Zipping past thousands of exhibitors in dozens of venues during Miami Art Week, it’s easy to miss a piece here and there. After a while, you start to appreciate artists that make you look twice. Toying with perception, detail and physical distance, we found a number of artists that…
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Sponsored content: The early days of Art Basel Miami have proven the staying power of satellite fairs and independent exhibitions surrounding the behemoth Swiss import. Public murals, boutique shipping and interior design rival the mainstream offerings and give plenty of reasons to explore. Scope, for one, has grown and improved…
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A mad tea party of paintings
Initially catching our eye at the recent NADA NYC fair, Michael Bauer has made an impression in the European art market for years with his energetically moody compositions. The German artist recently set up shop in New York, and in celebration of his move from Berlin to NYC he is holding his first solo show at Lisa Cooley Gallery, dubbed “H.S.O.P. – 1973“.
Bauer spent much of 2012 experimenting with collage and drawing, a practice that has invigorated his new paintings with what the gallery calls an “openness, dynamism, lightness and mischievous humor” not seen in his previous work. Still, certain elements from his early career remain, most notably his small, meticulous markings and his predilection for highlighting and obscuring physical deformity. According to the Saatchi Gallery, “Bauer uses the qualities of abstract painting as a deviation of representational portraiture, allowing the media to replicate the characteristics of physical matter.”
Even as his compositions become tighter and more centralized, Bauer seems consumed with making figurative elements from the marking of his medium. He describes the work in “H.S.O.P – 1973” as “portraits of gangs, families, music bands, collectives, or mobs—a grouping of characters revealed through the occasional eye or profile emerging from shadowy abstraction. Flat, crisp, bright, patterns usually provide the structure from which these organic nebulas originate.”
The title for the exhibition is a little obscure, and Bauer calls “H.S.O.P.” an “arbitrary reference” to the Hudson River School of painting, and because there’s a foot or foot-like shape in each painting, the accompanying numbers indicate European shoe sizes. The other elements aren’t quite so random. Bauer adds circular shapes to the corners to make them more like playing cards, with each painting like a “character in an unfolding cast, a mad tea party of sorts.”
”H.S.O.P. – 1973” is on view at Lisa Cooley Gallery through 17 June 2012.
NADA debuts its first NYC art fair with a rooftop marketplace
Popping up in Miami during Art Basel for nearly a decade now, New York-based NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) brought the show closer to home this year. The non-profit wisely timed their alternative art fair to run alongside the NYC debut of Frieze, London’s major art event that drew dealers and collectors from all over the world to Randall’s Island for the first time. NADA offered a great antidote to the frenzy of Frieze, taking place in a four-story building in Chelsea that made good use of the rooftop with a Phaidon book booth, coffee shop and a showing from Artis—a nonprofit that supports contemporary Israeli artists.
Instead of presenting work in a booth, Artis hosted The Artis Shuk, a playful rendition of traditional Middle Eastern marketplaces, or shuks (also known as souks). Works from more than 20 artists were available for sale, but unlike in the gallery booths at the rest of the fair, prices were listed on small cards displayed next to each piece. Most were less than $500 and all the proceeds went to the Artis Grant Program, which awards more than $125,000 to artists and nonprofits every year.
The undeniable standout at the shuk was an untitled sculpture of a glass of Turkish coffee sliced in half by Gal Weinstein. Turkish coffee, known in Israel as “mud” coffee, is an iconic Middle Eastern image. “Coffee can act as an invitation to a conversation or as reprieve from routine. Shown using the scientific visual language of a cross section, it also speaks to the gap between the efforts to analyze the Middle East and its complex reality,” explains Weinstein.
Another highlight, “Rolodex” by Zipora Fried is a real Rolodex the artist found. Fried went through it page by page and covered up all the names and numbers with archival tape, emphasizing the sense of loss that a discarded history of a person’s entire network would represent. Fried’s work often features covered faces as well as “drawings so dense they rebuff any illustrative meaning” and sculptures that are altered to deprive them of their functionality.
Working in a somewhat similar vein, Naomi Safron Hon seems to revel in making objects useless. “Straining, Mixing, Grating” and “Cement Grater”, two of her clay-clotted kitchen tools, were on display at the shuk. Hon uses these objects to symbolize how politically-motivated creation and destruction impact our daily lives, but on a more basic level, the delightful way the clay oozes out of the implements is aesthetically quite satisfying.
“D.I.Y: Fold Your Own Skull” is a kit by Itamar Jobani that you can use to construct a 3D skull from paper or plastic sheets. The pieces come pre-cut and pre-scored—all you need is glue. Jobani didn’t just want to make a cute rainy day project, he wanted to engage the buyer in a hands-on, art-making process.
