Roni Horn aka Roni Horn at The Whitney

The first integrally comprehensive show of New York based artist Roni Horn, a
show which negotiations perception, memory, passage of time, identity and representation.


Often working in pairs and series and the use of water as reflections of identity is Horn a thematic predominant in her work, be it her photographes or her large cut glass sculptures.


Still Water, like the River Thames, is a stunning photo series of water underlined by footnotes which give anecdotes and refrences from films and passing thoughts of memory, dark waters, and fleeting moments like the water's passing currents.



One of the more iconic Roni Horn works This is You This is Me, a photo series of her neice. One wall is this series where she has a playful docile demeanor, usually mirrored on the other wall is are the pairs of these photos where the neice makes grotesque and angry faces.

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn is exhibited on two floors at the Whitney, and this work was seperated, one hung at the entrance of each floor. I have seen this piece at the DIA hung together and think it is much more effective that way.

Art Basel Miami Beach 2009

Held from December 3 to 6, the 8th year of Art Basel Miami Beach brought the best of the international art world to Miami's Convention Center. Where last year the event locales were scattered throughout the Beach, this year ABMB enveloped the entire convention center, adapting a more user friendly floor plan.


Highlights included Olafur Eliasson's installation in the UBS VIP lounge. Silvester Stalon's painting debut at Gmurzynaska.

James Nares at Paul Kasmin

Bischoff Weiss installation

Doug Aitken at Regen Projects

Berend Strik at Tilton

Stunning photo piece by Alexej Meschtachanow

Art Kabinett featured 28 curated exhibtion niches, like this Anish Kapoor space, as well as Wim Delvoye, Jakub Julian Ziotkowski, Jack Tworkov, and Olafur Eliasson.

Maurizio Cattalan, Nick Cave,

Art Fairs in Miami

Art Basel Miami Beach is the most imporatant art fair in the United States. A cultural and social highlight, as the sister event of Swiss Art Basel. Art Basel Miami Beach combines an international selection of top galleries with an exciting program of special exhibitions, parties, and crossover events featuring music, film, architecture and design.

Location : Miami Beach Convention Center.

www.artbaselmiamibeach.com

Art Miami is the city's original and longest running contemporary art fair.

Location: The Art Miami Pavillion on Midtown Blvd (NE 1st Ave) between NE 32nd and NE 31st.
www.art-miami.com

PULSE Contemporary Art Fair moves to Miami's Ice Palace with an enhanced and expanded presentation of international galleries and programming. PULSE enters its 5th season with a continued commitment to presenting high-caliber contemporary art from an internationally diverse roster of exhibitors.

Location : Ice Palace, 1400 North Miami Ave.

www.pulse-art.com/miami

SCOPE Miami Art Show moves to the Wynwood Arts District, and announces independent critic and curator David Hunt as teh appointed Curatorial Director.

Location : Soho Studios 2136 NW 1st Ave.

www.scope-art.com

Set to return for teh 7th edition, NADA is highly recongized as teh preeminent exhibition featuring the world's most significant emerging art galleries. Featuring 80 galleries from 30 cities worldwide, the fair celebrates new and innovative contemporary art from rising talents around the globe. This fair is run and organized by the New Art Dealers Alliance.

Location : Deauville Beach Resort, 6701 Collins Ave.

www.newartdealers.org/miami2009

Art Viceroy is an independantly curated Specail Exhibition, set within the elegant Viceroy Miami Hotel. Art Viceroy will feature over 40 bold aesthetic statements which reflect cutting edge artistic and curatorial practices. Each room of the 19th floor will feature a solo artist's installation.

Location : 485 Brickell Ave.

www.artviceroy.com

Fountain was launched in March 2006 in New York in an effort to leverage suport for independent galleries overlooked by the larger art fairs. The name is a refrence to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain.

Location : 2505 North Miami Ave.

http://fountainexhibit.com

Aqua Art Miami is a contemporary art fair started in 2005 as an experimental project at the Aqua Hotel in South Beach and eventually expanded to include a larger booth style fair. Aqua's mission is to promote innovative galleries in their region, with about half of the exhibitors coming from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland.

Location : 42 NE 25th St.

http://aquaartmiami.com

Verge is an international platform for the most exciting and interesting in new and emerging art.

Location : Catalina Hotel, 1732 Collins Ave.

www.vergeartfair.com/miami.html

PINTA New York

PINTA is the Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art Fair hosted in New York in late November, which coincides with Christies's and Sotheby's Latin American Art acutions.

Eleven Rivington showed Valeska Soares' marble pillow sculptures, marble so delicately chisled to resemble the softest lace and intricate embroidery.

Dean Projects presents Reinaldo Sanguino, ceramic sculptures of crowns perched on a pedastal of Tiffany and Hermes boxes.

Y Gallery showed Tamara Kostianovsky sculptures of shanks of meat created by stitched together and woven fabric. The vulgarity of raw meat disguised as soft plush toy.

Priscilla Monge photographs

Doris Salcedo photos of priliminaries for her sculptural installation works.

Artists on Their Bicycles Calendar

Launching at Art Basel Miami 2009, the Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art New York is publishing a limited edition of 500 numbered Artists on Their Bicycles New York Calendar.

January Philip-Lorca diCorcia
February Collier Schorr
March Ugo Rondinone
April Richard Phillips
May Amy Granat
June Rainer Ganahl
July Rita Ackermann / Aurel Schmidt
August NN
September Maurizio Cattelan
October Ryan McGinley
November Pierre Huyghe
December David Byrne / Cindy Sherman

Editors Emma Reeves and Gianni Jetzer
Photography Lukas Wassmann, Design Li, Inc.

Publisher Swiss Insitute / Contemporary Art, New York
Price: $ 45

X- Initiative: Phase III, Hans Haacke

The first solo exhibition of Hans Haacke in New York since 1986, Weather or Not showcases a brilliant example of Haacke's works and practice. This large scale kinetic installation is a beautiful example of how Haacke excels in experiential environments. With an under current in economic-political discourse of the middle east, displaying texts written in Arabic, Hebrew, English and German, this room hosted a visually captivating and meditative installation.

X Initiative: Phase III, Artur Zmijewski

Polish video artist Artur Zmijewski presents a series of his video installations at X Initiative. Well know for his Documenta 11 submissions, Zmijewski's work discusses in a highly confrontational way issues of culture, religion, and ideology of soico-political difference.


The first room is a series of wall mounted video screens showing Democracies, a series of 10 minute clips shot by the artist at public demonstrations around the world. At a modest volume the sound of protests and cries lull to a harmonic murmmer.


ArtJetSet saw this in Berlin at DAAD gallery in the spring, where Zmijewski tenured a residence.

Another important work by Zmijewski, also featured at Documenta, was a video study that put 4 groups in a space where they were to create a mural about their ideology. Groups were a young neo-nazi group, gay rights group, young Polish Jews, and Catholic Nuns. From the icon symbols of their groups ideologies grew into a distructive rampage of fire and hate.

