream and Archival Alchemy, the irresistible canvases depict rounded geometric forms derived from subconscious doodles, GIFs and digital rendering which reconcile the digital world with canons of modern art.

I8  (Pier 94 – Contemporary, Booth 609)

There are a lot of interesting artists out of Iceland and Northern Europe dealing with temporality and the laws of visual and metaphysical perception disguised in post-minimalist form.  This booth is a Nordic haven and will feature Olafur Eliasson, Thór Vigfússon and Alicja Kwade. My personal favorite is the Ragnar Kjartansson photograph from his S.S. Hangover voyage, which sailed across the the Venice Arsenale at last summer’s biennale.

Jon Rafman Monet Master Bedroom,  (Courtesy of the artist and Zach Feuer Gallery)
Jon Rafman
Monet Master Bedroom,
(Courtesy of the artist and Zach Feuer Gallery)

Zach Feuer (Pier 94 – Contemporary, Booth 821)

At every fair, I am ever more blown away by Jon Rafman’s works. With the recent cameo of his morphed heads in the RoboCop film, the rest of the world also seems to have caught onto my obsession. The Monet Master Bedroom and De Kooning Hallway are especially amazing—they are unreal environments, digitally created to transmute iconic artwork into the physical realm, through 3D modeling software. Paired with new shingle paintings by Marianne Vitale, this booth is not to be missed.

James Fuentes LLC  (Pier 94 – Contemporary, Booth 781)

The solo booth of Jessica Dickinson’s works on paper is a thoughtful and slow contemplation, that’s a rare find amidst any art fair, where mirrors and neons are the usual modus operandi. Her works are explorations into material flesh of paper itself and subtle color modulations. They are meditative, strong and will serve as a perfect respite from the visual barrage of everything else.

Marianne Boesky Gallery  (Pier 94, Booth 604)

After that edgy WSJ feature, and a killer lineup of new talent including Andisheh Avini and the current show of Kon Trubkovich, Marianne Boesky has been turning heads this season. She delivers another ‘art star’ of the rise, with a solo booth dedicated to Serge Alain Nitegeka. The constructed planes of of wood and black contrasting shapes are exquisite and have depth and focus. With Julia Dault now on the roster as well, things are just heating up for this gallery.

THOMAS RAAT The 1958 Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting 2012 (Courtesy the artist and BolteLang, Zurich)
THOMAS RAAT
The 1958 Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting
2012
(Courtesy the artist and BolteLang, Zurich)

BolteLang  (Pier 94, Booth 779)

Thomas Raat was a new name to me before the Armory, but he has shown extensively around Europe and will have Zurich’s BolteLang Gallery booth dedicated to his vividly geometric, whimsically abstract and overall delightful paintings. They are a real gem,  with an unpretentious price point and unique floor display. This should be a destination for any younger collectors looking to discover a new name.

Cardi/Cardi Black Box (Pier 94, Booth 725)

Many dealers like to approach art fairs as a chance to curate and explore themes and intersections of multiple artists’ practice. This year, Cardi promises one of the sharpest presentations with series monochromatic edge that will feature Andy Warhol’s Knives (a jarring silkscreen of just that), a stunning white Fontana slash painting from 1966 and Scott Short’s series of 2013 works. Short is a forerunner to much of today’s process paintings and his pieces are actually re-painted versions of photocopied black and white sheets of paper.

Galerie Rodolphe Janssen  (Pier 94, Booth 507)

The program of this Brussels based gallery has gotten a lot of international attention and has become one of the main spaces for emerging American talent to show abroad.  The gallery will be working with all the members of The Still House Group on a series of upcoming shows. For the Armory, Janssen is bringing a collection of uniquely figurative works by subversive artists including Betty Tompkins, Sean Landers and Chris Martin amongst others.

Peter Blum Gallery  (Pier 94, Booth 709)

New Yorkers never tire of Alex Katz, a timeless favorite at the Armory.  This year one can expect to see his works at no less than six booths. Blum is leading the pack and dedicating his space to Katz’s recent portraits and nature vistas.  The paintings are all cropped off-kilter, gaining dimension in context of one another. Gavin Brown’s Enterprise showed a solo booth of Katz at Frieze last fall and now Blum is choosing a similar approach in New York.