A photographer picks five standouts in his own medium from the fairs in Miami
Amidst the staggering amount of work we see at the fairs in Miami, one of the major highlights for me, as a CH contributor and a photographer myself, is to see something that catches my eye in a new way. Whether it’s discovering unknown talents, seeing fresh concepts from old favorites or catching sneak previews for upcoming shows, Art Basel never disappoints. Here’s a list of five stand-out photographs from the main event itself.
Currently showing as one of the six artists selected for this year’s New Photography exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Viviane Sassen was on display at South Africa’sStevenson Gallery at Art Basel. Called “Parasomnia,” the photos will be shown in full at the gallery’s Cape Town location January 2012.
Ryan McGinley takes his band of naked youth out of nature and into the studio, and pits them against every manner of animal from turkey to scorpion. Team Gallery offered a lovely preview to a forthcoming show that will be on view 29 March to 28 April 2012.
Shown at 303 Gallery, Florian Maier-Aichen’s images reinterpret landscape photography for the 21st century. Often shot at obscure angles or from aerial views, his estranged vantage points and subtle digital manipulation create places that feel both alien and familiar.
I was wowed by the simplicity, beauty and restraint of Leslie Hewitt‘s still-life photos of everyday objects, a few of which were shown at D’Amelio Terras Gallery.
Gladstone Gallery showed some of photographer Sharon Lockhart’s recent “Lunch Break” series as well as this intriguing one-off, “Visalia Livestock Market, Visalia, California.” While traveling around California’s Tulare County, Lockhart shot more than a hundred 4″ x 5″ negatives of ranches and cattle auctions before choosing to print just this one.
Paris Photo honors the lensmen and culturally rich continent for its 15th anniversary show
For its 15th anniversary Paris Photo will celebrate African photography with a unique anthology of emerging and established photographers at the Grand Palais. The sweeping four-day exhibition, dubbed “From Bamako to Capetown,” offers real insight into the continent’s diverse range of cultures, from fast-growing capitals in the northwest to post-apartheid South Africa.
Curator Okwui Enwezor culled some of Africa’s most iconic works from the private collection of Germany’s Artur Walther, spanning portraits by 1950s Bamakoise photographer Seydou Keita to the contemporary collages by Congolese photographer Sammy Baloji—whose cousin, the multimedia artist known simply as Baloji, was featured on Cool Hunting last year.
The watershed moment for African photography, the Bamako Encounters Biennial of African Photography in 1994 marked a major event in the gallery world, as the debut of many of the country’s now-famous photographers. A portion of the Paris Photo festival floor will be dedicated to continuing the tradition set by the biennial and the emergence of such artists.
It’s not difficult to illustrate the many different backgrounds and experiences of African photographers. One of the most famous was Keita, who came into play among the wealthy set in Bamako, Mali during the ’50s. Shooting people’s watches, televisions and even cars, Keita’s images could be sent back home as proof the person had become “modern.” Samuel Fosso, who opened a studio at 13 years old after a traumatic upbringing, would shoot himself dressed up as a musician or a boxer if he had not finished a roll of film on customers. Philip Kwame Apagya had clients post against colorful backdrops in his Ghana studio, depicting them boarding airplanes or sitting in the living room with home entertainment systems.
Other photographers in Africa have more traditional foundations in photojournalism or attended art school, including David Goldblatt and Pieter Hugo, whose works will also be on display, along with new book releases from Malick Sidibé and Pierrot Men.
Though some African photographers have become household names and more works are making it into collections around the world, few exhibitions will rival the great breadth of work at Paris Photo 2011. The show runs through 26 November and information about attending is available online in both French and English.
Six standout pieces from London’s Frieze Art Fair 2011
Now in its ninth year, the Frieze Art Fair has grown to encompass nearly 1,000 artists and 173 galleries from more than 33 countries under one hangar-like tent. Though organizers have been accused of creating an over-commercialized art supermarket, there is no doubt that Frieze still shows fascinating work.
This year we’ve picked six new glass pieces from a variety of galleries worldwide based on their striking angular elegance and transparent special effects. Part of what made these works so compelling was their ability to occupy their own space while also incorporating the people and art around them, reflecting all the fun of the fair.
Brooklyn-based Nick van Woert caught our attention with his vibrant “Not Yet Titled 7” (2011) on show at the Parisian Yvon Lambert Gallery . These multi-colored building blocks cut a dash through the space, each filled with a different material. Insulation foam, chipped concrete and metal shavings are layered between colorful liquids and gels, all encapsulated in plexi-glass containers, as a sort of deconstructed expression of modern architecture.
Down the aisle at Plan B Gallery, Navid Nuur‘s “Untitled” (2011) is a simple structure of angled mirror and glass reflecting a combination of its fast-paced surroundings against the words “Just Another Edge of Present Understanding.” These complex visuals seem to reflect the multicultural layers of this Netherlands-based, Tehran-born artist showing work with a Romanian gallery.