Artlog Party at Chelsea Museum

Miami in New York: Artlog Party at the Chelsea Art Museum was a glam event to celebrate at once Artlog's launch of "Artlog Live" mobile platform, pre-party for PULSE art fair's up coming Miami fair, in conjunction with the opening of Jean Miotte: Spirit of Defiance exhibit.

Three great parties rolled into one fun night at the Chelsea Art Museum.

Looking forward to checking out the Artlog Live at PULSE booth P-03, some kind of navigation come GPS Twitter iPhone ap to get informed and manouver through the events and action in Miami during fair week.

POWarts Panel at Sotheby's on Collecting

Last Monday, Sotheby's Auction House hosted POWArts panel titled Visions For Collecting followed by a preview of the impending Contemporary sale.

On the panel, Nancy Spector, chief curator of the Guggenheim NY. Alison Gingeras, chief curator of the Palazzo Grassi, featuring the private collection of François Pinault. Lynne Cooke, curator at large of the Dia Art Foundation, deputy director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia.

Three of the Art World's most brilliant and insightful curators shared their impressions and experiences in shaping the collections and the future of collecting.
They discussed the goals of collecting and filling the "collection gaps" by maintaining the ethos of the collection goals of each of their institutions which vary from private collector, public museum, and a museum borne from a foundation.

POWarts is a great organization that supports the advancement of professional women (and men) in the art world.

Contemporary Art Auction Results

The November round of Contemporary auctions in New York brought about astounding results and renewed confidence in quality works achieving record prices.
Sotheby's hit well beyond the global high estimate for this sale, while Christies lagged a bit but recovered on some key pieces.
Top 3 works, Andy Warhol, Peter Doig, and Jasper Johns.

MAXXI Rome Opens

Italy's MAXXI national museum of 21st century art opens in Rome. Designed by the architect du moment Zaha Hadid, the building took 10 years to complete and is situated at the site of the former montello military barracks.


With two distinct collection departments, focusing at once on Art and on Architecture, the mission is to present the national and international artistic production, with special attention to the experience and realities linked to the Italian context.

YLVA OGLAND & SNÖFRID performance for PERFORMA

The Swiss Institute New York hosted a performance by Ylva Ogland, where she distills campaign boiled with rubies to invoke her twin alterego SNÖFRID that lives in mirrors.

An elegy to Snowwhite, the rubies are an element to inspire lust and lustfulness in the 165 proof vodka that is the bi-product of the beautiful heating and cooling distillation process. Traced on the floor were ghostly white chalk drawings of all the elements and objects used in the distillation process.

Urs Fischer at The New Museum

A tongue in cheek... rather tongue in wall dialogue about art, society, commodity culture and how we negotiate through this in art and in contemporary life.

Going back to Robert Morris' Mirrored Cubes towards Urs Fischer's mirrored cubes distorts the scale and the impact of these daily objects, food, and items that surround us.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres Beds

I was on my way home from Laguardi airport, and saw this Felix Gonzales-Torres billboard Bed.

Getting off a 6am flight, this was the warmest welcome back to NYC. I have a fondness for the Bed Iconotgraphy. Felix Gonzales-Torres was a Cuban-born American, artist who lived and worked in New York Citry. This is a new reinstallation by the MoMA preparing for the retrospective of his work opening soon.

Eric Aho Red Winter at DC Moore

A part of the 57th Street gallery night, Eric Aho opened a solo show at DC Moore Gallery.

The space was thematically divided, on one side large paintings of ice floats and baren winter landscapes, and on the other fierce blazing paintings of California wild fires.

Especially liked the swimming pools, some kind of tranquility of calming ice blue within a chaotic blazing landscape.

Turner Prize Short List Opens

The 2009 turner prize exhibition opened at the Tate Britain today.
The controversial candidates for the annual competition of contemporary art that is sinonymous with controversy that regularly triggers the debate about what is art and what is not. The winner of the prize gets a fat cheque for £25 000, winner is announced Dec 7.

Richard Wright has adorned the far wall of a room with symmetrical, intricate gold-leaf patterns.... he is currently holding the outsider odds, I personally think it is quite beautiful.

Richard Hiorns has covered half of a gallery floor with the black and grey metal dust of an atomised passenger aircraft engine, in a work designed to question our faith in technology and remind us of our own mortality.

Others in the running are Enrico David and Lucy Skaer.

All bets are on!!

Lever House shows Barbara Kruger

The Lever House building at 54th + Park Ave is a brilliant example of corporate art in the public sphere. With Tom Sachs Hello Kitty sculptures out doors, the lastest exhibition, a black and white ceiling to floor Barbara Kruger installation titled Between Being Born and Dying.

As high as 17 feet tall, Kruger uses striking Helvetica type to cover the entirty of the floors windows and walls, interior and exterior of the Lever Building.

Curated by Richard Marshall, the Lever House Art Collection was conceived by Aby Rosen and private dealer Alberto Mugrabi in 2003, they invite artists to create artworks specifically for the Lever House lobby.

Prospect: New Orleans

Produced by U.S. Biennial, founded by Dan Cameron, Prospect New Orleans is the first biennial art fair in the United States. Situated in New Orleans, it is has been a successful artistic and economic stimulator to the region following the catastrophe of Huricane Katrina.

Prospect 2 will launch Novermber 3, 2010, and run till February 12, 2011.
Presenting work of local, national, and international artists, from more than 20 countries and diverse cultural generational and artistic backgrounds.

Bonni Benrubi Gallery: Globe Trotting

Since The Armory Show last spring, I have had a quiet fetish for photographs of airplanes. The current show at Bonni Benrubi is a gorgeously presented narrative of globe trotting and travels, bringing together photos of planes, antique globes, and photographs of landscapes and people of this beautiful destinations.

I love Abelardo Morell's massive Camera Obscura interiors, and the Josef Hoflehner Jet Airliners.

Jeff Wall at Marian Goodman

Marian Goodman presents new works by Jeff Wall. This exhibition features large format large scale prints typical of Wall's work, with an approach moving towards 'near-documentary' conception.

Traditionally Wall practice has been a more photographer as witness to spontaneous and fantastic situations, that were staged by the artist to look as if the viewer has intruded in on the moment.

These new works move more towards a purity of the documentary tradition away from his narrative cinematic practice.

Transport Amoureux Sophie Calle

Subway Love Letters is an new interactive installation work by Sophie Calle launched in Toulous France. Transport Amoureux allows passengers to send love messages on station screens through a specific website, as away to announce fleeting love to another train rider.

We have seen different incarnations of subway poetry programs, but this one is compelling since it is interactive and instantaneous.

Gagosian Shop

Gagosian Shop is due to open tomorrow at 988 Madison Avenue in New York, selling posters, t-shirts, artist multiples, books and catalogues.

The 2500 sq foot space will feature limited editions by John Currin, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Anselm Reyle, to name a few. The stre will also offer a reading lounge with out of print catalogues and video installation of the current gallery exhibitions.

Art collector Aby Rosen is a principal in RFR Realty LLC which owns 980 Madison.

Gagosian recently opened a branch in Athens, Greece. The dealer is also considering opening in Paris and Geneva, according to sources.