Travess Smalley Vector Weave (Courtesy the artist and Higher Pictures)
Travess Smalley
Vector Weave (Courtesy the artist and Higher Pictures)

Higher Pictures (Pier 94, Booth 771)

Rubbing shoulders with private collector spaces and Gagosian, this uptown gallery is a proponent of emerging art in the 980 Madison building and has been exhibiting abstract photography (and the likes of Sam Falls) before it ever became a thing.  For the Armory, Higher Pictures will be in the Presents section with a booth of all Travess Smalley works. This artist’s goal is to ‘capture physical presence’ through a mashup of computer generated and physical matter. The UV prints on stretched vinyl resemble wave patterns from afar and almost make you wish OpArt would make a comeback.

New York: Top 10 Shows to Watch This September

September 5, 2013 by Elena Soboleva

Marmar_Borins_17.6-entry-0354
Marman + Borins, Pavilion of the Blind, 2013.
(Courtesy of the Artists and the Tierney Gardarin Gallery, NY. Photograph by Rafael Goldchain, 2013.)

Elena Soboleva is a Specialist at Artsy, an online platform for discovering, discussing, and collecting art. You can follow her on Twitter @ElenaSobolevaElena Soboleva

As autumn falls upon the city, the familiar ritual of collectors, artists and gallerists herald in a plentiful season of openings, art fairs and events. A cycle of aspiration and momentum unfolds.  Unlike last spring, when the art world was absorbed into the gravitational pull of blue-chip names, trumped by the Koons bonanza, the highlights of this fall gallery season feel fresher and brimming with new energy and excitement.

Here are the artists who will be making a mark on New York this fall. Of significant note, all but one are presenting their first solo shows with the respective gallery.  As well, the attention is much less Chelsea-centric and diffused across the city.

Jon Rafman – You are standing in an open field
Zach Feuer
548 W 22nd St, New York
September 12 – October 26, 2013

The works of Rafman will be familiar to those who saw him transform the lobby of Hannah Barry’s Peckham Pavilion at the Venice Biennale by covering every object and interior entirely in a Georgia O’Keeffe motif. Known for his Google Street View image appropriations, the artist will have his first solo show at Zach Feuer this fall. You are standing in an open field presents an odyssey through virtual landscapes, exploring online worlds, hybrid cultures and manifestations of memory through sculptures, videos and mixed media installations. It is bound to be a sensory feast.

Lucien Smith – Nature is my Church
Salon 94
243 Bowery,  New York  and 1 Freeman Alley, New York
September 13 – October 25, 2013

There are very few contemporary art collectors who have not heard of, and begged their art consultants for a Lucien Smith. The momentum which has surrounded this young artist is incredible and he’s had shows at OHWOW, Half Gallery and Suzanne Geiss in the last year and a half. A west coast transplant, closely associated with the Brooklyn artist-run organization The Still House Group, he is part of the new New York generation re-envisioning conceptual and process based art. The show at Salon 94 Nature is My Church, continues in his multi-media aims to transverse a ‘spectrum of styles and concepts’ by creating works which both explicitly comprise and embody the greater entity of his oeuvre.

Marman + Borins – Pavilion of the Blind
Tierney Gardarin Gallery
546 West 29th Street
September 12 – October 26, 2013

Newly merged Tierney Gardarin Gallery is starting their fall season with Canadian duo, Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins, whose talent at home has earned them steady critical praise and growing recognition abroad. The show is called Pavilion of the Blind and will feature works which deconstruct perception, surveillance and the relationship of the viewer to the art object. Their wickedly smart Kosuthian approach playfully pokes fun at the nature of art and incorporates interactive elements into their installations.Title piece, Pavilion of the Blind will be a structure made of colorful array of window blinds, panels and shades whose movement is triggered by motion sensors. The mechanical installation arranges and rearranges itself into a series of constantly changing abstract compositions.

Cary Leibowitz  – (Paintings and Belt Buckles)
Invisible Exports
September 6 – October 13, 2013
89 Eldridge Street, New York

This LES gallery’s program has been on my radar and certainly not surprising that Invisible Exports is moving to a new space on Eldridge Street. They are inaugurating it with their first show of Cary Leibowitz, the artist also known as Candy Ass. Leibowitz first established himself as a prankster-critic and part of the ‘Pathetic Aesthetic’ in the 1990s. His reductionist paintings present “everyday experience not as objects of reverence but occasions for scrutiny and absurdity” through the use of cheeky text and repeating canvases in array of play-dough colors. The buckles are a nod to fantasy dress up and a childlike view of the world. The canvas works feel fresh and preserve a self-deprecating naivete, which makes them as befitting a LES space as any RISD grad.