Carsten Nicolai’s work at Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin also incorporates layers of glass. In this case the three “Batterie Random Dot” (2011) sculptures reflect Nicolai’s own work on the walls rather than that of other artists. The dot patterns printed on the piled-up horizontal glass sheets contrast with the sculptures’ overall rectilinear cube structures, reinforcing Nicolai’s interest in the tension between random and organized patterns. “Many of my works underlie a rule and introduce a model as organizing scheme to recognize chaotic movements,” he explains.
Anri Sala achieves full transparency with his installation “No Window No Cry”(2010). This Albanian artist provides a viewfinder both into the Marian Goodman Gallery and outward to the rest of the fair, creating moments where visitors come face-to-face on either side of the glass to admire this intriguing artwork. Trapped in between the viewers and the layers of glass in a carefully blown bubble is a “modified music box,” which one imagines could make a beautiful sound, if only it could be reached.
Olafur Eliasson expresses the containment of movement in a flash of bright yellow glass at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. Eliasson’s “Thinking Sphere” (2011) seems to develop last year’s “Untitled Sphere,” which reflected fragmented yellow light in a black box. Now the structure is reversed, with the light escaping into an external yellow sphere and the mirrored geodesic black box now containing a mysterious energy at its core.
Jeppe Hein‘s, Two-way Mirror Mobile (2011) at Galleri Nicolai Wallner brought the theme of reflection and transparency to its rightful conclusion by the show’s exit, summing up the art world’s sense of watching and being watched. As this Danish artist’s large glass discs rotate on their Calder-like mobile structure visitors can see straight through them, while also seeing reflections of themselves and the surroundings artworks, capturing all of Frieze in a perfect circle.
Berlin’s former power plant hosts the world’s brightest contemporary artists
by Shawn Thomson
Known for its unfiltered take on contemporary art in recent years, Germany’s capital city has increasingly become an international stomping ground for artists, dealers, collectors and enthusiasts alike, all there to relish in an atmosphere without the financial constraints of art hubs like New York and London. One show really capturing Berlin’s artistically autonomous spirit is Berliner Liste, a three-day fair located in a former power plant that showcases over 100 galleries from Germany and beyond.
The broad spectrum of both established and emerging artists sets the stage for an international exchange across disciplines, spanning sculpture, painting, photography and video and performance art. On par with most major art fairs, the impressive display is nearly overwhelming—but a few stand out from the pack.
Vincent Bousserez showed his satirical take on scale with beautiful executions of tilt-shift-style photographs at The Artistery. On view at Artcuraor.ru, Ilya Kukushkin describes his bold paintings as “Neo analytical constructivism.” Controversial contemporary vet Morten Viskum made a statement with the striking new work, “I’m crazy about Liza. We get on the phone and just gossip, gossip, gossip” and the life-sized self-portrait “The Perfect Sculpture,” at Son Espace Gallery. The result of a year spent traveling around the world with an imaginary superhero called SleepingBagMan, Marcus Veith’s documented his fiction with photography .
Berliner Liste closes 11 September 2011, at the extraordinary Trafo building, with the award ceremony for The Peter-Christian-Schluschen Foundation‘s young photography contest on 11 September 2011 at 7pm.
A Montreal artist collective collaborates with the San Diego Art Fair
En Masse, a Montreal-based art collective, has penned signature works in association with the Osheaga Festival of Arts and Music, Piknic electronik, Festival International Montréal en Art, Under Pressure, Manifesto (Toronto), Cirque du Soleil and Sid Lee, to name a few. Now the band of artists brings their talent to San Diego.
From 1-4 September 2011, four of Montreal’s core En Masse contributors, Jason Botkin, Fred Caron, Kevin Ledo, and Kirsten McCrae, have been invited by the San Diego Art Fair to oversee the creation of a mural onsite in a dynamic cross-cultural visual dialog with some of San Diego’s finest artistic talents.
Our video on two fluidly abstract installations at Mexico City’s biggest art fair
When we visited the Zona Maco art fair in Mexico City earlier this year, we saw a wide variety of media and styles—check out our first piece on Martin Creed here. This second video from our trip there explores some of the more abstract pieces we came across. “Sin Titulo, (homenaje a Yoko Ono)” (2010) by Luis Carrera-Maul and Roberto de Pol’s “hair-dryer, glass, straws, electrical cables, nails, coke, sensor, wood, adesive tape, tubes, screws” (2010) (seen at Galleria Massimo Audiello Oaxaca and Perugi Artecontemporanea respectively) struck us for their interesting use of liquid and movement. Both artists use kinetic fluid substances combined with other unconventional materials to create living, evolving sculptures—though each to quite different aesthetic effect.
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