Artists as Models .... for J. Crew

J. Crew's current winter catalogue features artists Ryan McGinness, Chris Dorland, Vito Acconci, Stephen Shore, Lucien Smith, Glenn Ligon, and Billy Sullivan in their studios.... posing for J.Crew talking about art and fashion.

Yes, Gap did the Red Campaign, and collaborations with artists for charity is not new.... but this J.Crew feature seems all a bit contrived. Especially with the few too many shots posed non- chalantly drinking Starbucks.

At least the reportage was very sincere and unedited. The "what's your must have clothing" question was poignantly :

Vito Acconci - Shoes. I need to be sure I can get somewhere else.

Chris Dorland - White V neck T-shirts.

Lucien Smith - A jacket. You can sleep on it if you need a pillow.

Ryan McGinness - 100% cotton. No button down. Lots of starch.... and he looks very fine in it indeed.

Maya Lin at Pace Wildenstein

On view at PaceWildenstein's 22nd Street location is an entrancing large-scale installation by Maya Lin

In Three Ways of Looking at the Earth, Lin has subjected three very different topographies
(two real and one imagined) to dramatic shifts in scale that allow a re-imagining of our natural world as threedimensionalenvironments recreated in the interior space of a gallery.

Lin further transforms viewers’ perspectives about the land and the sea by inviting them to navigate around, through and under these site-related installations.

At certain perspectives the 2x4s have a fluid wave like quality, then transforms into a jagged almost pixilated quality.

Chris Ofili Afro Margins drawings at Zwirner

Afro Margin, an exhibition of eight pencil drawings by Chris Ofili.
Known for his bold paintings incorporating fantasy, black figuration, and urban ethnic dialogue, Ofili distinguished “afro heads,” as a signature motif he began working with in the early 1990s. This a soft departure from his bright vivid paints, possible reflection of calm manifest of his move from London to Trinidad.

Joe Doucet IM BBM SMS Printer

I am writing my memoirs... à la James Frey.... short sweet machine gun rhythm... thanks to Joe Doucet's Blackbox printer.

MDR

LOL

LMFAO

TTYL

BRB

A+

Roman Ondák performative installation at MoMA

Measuring the Universe, by Slovakian artist Roman Ondák, is a performative collaboration which engages and incorporates the viewers in the evolution of the installation. Over the course of the exhibition, museum docents mark the visitors' heights, first names, and date of the measurement on the gallery walls. Beginning as an empty white space, over time the gallery gradually accumulates the traces of thousands of people.

Kehinde Wiley Black Light

Black Light at Deitch Projects presents preliminary photo compositions that Wiley uses to create his stunning heroic large scale paintings of urban youth.

Moving away from the triumphant religious iconography, these warmer romantic portraits capture a early Dutch still life subtlety.

Young Curators New Ideas II

Young Curators, New Ideas II is a collaboration examining new voices in contemporary art through the perspective of seven New York based curators at P.P.O.W.

Highlights, Norma Markley's Pom-Pom Clouds in dialogue with Tom Fruin's Untitled neon nooses.

Las Hermanas Iglesias Lost Glove, collection of 62 single gloves found in Paris, with a hand made replacement of the lost partner made of gouache on paper.

Taylor Baldwin's I ain't afraid of no ghosts, mixed media installation has many great elements but is a bit incongruent as a whole.

Yinka Shonibare MBE at Brooklyn Museum

British artist Yinka Shonibare was born in London to Nigerian parents, and grew up between UK and Nigeria.

His sculptural work features typically headless mannequins that are dressed in eloborate costumes. Refrencing English painting and literature of Wilde and Hogarth, Shonibare creates a fictious narrative by use of Africanized fabric design (Dutch wax printed cotton) and colours in creating his brilliantly tailored elaborate victorian dresses.

The best part of this exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum is Shonibare's infiltration of the Period Rooms. Here Shonibare's headless but dynamic figures populate and animate the static period rooms, creating a very interesting dialogue of the surroundings and the histories of these spaces.

X-Initiative PoolNoodles and Projections

The X-Initiative has taken over the former Dia:Chelsea space, and will exist for one year and present programming over three phases, featuring a lot of video and installation projections that assume the vast floor space of this massive center.

British artist Tris Vonna-Michell work is an investigation in language and convoluted narratives. Visual poetry and sound art are harmonized in the way he presents stories and events through fragmented images and chaotic accelerated monologues in frantic speach. It is the intersection of personal memories and forgotten histories, how things are retold and remembered.



Pool Noodle Rooftop is a vibrant outdoor installation by Jeffrey Inaba's studio INABA. Specially designed in X shapes, outdoor furniture was constructed from pool noodles that have been cut and bunched into chaise lounge chairs that spell out the word "bububluooopppp"

Curators as Models for Y

Exhibit Y: the new spring look book for Yohji Yamamoto’s second line Y’s features curators as the models.


How hot are Julien Fronsacq (Palais de Tokyo, Paris); Olivier Sailliard (Musée de la Mode et du Textile, Paris); Hans Ulrich Obrist (Serpentine Gallery, London)

Of course the gorgeous women of the art world Léanne Sacramone (Fondation Cartier, Paris); Kaat Debo (Momu Anvers, Antwerp); Angeline Scherf (Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris)

Past concepts have included shooting the clothes on graphic designers, actors and classical dancers.

Black Acid Co-Op at Deitch

Black Acid Co-Op at Deitch Project, is a collaborative project by Justin Lowe and Jonah Freeman. Like vitrines of a Museum of Natural History, the labrynth of spaces contrast how mainstream, counter-culture and sub-culture groups are linked and embedded in a hybridized industrial and media based society.

The burnt out meth lab, to a Chinatown market, a high society living room, to a shamanic labratory are all conected by gaping holes chiseled out of the walls and rickety stairwells. The alchemy of modern life and the fluidity of the internal space in the urban environment.

Polaroid - The Impossible Project

Polaroid is transforming itself from an analog Instant Film Production Company to a global Consumer Electronics and Digital Imaging company.

Production of analog Instant Film stopped in June 2008, closing the factories in Mexico (Instant Packfilm production) and the Netherlands (Instant Integral production).

Impossible b.v. has been founded with the concrete aim to re-invent and re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras.

Therefore Impossible b.v. has acquired the complete film production equipment in Enschede (NL) from Polaroid, has signed a 10-year lease agreement on the factory building; and has engaged the most experienced team of Integral Film experts worldwide.

The Impossible mission is NOT to re-build Polaroid Integral film but (with the help of strategic partners) to develop a new product with new characteristics, consisting of new optimised components, produced with a streamlined modern setup. An innovative and fresh analog material, sold under a new brand name that perfectly will match the global re-positioning of Integral Films.

Mom & Pop:ism, Graffiti on the Gawker Rooftop

Gawker Arts presents Mom & Pop:ism

To celebrate the release of James and Karla Murray's book Store Front: The Disappearing face of New York, Gawker.com invited 28 Street and Graffiti artists to collaborate on their rooftop installation of New York city streets.