Ben Wolf Noam, Greg Parma Smith, and Korakrit Arunanondchai – Digital Expressionism
Suzanne Geiss
76 Grand St, New York
September 5 – October 19, 2013

This three person show of new works by Ben Wolf Noam, Greg Parma Smith, and Korakrit Arunanondchai promises to “explore the half-life of material art objects in an age dominated by digital forms.” By both mimicking the online realm and using it as a point of departure to their process, the artists strive to translate the binary back into analog. Part performance, part temple for the digital age – this show will clash processes and aesthetics in one grand spectacle.

Bjarne Melgaard – Ignorant Transparencies
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
September 14 – October 26, 2013
620 Greenwich St, New York

Bjarne Melgaard is a New York-based, Norwegian artist who writes novels, likes big cats and avoids any form of categorization. Last year he showed tiger cubs at Ramiken Crucible, built a Mary Boone shrine at the Armory and his vivid playroom-like solo presentation at Gavin Brown’s Frieze NY booth had every fashion editor rushing there for ‘street style’ inspiration. The show Ignorant Transparencies is sure to be equally unpredictable. If you need more reason to see it, The New York Times best attempt at describing Melgaard was that he “has been called the most famous Norwegian artist since Munch.” That’s saying something.

Elad Lassry
Gallery 303
September 13 – October 26, 2013
507 W 24th St, New York

Kicking off the fall season in the two-year temporary location, Gallery 303 will be presenting the first exhibition with the Israeli-born, LA-based artist Elad Lassry. The show is based on his fabricated, reproduced pictures, which breach parameters of photography and morph into sculpture, yet remain uncertain of which realm they occupy. Lassry works with images culled from advertising, films, illustrated magazines, and commercial catalogues – altered from their original context to create destabilized signifiers. His works are often compact and his photographs are rigorously formatted to never exceed the dimensions of a magazine page.

Gladys Nilsson and Julia Benjamin –  New Works
The National Exemplar
September 9 – October 19, 2013
381 Broadway, 2nd floor, New York

This show will pair two artists from varying generations. Gladys Nilsson born in 1940, is an original member member of the Chicago Imagists, a group who turned to unique pop-representation and surrealism after the war. Julia Benjamin, born in 1984, is a recent graduate of the Columbia MFA and makes abstract paintings with dabs of color. The charged interplay between the two is bound to be wonderful. This gallery is not one to lack vision and what show is next is always a surprise (and a treat). Last year presented exhibits with Adam McEwen, Dan Colen & Nate Lowman, Sebastian Black and Peter Coffin, so doubtless this will be a great season ahead.

Harold Ancart – ANACONDA STANDARD
C L E A R I N G Gallery
September 13 – October 27, 2013
505 Johnson Avenue # 10, Brooklyn

Although this is the only artist on the list for whom the show is not their first with the gallery, this exhibition marks the start of the sixth season of the Brussels-Brooklyn space, and has me excited. Ancart’s works are encounters of traces, surfaces and physical space.  They often take the shape of stressed paintings, off-kilter minimalist objects and color photographs with flame licks burned across them – objects instilled with vast amounts of agency. Ancart uses chance and repetition to coerce this material force with great skill.

Hayv Kahraman – Let the Guest Be the Master
Jack Shainman Gallery
September 10 – October 12, 2013
513 West 20th Street, New York

Jack Shainman Gallery will present the first New York solo show of Iraqi-born, San-Francisco based artist Hayv Kahraman. Her delicate works echo Islamic and Persian traditional motifs and are painted on wooden panels with flat planes filled with pattern. Her practice grapples with issues surrounding female identity of her homeland while embodying a stoic poeticism and lyrical elegance. The figurative paintings depict women and weave narratives with deep cultural resonance. In this show she “explores private and public spaces through the lens of the disenfranchised, specifically women and immigrants.”

Elena Soboleva’s Top 10 of 2012

January 3, 2013 by Elena Soboleva

Elena Soboleva works for Art.sy  – an online platform for discovering and collecting art.

Numerous events shaped the art world in 2012, including the thirteenth iteration of Documenta festival in Kassel, Germany, a record-setting Contemporary Evening sale at Christie’s and the unprecedented hurricane, the effects of which have left a lasting impact on Chelsea.  Here is a roundup of the the year’s best, which I felt worth commemorating as the highlights of 2012 and my picks for what to expect in 2013.

1)  Best Art Festival: Documenta 13 

Without a doubt the greatest art event of 2013. No other art world happening, retrospective or biennial could match the exquisite cultural organism which Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev created in Kassel, Germany. Its subtlety was underscored by a cohesive vision with a decentralized focus, within which a multitude of microcosms sprung to life.

