Archive | March, 2011

Marc Séguin New Works at Mike Weiss Gallery

24 Mar

Marc Séguin is an ArtJetSet favorite, whose career we have watch since 2008.  His masterful grisaille technique combined with layering of think pigments and taxidermied animals is visually beautiful while emotionally challenging.

For Séguin’s first solo show at the Mike Weiss Gallery titled Failures, he exhibited portraits of political figures and destroyed chruches. We have seen his earlier large scale works that depicted political and religious figures (click HERE and HERE to see the other ArtJetSet posts), and now we see his portraiture scaling down in size which emphasizes the theme of failure of these iconic figures.

By contrasting personalities like Lee Harvey Oswald, the Pope, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, and Nazi soliders, the message is a persistent narrative of the failures in the hands of the powerful.

Art and E-Commerce: Gawker Artists Now Selling Limited Edition Prints

10 Mar

Gawker Artists is an online community forum that promotes young artists and makes their work accessible by filling empty online ad space with art.

Beyond the forum, Gawker Artists SHOP an online market place that offers products like iPhone cases and skins printed with unique art by represented Gawker Artists.

Now Gawker Artists wants to fill your walls with art!   They have just launched and are now selling limited edition, signed and certified giclée prints by two of their featured artists Nicholas Bohac and Scott Listfield.

Each edition of 100 prints is sold for only $90!  Click HERE to purchase now!

Independent Fair: Highlights and Favorites

6 Mar

The Independent was one of the best New York fairs I attended.  As last year was the inaugural year, the fair was exciting and new but the aesthetics of the space and the building were left very raw and open concept.

This year the Independent stepped up with some bigger named galleries, and redesigned booths that allowed for flowing spaces while simultaneously embracing the spectacular building and aura that is the former Dia:Chelsea.

Obligatory neon and large large text based works at Meyer Riegger and Sutton Lane.

The Independent seemed to host a lot of sculpture, possibly because the space can accommodate sculpture so well.

Massive chimes by Klause Weber at Andrew Kreps, mixed media industrial sculpture by Josephine Meckseper at Elizabeth Dee, the taxidermy puppy by David Shrigley.

Exploded car by Michel François at Bortolami and this intricate metal cube sculpture.

Some beautiful mixed media paitings, Walead Beshty at Tanya Leighton.

Alex Brown and Tom of Finland paintings at Feature Inc. and a large new work by David Salle at Maureen Paley.

Pulse Fair: Highlights and Favorites

6 Mar

This year’s Pulse Fair was held for the first time at the Metropolitan center.

PINTA – the Latin American art fair was held here last year quite successfully since they assumed the entire ground floor space .

The deep narrow booths at Pulse created claustrophobic narrow aisles that made this fair an awkward viewing experience.

Really loved this amazing Packing tape on plexiglass technique by Mark Khaisman at Pentimenti, as well as this nice red square piece at Shshana Wayne.

Nice to see less political works and more approchable paintings like these Markus Linnenbrink and Markus Weggenmann at FTC.

Even the figurative works were mildly abstracted, like Ryan Martin’s collaged paintings at CTS Workshop, Alex Prager photos, Mario Muller painting at Mary Ryan and the Jane Hambleton at Michael Rosenthal.

New perspective in sculpture, the wire speach bubbles by Greely Myatt at David Lusk, and the miniature tree tornado by Jorge Mayet at Horrach Moya.

The upper level hosted ImPulse, hosting galleries that were invited to present solo exhibitions.

ArtJetSet favorite was Damian Stamer’s abstracted landscape paintings at Freight+Volume.

Really enjoyed Mark Schoening’s paintings at Blythe Projects, as well as Rene Barge photos at Dorsch.

ADAA The Art Show: Highlights and Favorites

6 Mar

The Art Dealer’s Association of America’s The Art Show brings together the best of museum quality art and galleries to the Park Avenue Armory.

A considerably small fair, The Art Show invites blue chip galleries to present solo and two artists exhibitions or strategically curated booths.

The interior of the fair was quite somber with a pallet of dark deep gray walls and carpeting, the quiet lull of the space was filled by some nice booths hosting the much expected Matisse, Picasso, and American photography.

The most beautifully curated presentation titled Wishing and Praying was at CRG.

A brilliant and compelling presentation of religious iconography, like these works by Arnulf Rainer and Robert Buck.

Peter Blum presented a solo show of preliminary works on paper by David Reed.  Known for his large abstract works, these gorgeous colour and form studies elaborate on the extensive building, pallet testing, and sketching invested in each painting.

Enoc Perez monochromatic Fountain Bleu hotel painting, and James Welling photo of the Glass House.

Beautiful sculptural pieces at Sperone Westwater and Rachel Whiteread coloured resin works at Luhring Augustine.

Maxwell Davidson presented a humouristic thematic exhibition titled The Objectification of Pop, with works from Tom Wesselmen and the typical 1960s pop artists, along side this work by Leo Castelli, and reconstructed tapedeck by Kiel Johnson.

Exquisitly delicate works on paper David Opdyke at Ronald Feldman, and Jaume Plensa at Galerie Lelong.