Ron Arad at MoMA

The name of Ron Arad immediately conjures up pieces such as the Bookworm bookcase (1993) and the Tom Vac chair (1997), but his surprising work goes beyond any easy classification and expresses a free creative spirit working without constrictions or frontiers in design, architecture and the plastic arts. Ron Arad defines himself as belonging to "No discipline".

No Discipline is the title of his current retrospective at MoMA. Seen here at the opening, Arad humour and spirit is posted confidently on his I Don't Want No Retro Spective t-shirt.

The retrospective presents major and emblematic works, prototypes accompanied by audiovisual documents, limited series and mass-produced objects, along with numerous architectural projects.

Born in Tel Aviv, Arad lives and works in London, and is considered one of the greats amongst industrial designers.

ART BAZAAR at Lyons Wier Gallery

The Art Bazaar is an OPEN CALL to ANY artist who works in ANY medium (i.e painting, sculpture, photography, fiber, performance, conceptual, WHATEVER - so long as the work fits within the allotted space in the gallery)The artist that generates THE MOST REVENUE during the 7 weekend period will be awarded a solo exhibition at Lyons Wier Gallery in 2010.

Doors open to artists at 8am on Saturday for admission & initial installation.

Doors open at 10am-12pm on Sunday for artists to re-install or for rotation of new artists.

Doors close to artists for admission once the gallery is full and space is allocated.

Artists will be admitted to the gallery on a "First Come, First Serve" basis. No holding a space in line permitted.

Only the artist him/herself may display and sell their artwork. No substitutes or representatives allowed.

The artist must be present both days to set up their own space in the morning or else their artwork will be removed.

Any artist who does not return on Sunday forfeits their space to the next artist waiting in line.

The Gallery will announce any display areas that become available online on ww.ArtBazaar.tv throughout the Saturday & Sunday events.

The gallery will only accept CASH / CREDIT CARDS for all sales.

The gallery will be responsible for collecting money from all sales at the front desk and will issue receipts to the buyer and seller. Cash sales will be tallied & settled directly with the artist at the end of each day. Credit card sales will be settled with the artist within 10 days of clearing.

ALL SALES ARE FINAL. NO RETURNS or EXCHANGES ALLOWED.

There are NO LIMITATIONS on price, quantity, medium or size of the work as long as the work(s) fit within the artist's allocated space.

All artists MUST sign a WAIVER that acknowledges Lyons Wier Gallery is NOT RESPONSIBLE for any artwork transported to/from the gallery and for any damage, loss, theft occurring at/from the premises.

The artist acknowledges that Lyons Wier Gallery has the rights to their "likeness" or image as it will be broadcasting live feeds, video and webcasts from the gallery on ArtBazaar.tv and other outlets during both days of the exhibition.

Artists may participate at the Art Bazaar as many weekends as they like. There is no limit to how many times you exhibit. Those artists who exhibit on the Saturday may leave their work up in the gallery to show on Sunday.

If the artist does not show up on Sunday, their work will be removed from the gallery and the space will become vacant for another artist to take. A new line will be formed each day (Sat or Sun) outside the gallery for possible admission.

If you have acquired a spot in the bazaar and you have your own website, Lyons Wier Gallery will post a link to your site on http://www.artbazaar.tv/for the duration of your hanging. Any sales generated by an artist's website linked on www

dash snow memorial

Dash Snow, East Village Artistic Rebel, Dies July 13, 2009

Grafitti artist, polaroid photographer of the sex- and drug-fueled young bohemian circles in which he moved, recording his life and times in a style similar to that of his close friend Ryan McGinley and older artists like Nan Goldin and Larry Clark, was a forefather of the current trash Lower East Side art movement.

Memorial is being held at Deitch Projects, where the artist's friends and the public are invited to collaborate and contribute photos words thoughts and flowers to the tragedy of this premature death.

Hans Ulrich Obrist book talk at the Guggenheim

Walter Hopps will be here in 20 minutes!!

On stage with recently appointed Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong and Curator Nancy Spector, Hans Ulrich Obrist discussed issues on curating and his career, as a presentation of his new book A Brief History of Curating.

As curator of over 140 shows to date, and current director of the Serpentine Gallery, Obrist explains that the curator is really an accomplice of the artist, and that looking and looking again is the adage to live by.

The lecture itself was filled with a lot of name dropping and anecdotal quotes pulled from his book, a transcribed oral history of the great curators in the voices current artworld greats and important curators.
Little buttons were given out as a hommage to mythicly tardy and notorius for disappearing Corcoran Gallery director Waltehr Hopps.

West Queen West, the Gallery District

Highlights from Toronto's West Queen West, and burgeoning Ossington art district.

Talia Shipman resin coated black and white photos interpreting Exodus: The Ten Plagues, James Olley and Brendan Flanagan both brilliant emerging artists that stay true to Jamie Angell's program of encouraging Pop impasto painting with a pure Canadian/Group of Seven-esque soul at Angell Gallery .

MKG127 presents COMMON WEALTH, 5 artists living in the United Kingdom exploring the relationship between word and image. I loved the audio piece by Giorgio Sadotti, the Now Cd clipped the lyric "Now"from many famous songs and mixed it together. David Alker's ironic post-its, and Denise Hawrysio Spotlight, where headshot picture books had all the faces cut out leaving bad hairstyles as an ominous aura of what was.


Gallery44 artist in residence program featuring Jim Verburg very romantic photos titled I see you all the time.

Pulp Fiction at Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art

Pulp Fiction at the MOCCA, curated by Corinna Ghaznavi, brings together a group of fourteen artists from across Canada as a means of examining this phenomenon of art practice. Because the work bypasses the space, systems and many of the concerns of Canada’s established institutions, this show developes as an unintelligable dialogue between regional artists with museum standards speaking to a commercial gallery with a strong Canadiana thematic.

Little dolls by Jennie O'Keefe.

James Kirkpatrick, the talking that influences everything that still goes on those that allow it to happen, a found object sculptural installation piece. Jason Mclean and Mark DeLong

On the Pleasure of Hating: Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; Hatred alone is Immortal at Lisa Cooley Gallery

An insanely long but severly poignant title for the current show at Lisa Cooley Gallery- On the Pleasure of Hating: Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; Hatred alone is Immortal.

The title comes from an essay by English writer William Hazlitt, about antipathies and the unruly passions of men. To me the title and the show both feel like a ripened more profound teenage angst and highschool heartache.

Dario Robleto's Sinew of Purpose.



Josh Faught's Triage, mixed media of canvas hemp, books, stitched and hung together.

Don't Panic at Rental Gallery

Rental Gallery is an atypical exhibition space that invites galleries to host shows in their Chinatown space. There is definatly an obvious program in selecting the collaborating galleries.

The last exhibition was a solo show featuring Richard Kern, who is part photographer, part filmmaker, and infamously occasional pornographer.

Current show Don't Panic! I'm selling my collection, is an assemblage of super trendy, low grade works by blue-ish chip artists, from a variety of New York based collector's private collections.


