Fair Play: A Blogger's Tour of Art Miami

The posts so far:

Seven

A Long, Tall Drink of Aqua

Art Basel Miami Beach

Amuse Oeil

The World Wide Web

Occupy Miami?

Prologue: Head to Toe

Peekin' In

This was the Facebook announcement for our Bloggers' Guide to Art Miami. We weren't sure exactly who would show up, but as the group (below) assembled, we turned out to be an assortment and combination of artists, collectors, bloggers, dealers, and Franklin's Einspruch's lovely parents.

Some of the group that assembled

Every year Sharon Butler and I—informally known as Art Bloggers @—organize a blogger event at one of the art fairs. It's a good opportunity to bring  together friends old and new who are interested in art and art blogging.  In 2009 We organized a well-attended blogger panel at Art Miami. This year we were invited back. Our idea this time was to take the group into the fair itself, a walk-and-talk, so a Bloggers’  Guide to Art Miami was conceived.

When a personal relocation redirected Sharon’s attention, our good friend Franklin Einspruch—artist, blogger and art critic—stepped in. We made a good team, Franklin and I. We reconnoitered the fair on Thursday in advance of our tour the following day. Over lunch we mapped out a plan, and when our group showed up 40 strong the next day, we took to the aisles.

What follows is a bit of what took place.

Titian, Saint Sebastian, 1530, Edelman Arts, New York City

"Titian! This, I wasn't expecting at an art fair!" said Franklin. "The execution is superlative, the painting is in excellent condition, and the serene look on the saint's face as he regards the arrows embedded in his flesh is quite a testament to faith."

You expect to see Picassos and Matisses at this fair, but a Titian was a first for this or any Miami art fair. This one, from the private collection of the dealer, was the centerpiece of an exhibition that explored the male figure and the biblical/art historical theme.
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Above and below

Contemporary interpretations flank the master: Christopher Winters above; Michael Murphy below

Louise Nevelson, Scott White Contemporary, San Diego

We stopped in front of this  Nevelson, Mirror Shadow XXXIX, 1987. I had been seeing a number of big black objects at the various fairs (post coming), and Nevelson is the queen of big black objects. It was an opportunity to foreshadow a coming post—this was a bloggers' tour, after all—and for us to view up close, unencumbered by guards, work that is normally seen in a museum. Indeed, one of the surprises for a first-time fairgoer has to be the number of museum-quality works on display.

Rana Rochat, David Lusk Gallery, Memphis

Several of artists in the group were specifically interested in encaustic, and as the author of The Art of Encaustic Painting, the first commercially published book on the topic, I was happy to oblige.

We stopped in front of this work by Rochat.  What strikes me is the transparency of the color and delicacy of the gesture, and the way Rochat develops the image above and below the surface, allowing you to float visually within and through the work. Encaustic is a difficult medium to master because the molten wax begins to harden the moment it leaves its heat source. Rochat, working large, maintains the medium's fluidity on a surface that's close to five feet wide.

Chris Antemann, Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield. Mass.

Franklin directed the group to the Ferrin Gallery booth, where Chris Antemann's work was featured:  "I'm interested in these gender-bent riffs on Baroque French porcelain, executed with the merest hint of California Funk."

Antemann examines gender roles through the medium of porcelain,  specifically 18th century mises-en-scènes that embrace sexuality, androgeny and politics. (In a lovely bit of androgeny, Franklin referred to Chris as "he" and was quickly set right by Leslie Ferrin. Indeed, one of the nice things about the tour was the willingness of the dealers to get involved in the conversation.)

In keeping with our blogger theme, gallerist Leslie Ferrin  noted several cyber venues for additional information: the gallery's Facebook page, and Artberkshires, which posted about the fair 

Franklin Einspruch and Leslie Ferrin

Photo courtesy of group member JK Russ

Franklin talking about a Charles Hewitt woodblock print (with me looking on) at Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York City

Photo courtesy of group member JK Russ

 

"We ignored a Chuck Close serigraph to look at a delightful, warm Hewitt. I have failed to convince the woman in the hat about anything I'm saying," said Franklin.

At Modernism, Inc., San Francisco

Franklin is holding forth about Georges Valmier, the center piece on the top row of the left-hand wall: "Part of the fun of fair-going is finding neglected but worthy figures in art history."