Finding the agency and memory imbued in objects, and delving into multidisciplinary fields and difficult histories, Documenta 13 wove together hundreds of strains, ideas and artists. The works are countless but I could not miss mentioning the poignant simplicity of Tino Sehgal’s black-out performance, Theaster Gates’ study of material culture and  Adrian Villar Rojas’ clay explorations in form and architecture set amongst a tiered garden. Also numbering amongst the highlights of the year were Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s sound installations in the Karlsaue Park and the Hauptbahnhof train station.

2) Best Show: Jesper Just / This Nameless Spectacle

This was Just’s first exhibition at James Cohan Gallery and one of the best shows I saw in Chelsea last year.  Featuring three video works, which concisely explore cinematic tropes without ever succumbing to the faults of oversimplified, didactic cliches or undecipherable abstract concepts. Spectacle, only in name, the show was profoundly mesmerizing and built up a tension between the narratives depicted and their absorbing effect on the viewer.

3) Best reflection of our time: Richard Phillips

Richard Phillips show at Gagosian Gallery was probably the most controversial and misunderstood exhibition of the year. It brought to light the difficulty in navigating contemporary art and our own desire to deny the carnal instinct incited by his oversized, hyper-realistic Pop canvases.  The complexity of the relationship between the viewer and artwork was heightened through the celebrity subjects, Sasha Grey, Lindsay Lohan and Adriana Lima, whose inherent iconicity destabilized perception.

4) Best proof that New York is still the capital of the art world: Frieze NY

The first iteration of Frieze NY Art Fair delivered well beyond everyone’s expectations. Featuring a stellar roster of international galleries, with Roberta’s Pizza and The Fat Radish cuisine, all housed in an airy tent, which even spawning its own twitter meme — the show was a hit.  But more than a success, it proved the question on everyone’s mind of whether NY can sustain two fairs. The answer is clearly yes. This year will be the centennial anniversary of the Armory Show and Eric Shiner, the Director of the Andy Warhol Museum, will be at the curatorial helm of the American Focus section that is bound to be terrific.

5) Best Season: Park Avenue Armory

When thinking of which institution provided the most consistent and stellar exhibitions in the past year, my mind went straight to the Park Avenue Armory.  The lineup featured: Space Program: Mars by Tom Sachs, Merce Cunningham’s final choreographic collage and the most recent The Event of a Thread installation by Ann Hamilton which transformed the space into a swinging playground.

The Park Avenue Armory had an exceptional program in 2012, and succeeded in uniting art, performance and experience in one space.  The highlight of the year was Janet Cardiff’s The Murder of the Crows, an overwhelming installation of over 200 speakers at various heights, progressing through a 29 minute cycle of symphonic movements ranging from the Red Army march to dream-like sonatas.

6) Best Opening: Brant Foundation

Being whisked away for a Sunday afternoon to Greenwich, Connecticut to mingle with the art world elite under a billowing tent, housed on Brant’s own polo fields is a perfect recipe for an opening.  The two solo shows this year, Karen Kilimnik and Nate Lowman, each offered a complete artist’s vision, and incorporated site-specific elements that extended the work beyond the exhibition space. Whether Lowman’s ‘readymade’ white Bronco that had belonged to O. J. Simpson or Kilimnik’s Fountain of Youth spilling forth to mirror the idyllic setting, the Brant Foundation remained a terrific destination for a grand fête.

7) Best Art Party: House Party at The Boiler, Pierogi Gallery 

Maybe it was due to the recession or lack of jobs for MFAs, maybe just because he could. Artist Andrew Ohanesian took a bold approach and invested his grad school savings into building a fully functioning interior of a suburban home in a Williamsburg gallery space and throwing a giant house party.  The piece had resonance for anyone who’d spent their teen years in a that setting and was accurate right down to the contents of every drawer and week-old pizza in the fridge.  Above all, it was a ton of fun.

8) Best Vision – Trevor Paglen / The Last Pictures

Quixotic at heart and pointedly visionary, The Last Pictures acknowledged spacecraft as the last monument of our era. Presented in partnership with Creative Time, the project was the culmination of Paglen’s research as an artist in residence at MIT.  He created an ultra-archival disc of images, capable of lasting in space for billions of years and in November of 2012, traveled to Kazakhstan to launch the satellite EchoStar XVI carrying this archive of humanity. Attached to the satellite’s anti-Earth deck and in geostationary orbit, the disc will broadcast over ten trillion images over its fifteen-year lifetime. For the New York celebration of this project, Paglen was joined by filmmaker and artist Werner Herzog for an epic discussion on life beyond our planet and the terrain of future man.