The trop articulated press release explains that during the boom the habit formed of mistaking hipness for genius and Viola.... Don't Panic, I'm selling my collection honourable mention for the interesting Ingrid Calame, small David Salle paintings, Hope Atherton, and of course no LES show would be complete with the Marylin Minter.

Michael Jackson Pollock video by Marco Schmitt

Invisible Exports presents a hilarious video program negotiating the consequence of television struggle between high and low culture. Curated by Mike Bouchet, the program consists of works by a roster of contemporary artists interwoven with segments and episodes swiped from digital cable. Throughout the show, the work will be continuously replenished with new videos and new content from network programs, a democratic gesture that raises questions about influence and audience, scope, depth, and quality in the narrative arts.

As the world mourns the loss of King of Pop, Michael Jackson, IE presents a very poignant video Mr. Michael Jackson Pollock by Marco Schmitt. The clip is of the artist disguised as Michael Jackson, moonwalking and dancing while drip and splattering a canvas à la Jackson Pollock. (nb this is not an image from the show!)

After Color at Bose Pacia

After Color presented by Bose Pacia, curated by Amani Olu, a discussion on Black&White photography in the age of large scale massive colour imaging.

Many of the photos seemed more like ephemeral graphite on paper rather than b&w photography, like Talia Chetrit's Gradient Tool and Matthew Gamber's Untitled Chalkboard.

Very beautiful landscapes by Arthur Ou. I remember being surprised by these large photos at Hudson Franklin's booth at 2008 NADA Miami Fair.

East Houston: Whitewash Facelift

On East Houston, between Billy's Antiques and Bowery stood the recreated mural by famous NY grafitti artist and AIDS awareness advocate Keith Haring (framed by the contemporary grafitti artist Mr. Brainwash)

The weekend of July 4th, these two walls were whitewashed, and a new mural is on its way up.

In other East Houston news, the scandal that broke around this threesome Calvin Klein ad created such a stir, that it was taken down and replaced by blond model in bikini which was replaced last week by the newest ad featuring Eva Mendez.

We're All Gonna Die at Sue Scott Gallery

A vibrantly existentialist We're All Gonna Die at Sue Scott Gallery, curated by Ron Keyson.
This two part exhibition divides death into Comedy and Tragedy.

Highlights of this show, Marlyin Minter (seems like every corner you turn in the LES these days has a Minter on it), and a hallucinogenic WallPaper by Fred Tomaselli.

Markus Linnenbrick's abstract painting titled DYINGDOESNOTMEETMYEXPECTATIONS/DEATHOFADISCODANCER

and the somber frosty Anthony Conway Due North.

Sculpture Center Long Island City - Summer show

Sculpture Center Long Island City summer show In Practice features new works. The creepy dank basement of the Sculpture Center at once houses and compliments the artist's works bringing a sculptural environment to these works.

Michael Ashkin's project consists of a miniaturized model of a fictional urban agglomeration at a scale of 1:128. Built entirely of found cardboard, stretching the length of the central basement tunnel at SculptureCenter the piece emulates a stretch that would extend for two miles and can be only be observed from one point of view situated well beyond its area of maximum density. The model is based on an architectural/urban typology increasingly found on the outskirts of many cities as a result of rapid urbanization.




Virginia Overton's sculptures use material such as beams, pallets squished between walls with shims, and large sonotubes. Overton prefers to highlight what she calls "unskilled skills" - like driving a truck and stacking chairs or pallets. The series comes to a pinacle in the video of the spotlight that grows ever omnipresent as the viewer advances through the dark basement.

Cindy Loehr's The Advisor says, "the revelation we're ready for is the revelation we'll get." The Advisor's ghost-like figure is inspired by a cut out pattern from an old paper project book. Though larger-than-life, it is unassuming in its construction: simple pattern pieces held together by nuts and bolts. Between decoy and protagonist, the humorous figure of the Advisor delivers philosophy and idiosyncratic ruminations, on life, death and hope. Combining prosaic descriptions of life in the city with aphoristic existential advice, small books of the speech are available for visitors to take home.

WhiteWall Magazine

Whitewall Magazine, a gorgeous art and luxury lifestyle magazine, should be on the coffee table of everyone in the arts.

The Summer Issue launch party was held at 60 Thompson Hotel, where ArtJetSet caught up with Andres Serrano.

Katrin Sigurdardottir at two concurent shows Eleven Rivington and Greenberg Van Doren Gallery

Katrin Sigurdardottir has two concurent solo shows which explore two polar aspects of her sculptural practice. At Greenberg Van Doren Sigurdardottir has constructed serene mountainous landscapes in portable boxes and shipping crates.

Conversly at 11 Rivington we are confronted by a massive plywood box, the installation housing a guard tower opposed by a two-way mirror. The infinite reflection and distance of a closed interior. 11 Rivington also featured the inverted house chandelier at NADA Miami, a gorgeous piece that harmonizes the two shows.

The Living Art Exhibition by ArtBattles

ArtBattles presents a two week showcase at the RedBull Space titled Living Art Exhibition. Artists battle live on stage producing paintings infront of a live audience. The audience votes, and the paintings are available for purchase. The winning artist receives a solo show and $20 000 Commision for a mural at Griffin Court Developement.

Younger than Jesus... one more time

I Kitty Kraus revisited the New Museum Younger Than Jesus and decided that I really like Kitty Kraus Robert Morris-esque sculptures, Mark Essen super old school technology video game (ps boys.... share with others), and water colour video installation by Wojciech Bąkowski.

Dark and Dirty in the Lower East Side

In dialgue with New Museum's summer show Younger Than Jesus, there are some challenging shows in the Lower East Side.

Oil Now by Theo Mercier at Envoy Enterprises presents an ironic sculptural installation of found objects, cut and pasted pornography, and racial non-sequitors.

I did like the fresh grave that emminated soft muffled music titled Punk is not Dead.

More death, multiples and irony at Terence Koh's Asia Song Society (charming acronym ASS) Everything Must Out Going

ASS is unique space in ChinaTown usually showing ecclectic shows by Koh's artist friends. The current show Everything Must Out Going is an array of artist multiples, prints, books, odds and ends, and photos. The "show continues" in the scary dark and dusty basement, which actually is a great space, housing a glass vitrine with a skeleton and a delightful digital slideshow.

Jonathan Monk Inflated Deflated at Casey Kaplan

The current show at Casey Kaplan I was anticipating a pop contrived show of Jeff Koons-esque work. Not only was I wrong, I was pleasantly surprised with an intimate and engaging exhibition of Jonathan Monk stainless steel sculptures of deflated rabbits paired with the hyperrealistic paintings of his art making process.

Oil paintings titled Production Stills lend to a very intimate dialogue about how profoundly the artist is engaged with his body of work in creating this kind of mass consumer product-come-fine art sculpture.

Fairs, Biennales, Parties OH MY!!

Fairs in Basel Switzerland

Art Basel

Volta05

Biennale

53rd Venice Biennale titled Making Worlds, directed by Daniel Birnbaum.