 Jasmina Danowski at Spanierman Modern, New York City

Franklin admiring the right half of a diptych. "Danowski makes her own inks and works with acrylic resins and other unusual mediums on paper to make lovely floral abstractions."
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The group waxed and waned as we made our way from stop to stop. Here it was quite large (waxy?) as we made our way over to the our next stop, the Bridgette Mayer Gallery booth, below

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Kenneth Noland, Blue Painted Blue, 1959,  Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia

Pat Steir painting to the left of the Noland, Eileen Neff to the right 

Photo courtesy of Bridgette Mayer Gallery

Gallery owner Bridgette Mayer talked about how and why she selected these works for the booth. "We built the installation around the Kenneth Noland painting, which is the centerpiece," she said. Working with the Noland, a Pat Steir (visible above and below to the left of the Noland), a Sam Francis (not shown) and a Jim Dine (far left, below), something of a landscape theme emerged within a larger context of curvilinear lines and the grid.  

From left: Dine, Charles Burwell, Steir, Noland

Photo courtesy of Bridgette Mayer Gallery

Charles Burwell, Large Overlay No 1, Black and Tan, 2011, acrylic on canvas, converses with Pat Steir's Gold and SIlver Moon Beam, 2006, oil on canvas

I particularly like the relationship of Burwell and Steir, with the subtle vertical rhythm of the works, each marked by a strong central division

View from inside the Bridgette Mayer booth. Foreground, Steve Tobin sculpture; Neil Anderson, Summer Evening, 2011; Jim Dine, Four Palettes, 1963

Panning to the other side of the Noland painting, with Steve Tobin sculpture and Paul Oberst grid construction. (See the Oberst work in the contect of The World Wide Web)

Photo courtesy of Bridgette Mayer Gallery

Bridgette Mayer talking to the assembled group

Below: the group

 Photo courtesy of group member Melanie Matthews

Nice touch: At the end of the tour we walked over to the cafe, where Art Miami had coffee and a table waiting for us

Around the table: Barry Fellman, director of the Center for Visual Communication, Miami, and Tim Tate, whose work I showed in the Aqua Art post

Swinging around: artist Kate Kretz to my right, and to her right, artist/blogger Jami Nix Rahn of Art South Florida 

Read JK Russ's blog report here.

If you feel that my reports from New York and elsewhere around the country, including the Miami art fairs, bring the art world to you, or that Marketing Mondays offers professional information of the sort you never got in art school, please support this blog. I am a painter with a full-time studio practice; every post represents a significant expenditure of time, travel, photo editing and writing. A one-time annual donation of $20 (though any amount is welcome) will help support my effort. See the Donate button on the sidebar. Thank you.

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ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH

It's too early in the season for the star of Bethlehem, so that glow in the sky last week could only have been the neon lights from "the most prestigious art show in the Americas," Art Basel Miami Beach:

photo by Casey Kelbaugh, New York Times

The Miami show, we are told,  brought together 250 "leading galleries" from around the world, "including the world's most respected art dealers offering exceptional pieces by both renowned artists and cutting-edge newcomers."

Photo by Casey Kelbaugh, New York Times

Don't bother looking for any crass commercial art at Art Basel Miami, jocko.  This was 100% fine art, in all its finery.  The New York Times described it as "a holy gathering on the annual pilgrimage route of the super rich."  The number of private jets arriving at the local airport rivaled those of the Super Bowl, and a "line of quarter million dollar cars [was] idling while their owners waited for a parking valet."

You cannot attract such an audience of billionaires, socialites, celebrities and arrivistes by treating art as something functional.  They would recoil at the notion of art produced on demand to satisfy a commercial objective.  Instead, such buyers must be flattered into believing they are purchasing something spiritual as a measure of their sensitivity and perceptivity.

For example, in the panel convened to discuss The Future of Artistic Practice, the moderator began with a common theme:

Poetry is always what can't be sold....It has no usefulness.  It is merely useful through the ethical and aesthetic awareness that results from it. Poetry.... holds out in a world where people tend to lose all their spiritual values in favor of practical, predatory goals.  

This year more than 50,000 seekers of spiritual values clogged the bars and spas of Miami, buying at lavish prices.