Of course large text based works that we’ve seen as a predominant theme through all this season’s fairs, at Cheim&Read and Yazid Oulab at CRG.

Fun bright paintings at Regen Projects, and the miniature sculptures of everyday objects by Tom Friedman at James Cohan.

Fountain Fair: Highlights and Favorites

5 Mar

The musical performance by Gordon Voidwell at Fountain Fair Opening Night reception party, set the perfect atmosphere for this alternative art fair.

Much of the art, like the fair itself, has a crude alternative-pop street feel, especially resonated by its location at The Frying Pan at refurbished lightship that has been resurrected as an event space and bar.

Liked the vitrine by Evo Love at Stash Gallery, massive installation by Greg Haberny that filled one full space with floor to ceiling paintings and constructions.

I especially enjoy Fountain’s dedication to special artist project installations.

I visited In2it,  and had a nice conversation with sculptor and inhabitant Jason Robert Bell.

The igloo is a performance space and occupancy is also being sold as a timeshare.  Layered with carpeting and fur, the igloo features a working air conditioner to underline the irony “selling art is like selling air conditioning in the arctic.”

Tragically, during the set up of this installation, Bell had a studio fire.  I encourage you all to purchase a share of time in In2it support the rebuild.

Volta: Highlights and Favorites

4 Mar

Volta is a fantastic show because the exhibitors present one single artist’s works.

This year Volta offered a very innovative idea for their catalog – instead of a big heavy tome, visitors were given an empty folder and the information prospectus were available at each booth, granting the viewer the ability to personalize their catalog with the information of the art they liked.

Following my current inclination towards big bright abstracted painting, my favorite booth was Pierre-François Ouellette.  Artist Dil Hildebrand starts with a hyperrealistic ground (for this show being the staircase in his studio) and then paints layers and blocks of paint building up vivid abstractions of texture and line.

Several galleries presented very small scaled artworks.   Since Volta is a smaller scaled show, the physical space provides for a more intimate experience with art,  so that these small works are not over looked.

Oana Farcas tiny 2 inch² paintings at Larmgalleri, and the miniature constructed architectural environments by Jeremy Mora at Wolfe Contemporary which paired nicely with tree vitrine rooted in plaster by Paul Nugent at Kevin Kavanagh.

To be expected, beautiful but politically charged art was rampant, like Alberto Borea’s photos about drug wars at Isabel Hurley, Mark Jenkins’ terrifying installation of a masked thugs, Dan Tague’s photos of folded dollar bills which spell out messages for help at Jonathan Ferrara, and Mary Temple’s ink drawings on paper of portraits of political figures.

Of course a stunning array of notable paintings bringing a vibrant dose of colour to the fair.  Jennie Ottinger’s books at Johansson Projects, Peter Oppenheim’s large paintings, Summer Wheat’s portraits of zombie heads.  I had the pleasure of meeting artist Ryan Fenchel who told me about his exploration of working through sculptural design in creating these collaged planed pastels on paper.

The Armory: Highlights and Favorites

4 Mar

The most refreshing aspect of the fair season so far is big bright abstract paintings. I like the acid neon colours and the return to pure aesthetics of paint, textures, and lines.

Loved Anselm Reyle at Michael Schultz, glitter painted by Armleder at Massimo De Carlo, Jason Martin’s pure pigment on metal at Lisson, and Katrina Grosse giant abstract painted sculpture.

With Paul Kasmin Gallery’s entire space was a neon fenced off empty lot, The Armory Show brought forward neon sculpture on a large scale. Wall text piece by Jeppe Hein at 303, Sam Van Aken’s neon forest at Ronald Feldman, and (victim of a personal sentimentality of birch trees) Anthony James at Nicholas Robinson.

Reconsideration of Balloons: Real inflated balloons at Gonzalez y Gonzalez counters Jurgen Drescher aluminum speech bubbles at Mai 36, and Gimhongsok ceramic balloons.

Other works I really enjoyed looking at were Larry Rivers collage at Hilgre, Marc Quinn’s massive scale orchids, Sebastiaan Bremer’s large photo compositions (which we saw in Miami in very small), and hands down favorite Ryan Gander’s arrows shot through the wall at Lisson.

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The Armory: Part I

4 Mar

Armory Week New York has officially opened!
Amongst the expected blue chip big name artworks and ironic money/value references:

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Obligatory Damien Hirst prints for sale on edition, a floor made of pennies at Untitled Gallery, and Reed Seifer dollar bill installation.

This year’s The Armory Show had a strong current of overtly political works. With the socio-political upheavals seen around the world and in local media, seeing artists respond visually is not surprising.


With performance piece at Kukje of an illegal immigrant in a donkey suit, Rokni Haerizadeh at Thaddaeus Ropac which the artist draws animal figures over the faces taken from news media photos, and Tomas Espina at Ignacio Liprandi who paints with gunpowder.

For innovation at the fairs, an applause to Chowaidi&Co gallery at the Modern Pier for their bold green wall, and the Springer & Winckler Gallery for showing Lohner & Carlson’s video installation on iPads.

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