Art Parties and Fundraisers

Whitney Museum Art Party and Auction

Eyebeam Non-profit Digital Media space

Yayoi Kusama at Gagosian

Gagosian has two outstanding shows on at the moment. Picasso: Mosqueteros, a musuem quality presentation of Picasso paintings from the late years of 1963 - 1973.

Yayoi Kusama, massive abstracted paintings of vibrant coloured tiny loops contrast with the installation Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity.

Also called the Infinity Room, Kusama plays with relation of the viewer within these engaging optical environments.

Banks Violette at Team Gallery

Banks Violette show Not Yet Titled at Team Gallery showing drawings and one sculpture (cast motorcycle resin and salt). Violette calls his drawings “film cells from the world’s slowest movie.”

Here is Banks Violette with supporters of all ages. ArtJetSet caught up with Agathe Snow who is just back from preparing a show in Paris Jeu de Paume and on her way to Toronto for a show at The Powerplant.

Berlin, Art on Every Corner

Berlin is a city filled with art and artists. The streets are clean and the graffiti is abundant.

Tacheles – An abandoned department store that was taken over by artists it is a well known artist collective housing studios, bars, and gallery spaces. The building was bought by Fundus Group investment fund in the 90s, but to avoid conflict with the artists they leased the building back to the squatter-tenants for 10 years at $0.50 per year. The lease has just expired, and now there is a petition circulating to preserve the building and prevent the eviction of the artists.

Lego installation project which a building on Museum Island had its bullet holes filled with colourful lego blocks.

Of course the ever present memorials to those who died during the wars, and the horrors of Nazi era.
Christian Boltanski missing house 1990, constructed a memorial space in this void dedicated to absence, the signs indicate the names of former residents and place where they lived in the building.

Empty Library by Israeli artist Micha Ullman 1995, book burning of May 10, 1933

Berlin Private Collections

Art critic to the New York Times Michael Kimmelman likened Berlin to a Potempkin village - a place of perpetual becoming. The city itself is in the process of making itself and remaking it self. Since most of the city was destroyed in during World War II, and the reprocussions of the Fall of the Wall and German reunification, Berlin as a city has a feeling of secret dispersed energy. There is a lot of vast empty space with no structural center - and the art scene is like a permanent art fair.

Berlin also lacks of central Contemporary art institution. There is a temporary Kunstehalle, and the Hamberger Banhoff, but there is no significant institution synonmous with the likes of the MoMA or the Centre Pompidou. The result is an astounding array of adhoc private collections.

Sammlung Hoffmann

Is a private collection of Erika and Rolf Hoffmann. The Hoffmann own an entire building complex which the ground floor is occupied by a delcious resto, 3 levels of art exhibition space, and their private home on the upper levels.

Their personal library is a self enclosed space -reminiscent of a train compartment - room in the middle of the third level gallery. The library is a deep red colour contrasting to the white walls and light installations that surround it. The library is likened to the central thriving brain feeding up and down through the collection.

The exhibition changes once a year, they are currently showing artists like Pipilloti Rist, Josef Kusoth, Meinz Mack, Otto Piene, Francois Morellet, and a stunning full Electric chair series by Andy Warhol.

Sammlung Boros

Polish born collector and advertising entrepreneur Chritian Boros and wife Karen, present their collection as described on the website as "art they don't understand." Housed in The Bunker, originally a bunker, converted to a tropical fruit warehouse then later to an underground techno club which held sadomasochism parties. The bunker was shut down by police in 1996, and remained vacant until the Boros bought it and remolded it into their residence / art collection exhibition space. Architectural firm Realarchitektur who did the remodel was awarded the Beton Prize for it in 2008

Collection includes a stunning collection of Olafur Eliasson, works by Tobias Rehberger, Anselm Reyle, Chris Maartin, Elmgreen Dragset, Mark Hicky, Katja Strutz, and many more.

About Change , Collection Stiftung is a space dedicated to collage and assemblage —both the principle of combining diverse materials, contexts, and contents, and the general history of this technique.

The current show features artist Nora Schultz folded framed paper, Josh Smith collages on canvas, and Bjorn Dahlem's sculpture of hotdogs in jars.

Daimler Contemporary

In the heart of Potsdammer Platz, a futuristic glass complex designed mostly by Renzo Piano, we find the Daimler Contemporary Art Collection. Daimler Benz the car manufacturers have been collecting and commissioning contemporary art.

Noteable commissions by Andy Warhol, Robert Longo, and Sylvie Fleury. Outdoor surroundings are freckled with sculptures from their collection like Jeff Koons and Robert Rauchenberg.

Daimler art mission extends into community outreach and education. They have a manufacturing plant in South Africa, and therefore sponsor creative awards in South Africa. Current show features this years Fashion Award competition. Winner was BlackCoffee, and honorable mention to Craig Native and his street wear collection.

Gallery Weekend Berlin May 1 - 3

38 Galleries, 38 Openings 1 - 3 May 2009.

The slogan for Gallery Weekend Berlin is Feel Invited and Be Surprised

Here is a little selection of interesting shows from ZIMMERSTRASSE

Contemporary Art - Georg Herold

Klosterfelde - Hanne Darboven

Galerie Max Hetzler

Arndt & Partner - Ralf Ziervogel Young German Art

Galerie Barbara Weiss - Rebecca Morris

Wentrup - Gregor Hildebrandt

Volker Diehl Gallery- Frauke Eigen

Galerija Gregor Podnar - Attila Csorg

Konrad Fischer Galerie - Jan Dibbets

Upstairs Berlin - Anna Genger (relief on paper)

El Sourdog Hex - Peter Halley

Daad Galleries - ArturZmijewski , Democracies elemven cacophonic video installations about public expression in timultous public political realms.

Jablonka - Eric Fischl

Michael Jannsen Gallery - Shaan Syed

September

Bourouina Gallery - Yann Toma Post Bankrott

Nature Mort - Mala Iqbal, Bari Kumar

Marylin Minter at Salon 94

Green Pink Caviar is the second Marilyn Minter solo show at Salon 94. Minter examins glamour and its underbelly in a lush, subtly erotic juxtaposition in her photorealistic paintings and painterly photographs.

Absolute must see video www.greenpinkcaviar.com

Appraisers Association of America Honours Thomas Krens

On April 21 The Appraisers Association of America honoured Thomas Krens, Guggenheim Senior Advisor for International Affairs.

The award was presented by Jeff Koons, who gave a very sincere and warming introduction about his relationship with Krens. Koons gave a sweet nod to Krens as a visionary the art world as well as a compassionate friend, making sure to emphasize that chit-chat is definatly not his forte.

Thomas Krens joined the Guggenheim in 1988 and revolutionized the museum structure with brand expansion into markets such as Venice, Las Vegas, pinnacle Bilbao which revitalized the Basque region in Spain. Krens accepted the award, and followed with a persuasive presentation on the current development of the Guggenheim Abu Dahbi project, and the entire preposed arts and culture island of Sherga.

OMG! WTF is going on at the New Museum - Generational: Younger than Jesus

Younger than Jesus at the New Museum, This exhibition is an excercise in endurance.