And these weren't just your traditional tired old billionaires and hedge fund managers.  A whole new generation of the artistically sensitive has emerged:  Paris Hilton, of the Hilton hotel dynasty; Dasha Zhukova (daughter of a Russian oil mogul and accused international arms smuggler, wife of a multi-billionaire alleged to have made his first fortune as a ruthless gangster in Russia);  Vito Schnabel (son of famous blowhard Julian Schnabel); Diana Picasso (great granddaughter of Pablo); even the tasteful Donald Trump dynasty was represented.  This new generation of talent is what comes of outlawing the guillotine.

Noted performance artist Ryan ("I'm an artist so I'm not, like, an asshole") McNamara took the microphone to speak about the artistic challenge of staging "subversive" performance art at the parties of such wealthy people:  "Halfway through the party I had these revolutionaries come in, run through the crowd screaming and then attack the cake with frosting... all they wanted to do was make the cake more delicious."

Also present was famed British artist Tracey Emin.

Art by Tracey Emin

The Saatchi Gallery describes this work of art as "a transient crowning glory," continuing (for the benefit of those who may have trouble recognizing glory): "Emin's triumphed over all and has money up the whazoo to boot." Emin was at Basel to share her technique: "I like to lie in bed in the morning for an hour just thinking, thinking thoughts.  And that's one of my favorite things to do."

Artwork produced using Tracy Emin's patented technique of "thinking thoughts"

Other great thinkers joined in to advance the path of culture.   For example, Jonas Mekas took the stage to read his poem which sheds light on the nature of beauty:

Their beauty
Was beautiful....
It was so totally somewhere else
And so far from what's on TV....

 If there was ever a time when illustration was more "commercial" than fine art, that time is long gone.  But more to the point, so much of the quality and seriousness of fine art seems to have been eroded by its current emetic marketing model.

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Fair Play: Seven

The posts so far:

A Long, Tall Drink of Aqua

Art Basel Miami Beach

Amuse Oeil

The World Wide Web

Occupy Miami?

Prologue: Head to Toe

Peekin' In

What do photographs of transsexual transformation, a rendering of a household cleaning product and castoff computer keys have in common? The independent art fair, Seven

The eighth post in this series is on Seven, an independent fair owned and operated by seven galleries: Hales Gallery, London; and Bravin Lee Programs, Pierogi Gallery, Postmasters Gallery, P.P.O.W. Gallery, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, and Winkleman Gallery, all in New York City. I like the spirit of the show--dealers doing what artists have always done, working together to create visibility. and doing it on their own terms--and I liked much of the work, which was curated into one large exhibition. Most if not all of these galleries had shown at other fairs in the past but they chose this format, described in a press release as "a more intimate, personal way to engage visitors during the Miami fair week." 

This is the second year for Seven, and I hope it continues for a long time.

Artists and dealers might take a tip from the way this group presented and marketed themselves, from the graphic logo to the map on their postcard, which placed themselves squarely with the bigger venues in Wynwood, to a well wrritten and informative website with good, wide-angle pictures. You can see more here, but read through my post first.

The warehouse space, a former ice house around the corner from the Rubell Collection, was more cavernous than the other venues, but fairgoers are intrepid--as long as the toilets work. They did (unlike last year), which I believe was a motivating factor in finding this new space.
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The entry, partially visible far right, brought you into this large exhibition space, which had representative work from each of the seven galleries. Foreground: Rory Donaldson photographs, from Winkleman Gallery. Image from the Seven website

Below, a full view of the wall behind the Donaldson installation: Douglas Florian gouaches, from Bravin Lee Projects

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Above and below:

Looking down from the large front gallery into a larger exhibition space, partitioned in a way that brought visual surprises at every turn

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On the floor a trompe l'oeil rug that's a video (Somebody please tell me the artist and the gallery)

With the Boo Ritson's Swimmer at your back, you see the view below, courtesy of the Seven website:

It's not the Fabian Marcaccio that drew me particularly--though I did find the idea of his macro woven "canvas" interesting--but the view I found when I passed it and entered the next room:

Frank Bowling paintings, from Hales Gallery

One of several small canvases anChristopher K. Ho, from Winkleman Gallery

 

Yoon Lee, from Pierogi

Rico Gatson, from Ronald Feldman Fine Art

Opposite Gatson's work is the large wall below:

The large installation of small work has become a Seven signature. Image from the Seven website

Above and below:

Closer views of some of the work: drawings, paintings, prints and photographs in a big, fabulous mix

A closer view of Jennifer Dalton's chalk-on-paper drawing, from Winkleman Gallery

Sarah Frost "mosaics," Error Correct and Sign Off, from P.P.O.W.