9) Best Revival: Jonas Mekas 

The pioneering avant-garde filmmaker, who is the touchstone for every artist working in time-based media, finally received well-deserved attention last year. The Centre Pompidou in Paris retrospective was followed by an exhibit at the Serpentine Gallery in London, which opened in December.  Mekas also recently celebrated his 90th birthday and Anthology Film Archives, the New York film establishment which he co-founded in 1970, hosted a week-long program of rare screenings to mark the occasion.

10) Best Sign of the Times: $1.068 billion

That’s how much contemporary art sold in the week of November 2012 proving wrong every naysayer and pessimist waiting for the art market to crash.

Notable Mentions:

Best Acquisition: Though there were many important acquisitions this year, MoMA’s purchase of John Cage’s 4’33 was especially significant.

Best Birthday: The 25 year anniversary of the GIF (graphic interchange format) was celebrated by a project by Tumblr and Paddle8 in Miami Basel this year. The exhibit brought together artists and curators to honor the bitmap that has outlasted most other quarter-century old technologies with its anachronistic charm.

All images courtesy of Elena Soboleva, except for Safe from Harm, 2012, digital c-print, Richard Mosse, Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York  

How Many Fairs Can The Hamptons Sustain?

July 23, 2012 by Elena Soboleva

Elena Soboleva (@elenasoboleva) is a New York gallerist and an art-world observer. Here’s her take on the busy Hamptons art fair season.  

Though it may be summer, the art fair circuit does not quit. The growing trend seems to have spread to Long Island with no saturation point in sight as three consecutive weekends this July, the Hamptons are home to art fairs, opening night benefits and collector previews.

Two weekends ago the season kicked off with the largest and most established of the lot, ArtHamptons. In its fifth year and located in Bridgehampton, the fair brought together a collection of very sellable art and patrons for whom the casual afternoon entertainment was welcome. Featuring 77 exhibitors, the booths were largely hung with colorful, face-mounted photographs, wall sculptures and celebrity portraits at every turn. There were established names, like Babcock and Danziger Gallery as well as a trove of galleries one sees at the peripheral fairs during Armory week.   Amongst my favorite was Aicon Gallery, which specializes in contemporary East-Asian art.  They showed the Calcutta-based Debanjan Roy, whose India Shining II, a sculpture of Gandhi on a cell phone, was on reserve for $40k. It was the gallery’s first time at ArtHamptons though they have participated in Art Dubai and India Art Summit in New Delhi.   The director commented that they “loved it so far and have had a lot of great conversations.” Let’s hope great sales as well.

Spreading the fairs over multiple weekends allowed some galleries to participate in several. Woolff Gallery from the London, UK was showing at both ArtHamptons and Art Southampton fair this year since as Nick Woolff explained, “once the staff and inventory are here, it made sense to stay.” He added that “we see a certain type of client here, but fortunately people seem to like what we’re doing and we keep coming back.” Other European galleries including Villa del Arte Gallery from Barcelona and Cynthia Corbett Gallery, London were also taking advantage of the opportunity and were partaking in both ArtHamptons and Art Southampton fairs.

Eli Klein, whose booth was largely hung with the chameleon artist Liu Bolin’s work (ranging from $9,000-$40,000) has been exhibiting at ArtHamptons since the start and commented that at the fair, “we have terrific clients and make terrific clients, so it’s a no-brainer.”  The gallery sold $117,000 on the first day and were back this past weekend for artMRKT.

The boutique fair artMRKT Hamptons, running July 20th through to the 22nd, took place on the grounds of the Bridgehampton Historic Society. Despite its commercial name, it has attracted some of the trendier Lower East Side galleries including Allegra LaViola, Envoy Enterprises and MULHERIN along with other New York names such as DC Moore and P.P.O.W.

The newcomer on the scene is Art Southampton, produced by the Art Miami family, taking place the last weekend of the month from July 26th to the 30th.   It promises to bring together a diverse selection of 48 galleries from across US and abroad and will likely benefit of the Watermill Center Annual Gala, which draws the city’s art crowd east that weekend.

The model of multiple fairs spread over one season being sustainable may be a good sign for next spring, when Armory and Frieze face off once again.  What remains to be seen is whether the market is willing to support the volume of art and entertainment around it, and the dealers willing to participate without succumbing to ‘fair fatigue.’

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