Featuring fifty artists from 25 countries, all are under the age of 33. This generation has been categorized by sociologists, marketers, and social anthropologists as the iGeneration or Generation Me... a generation distinguished by technology and their consumption patterns. Granted this was the main theme that translated through the show.

The New Museum has consistently presented "challenging" shows. There are some elements of in Younger than Jesus that go beyond "challenging" into obsurdity, and just dilute the integrity of the interesting art from the "WTF is this art?" art.

Ryan Trecartin and AIDS 3-D’s Internet-inspired infantilism with the OMG monolith framed by burning torches. The artist Icaro Zorban here posing with his turntable installation. Liu Chuang diaporama, like a commodity portrait, she stops people in the streets of China and buys everything they have on them, and displays the items methodically on a white platform.

Artist Chu Yun who hired young women to take sleeping pills and sleep in the gallery for 8 hours a day. Adrian Lara's Untitled sculptural installation, which is in fact a banana peel on the floor. Every morning the security guard on duty eats the banana and then "installs" the peel. The security guard was sweating so hard trying to protect the sculpture from being walk on, she may have needed a second dose of banana Untitled installation.

Liz Glynn 24 Hour Roman Reconstruction Project at the New Museum

The 24 Hour Roman Reconstruction Project, a part of the Generational: Younger than Jesus exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Los Angeles artist Liz Glynn and the help of volunteer artists (including myself and my unsuspecting brother) used found materials to chronolgically reconstruct the Rome.

The construction began at 6.30pm April 6 and at 6.30pm April 7 - Rome was destroyed.
The only elements remaining are displayed polaroids of the succsive building that took place.

Here is the wall of polaroids, the artist Liz Glynn and myself.

Some of the monuments were brilliantly constructed by talented and dedicated participants. My brother Jeff and I, arrived at 8am and were entrusted with the construction of the Statilius Taurus Colosium. Once completed the buildings are placed in their true respective geographical locations.

The Destruction of Rome was accompanied by a horrific soundtrack of synthesized noise.

During the build NYmag arts writer Jerry Saltz came through, his video reportage brilliantly translates the calm of the build and the chaos of the destruction.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/04/saltz_on_the_new_museums_young.html

Sun Xun: Shock of Time at The Drawing Center

The Drawing Center presents hand-drawn animations by artist Sun Xun.

This stunning animation is made from hundreds of drawing on old Chinese newspapers.

A stunning and curious must see show.

Black & White Gallery presents Nostaligia for the Future paintings by Michael Van Den Besslaar

Black & White Gallery presents Nostaligia for the Future paintings by Michael Van Den Besslaar

The title of the show is poignient, the large sized oil on canvas paintings are stunning.

The gallery is a gorgeous and very large space in the far far extreme edge of Chelsea. Originally Dutch, Van Den Besslaar lives and works in Paris, France, his paintings are architectural refrences of California and suburban Chicago.

Greene Contemporary Welcome to My Word

Greene Contemporary show Welcome to My World, and interesting mix of artists, media, and themes.

I love Andrew Junge, Pandora's Box - a metal tool kit with neon hope.

Very much enjoyed Shawn Pettersen, Disrupted Migrations; pummeling through a torn sky, 200,000 miles above the falling vishnu mountains, another failed docking mission, fabric sculpture.

AIPAD - Park Ave Armory

AIPAD is the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, held their 29th annual photography show at the Park Ave Armory. Unlike other art fairs, photography fairs cause your eyes to shoot around like pinball... so much to see. A wide array of everything photographic, from daguerrotypes to large digital C-prints.
We saw a lot of secondary market, a lot of Great American Photographers (Steichen, Weston, Arbus) and the great photographers throughout history as a part of the AIPAD program Innovation: An Exhibition Within an Exhibition, which showcased milestones in the history of photography.

Yancey Richardson Gallery table scenes by Laura Letinsky, and loved these picture in a picture by Kenneth Josephson

Mat Pillsbury at Charles Issacs

Mona Kuhn at Scott Nichols Gallery

Vee Speers at Jackson Fine Arts, and Amy Stein series Domesticated.

Robert Polidori (though his New Orleans and Chernobyl series are powerful, I really loved his new works from Havana) and Vik Muniz at Edwynn Houk

Sentimental polaroids by Kertész at Stephen Bulger, super Toronto gallerist and President of AIPAD.

Michael Raedecker at Andrea Rosen

Michael Raedecker exhibition is titled Fix, on view at Andrea Rosen Gallery. These large paintings are accented with stitching and embroidery which give a nostalgic quality to an already airy imagery.

Raedecker's tablecloths and linens hanging on a drying line are so faint yet have such a heaviness of the drapery. Very beautiful.

Tony Oursler at Metro Pictures

Tony Oursler is a pioneer of New Media and video art.

Metro Pictures presents a variety of new works, including this stunning Cigarette Forest, 6 foot tall columns upon which smoldering cigarette projections burn away.

Other multimedia works in this show incuded issues on money (a giant talking five dollar bill), scratch lotto tickets, and gambling machines.

Gordon Cheung at Jack Shainman

Jack Shainman Gallery presents large paintings by London-based Gordon Cheung. These techno-coloured landscapes are stocklistings, acrylic gel and spray paint on sail cloth. Resulting in an amazing layered quality and depth.

Cheung alliterates the dialogue between fantasy, history, and overlays that upon the stock list numbers elluding to the underlying tones of the current financial systems.

Jon Kessler and Ryan McGinness at Deitch

The very lovely director Mlle Nicola Vassel gave us a brilliant tour of the current two extremly different shows at Deitch Project Soho spaces.

Ryan McGinness new works are florescent technocoloured silkscreens of icons, interlaced and layered upon each other, echoing the noise of the everyday and technology. McGuinness designs his own icons, ranging from people, to calculators, to arrows, trees, etc.
I especially like this green one, the 2D icons layer and grow into a very naturalistic organic feeling techno - landscape.
The lower level was an experiential installation, tondos painted with night-glow paint, exhibited under black lights.

Jon Kessler, Kessler's Circus is an army tent pitched in the gallery. The tent is supported on both sides by a wall of television monitors layered between army bunkbed baraks. Under the tent are mechanical sculptures using raw materials and ken dolls .... the torture of GI Joe.

A strong commentary on war, the American military, and the horrors and spectacle of the political war machine.
The Ken dolls are subject to various forms of torture, which is captured on mini cameras and projected in real time on the monitors.

The first time I saw this installation was at Democracy in America exhibition at Park Avenue Amrory this past fall. Kessler's tent was dwarfed by the very chaotic and super politically charged elements in the Democracy in America show. Seeing it in a more intimate space made it seem all the more intense and engaging.

Memories of the Future, Jakob Kolding at Team Gallery

Team Gallery presents a fun show by Danish born Berlin based Jakob Kolding.

Cultural collisions in the contemporary city, we have a melding of architecture, urbanisms, grafitti, skateboarding, electronic music, nature and technology in these printbased mixed media works.