Here's what they're made of:

Above and below:

Yishay Garbaz photographs documenting his transition from male to female

(There was a little something extra, pickled in formaldehyde in a jar that was placed on a pedestal behind the wall of photographs)

What's fair coverage without color-matched art and art viewers?

Above: art historian Lorraine Morales Cox coordinating with Frank Bowling's Around Midnight Last Night

Below: Those pants almost bring David Diao's That Close off the wall, from Postmasters Gallery

Jessica Rohrer, Resolve, gouache on paper, 15 x 10.5 inches, from P.P.O.W. Gallery

Then and there I resolved to stop for lunch.  I shot this  view of Seven from the outdoor restaurant where I stopped to eat

If you feel that my reports from New York and elsewhere around the country, including the Miami art fairs, bring the art world to you, or that Marketing Mondays offers professional information of the sort you never got in art school, please support this blog. I am a painter with a full-time studio practice; every post represents a significant expenditure of time, travel, photo editing and writing. A one-time annual donation of $20 (though any amount is welcome) will help support my effort. See the Donate button on the sidebar. Thank you.

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Worst Wurst

 Stuttgart, Germany

My show in Ludwigsburg, Germany, closed last week - a big thank you to everyone who came along and who was involved in setting it up. 

New work coming in the new year - have a great Christmas/Hanukkah/Whatever.

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A.B. FROST, BETWEEN THE LINES

The great A.B. Frost (1851 - 1928) drew a story about a man who wanted to learn hypnotism.  At one point, the man foolishly decides to practice on his wife:

Frost was a master at using the gaps between his drawings to imply a larger story.  People normally focus on Frost's visible lines, but let's spend a little time focusing on the valuable real estate between the pictures.

Frost's line primes our imagination to fill in the empty space.  When our imagination is set to work, his humble little line can become boundless.

This is a good example of how drawing can be superior to movies as an art form.  A movie doesn't leave the same gaps for us to fill.  At a rate of 24 pictures (or frames) per second, movies could effortlessly take up all the vacant space between Frost's first and second drawings, and give our imaginations a rest.

But that space performs an important function. As Debussy pointed out,

Music is the space between the notes.

As another example of the importance of empty space, check out the pacing of Frost's story of some local scamps who torment a homeless man looking for food:

While the dog keeps him pinned down, the boys have fun pelting the man with their slingshots

Frost carefully selects each moment to drop you to another level of the poor man's downfall.  Drawings spaced too far apart or too close together would not be as effective.  A movie could fill in all the details but it would likely reduce the artistry.  As Kathy Sierra wrote,

Comedians say that "timing is everything." But by "timing," they almost always mean "the pause." The pause is not merely a void between Things That Matter.

In the next drawing, note how the promise of a sneeze is more effective than if Frost had explicitly drawn a  sneeze:

Don't think we are talking merely about the gap between Frost's sequential pictures; it's also the gap between his pen strokes, the gap between an object and its representation, the gap between artist and viewer. Lots of important things take place in the apparently vacant parts of art.

Movies hug us close and in the future will hug us closer, invading any remaining gaps.  24 frames per second will soon become 48 frames per second. Scenes in movies are tailored in lengths that electronic brain scans show are optimal for keeping your mind from wandering. Improved IMAX screens thwart your peripheral vision from straying off the movie, and 3D effects pull you into that screen. Surround sound or earphones seal you off from distracting noises.  Even smell-o-vision or scratch and sniff invade your nostrils to make the movie a "complete experience."
 
People who like their art administered intravenously rarely exert themselves looking for invisible things in empty spaces, but I think they miss out on a lot.

After all, dark energy occupies more than 70% of the universe but scientists haven't been able to locate it yet. We can't touch or taste or see it but we know it's out there because of its impact on our universe. NASA reports:

the nature of dark energy is probably the most important question in astronomy today. It has been called the deepest mystery in physics, and its resolution is likely to greatly advance our understanding of matter, space, and time.

NASA even proposed to form a posse called the Joint Dark Energy Mission to track down the stuff. They want to look for it in all the obvious places-- abandoned warehouses on the far side of Saturn, or hanging out with the juvies around the pillars of creation in the Eagle Nebula, smoking Camels.

But personally, I'm guessing dark energy is hiding in that empty space between us and art. That's the only place big enough.

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