Scope Foundation - Cheap Fast and Out of Control

The Scope Foundation is a not for profit that grew from the Scope Fair, with a mission to support emerging artists. Cheap Fast and Out of Control was a benifit space, selling artists multiples (t-shirts, photos, prints, editions) where 70% of the profits went to the artists, and 30% went to the foundation to support future projects.

There was a lot going on in this space, I know well since I have been collaborating with the Scope Foundation since January.

Film and live music presentation by Martha Colburn, archery presentations that became sculpture by Mitch Miller, silkscreen wallpaper tiles by Liz Ensz, stunning handcarved rug made from reclaimed wood by Amie Cunningham, and the bar which was built by Jon Keay.

Great mention goes to Julius Metoyer, Aimie Reporter, Craig Smith, Matthew Bakkom, Maya Hayuk, Mickey Duzyj, and Sam Zimmerman for his super film The Sock!!

Also featured an incredable music program like Wolff and Tuba and Lacoan Pictus who use pedals and technology to create most inorganic music, Abacus a mathematical Jazz band, and Electric Junkyard Gamelon who engineer their own instruments from found objects.

Scope Art Fair New York

Scope Art Fair New York is the FUN emerging contemporary fair. Where most of the fairs this season were quiet and modest, Scope promotes a lively dynamic program. Scope is refreshing and high energy.

Scope Fair is held at the Lincoln Center, the exterior surrounded by highrises, the interior an hommage to nature and camping. The entry was crowned by the resin deer head by Carolyn Salas and Adam Parker, from there we are guided down a ramp lined with recovered wood planks to the Scope Foundation Cheap Fast and Out of Control tent. At the threshold was Riding America Like a Cheap Pony, a wood cabin intallation by Kristen Schiele.

Nice to see new works by ArtJetSet favorite Marc Seguin being shown by Charest-Weinberg.

Marc Seguin is an brilliant thoughtful person, and very talented artist, and was a pleasure meeting him at the fair. Also great to see all the LOVE Marc was getting from Scope as this image was the link-through painting to access New York fair info on the Scope website.

Interesting works on paper, like these hyper-realistic paintings by Yigal Ozeri at Mike Weiss, and spraypaint on cardboard EVOL at Wilde.

Sebastien Denz 3-D skateboarding photos.

Dynamic photos by Haley Jane Samuelson at Hous Projects, and graffiti surrealist murals and paintings by Camilla Rose Garcia at Jonathan Levine

New Media works by young artist David O'Kane at Shuster Gallery, he paints 2 doppelganger paintings and creates a film by repainting one into a stop motion animation.

Ryan Wolfe Branching System of leaves that would move signaled by motion detectors at Dam, Stuhltrager & Frants Gallery

The Armory 2009 at Chelsea Piers

Art Fair week in New York openned to much worry and whispers about the state of the economy and the reprocussions upon the art market.

Break it down.... there is the Art Dealers Association of America ADAA Art Fair at the Park Avenue Armory, then there is The Armory Show at the Chelsea Piers. Volta, featuring a single artist in a curated booth, is a sister fair owned by the same parent company as The Armory Show. Pulse and Scope are independent fairs focusing on contemporary emerging art.

When past years inflated prices were encouraged by speculating Hedgefund guys, we are all curious to see what the fairs will offer.

At The Armory Show, the lanes were wide, the carpet was purple, and there was not a lot of noise.

The obvious lack of political, war, and super large conceptual pieces.... I found a sweet little trend... airplanes!!!!

Barbara Astman at Corkin Gallery, Alexandra Mir at Laurent Godin, and Martha Rosler at Mitchell-Innes Nash.

Food.....

Tony Matelli (bronze sculpture, flies and all) at Leo Koenig, Kenny Scharf at Paul Kasmin , and photorealistic painting by James White.


Ian Wallace at Yvon Lambert, James Casebere at Sean Kelly, Gabi Trinkaus at Georg Kargl.

Tadashi Kawamata at Kamel Mennour, Pascale Tayou at Continua.

Embroidery on paintings give such a stunning quality.

Kibong Rhee at Kukje Gallery, and Nicolas Hlobo large embroidered work.

Volta NY New Stance for Tomorow: Noam Gonick + Luis Jacob

Volta NY art fair presented an off site performative installation in Tribeca Grand Hotel's Sanctum, Wildflowers of Manitoba by Noam Gonick + Luis Jacob.

The work is presented within a furnished geodesic dome whose projected films feature four young men living off the grid in an idealistic survivalist camp on the shores of Lake Winnipeg. The loosely scripted scenes establish a naturalist idyll seemingly removed from modernity and, like wildflowers, the male subjects are intimately tied to a seductive meadow that is bordered by abandoned railway tracks and virgin beaches. Staged for the camera, the set and subjects evoke a distant, more innocent era where alternative, collective lifestyles flourished. With music by visionary seventies Québécois rock band Harmonium.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe, New Mexico has a huge art community featuring predominantly regional - South Western Art. Not just cowboys crossing the mountains, in Santa Fe you can find all kinds of treasures in the over 300 galleries.

A must see is Site Santa Fe, a contemporary non-profit non-collecting space.

Current show Pretty is as Pretty Does, featuring this enticing wall installation fur and teeth like bubbled through welts and scars in the walls by Ligia Bouton, and stunning embroidered silk on linen of dark scenes by Angelo Filomeno, portraits by Tanyth Berkeley.

Santa Fe has a large concentration of galleries can be found along Canyon Road.

Check out http://www.collectorsguide.com/index.php for more gallery info.

Juliana Romano at Marvelli Gallery

Juliana Romano gave a talk at Marvelli Gallery for her first solo show.

She is a painter's painter, and uses historical paintings to navigate through the development and build up of the heavy drapery in contrast to the highly reductive facial features.

I like this figuration, and am happy to see a nuanced return to portraiture with this Elizabeth Peyton-esque style.

Jacob Kassay at Eleven Rivington

Jacob Kassay is an innovative young artist. Kassay's first solo show on view at Eleven Rivington, his paintings are paint on canvas that are plated in silver. The technique of the underpainting creates an textured dynamic surface. The painterly graphic quality of the brushstroks are seen quite deliberatly. Tragically the paintings do not photograph well, and unlike this image, these paintings do NOT look like mirrors.

I was most attracted by the quality and subtly the dipping technique would slightly burn the edges of the canvas.

One piece on the floor not a sculpture but rather three paintings sitting ontop each other with a rock of asphalt between them. A dialogue around the silver asphalt chemical compositions of the piece and the relationship to sculpture and metal.

Lisa Kirk at Invisible Exports

Housing in New York for only $199.99! Not a recession special, it’s an art installation by Lisa Kirk!!

The real estate bubble burst, global markets are crashing down around us, Lisa Kirk’s Maison des Cartes offers buyers a way to invest in housing and in art at the same time… for the Low Low price of only $199.99!

Lisa Kirk’s exhibition is an environmental installation of two real spaces created within the Lower East Side gallery Invisible Exports. In the back, a fully functioning Real Estate office; in the front the Shanty timeshare, a completely self sustaining residential space constructed with solar panels and found materials.

Shanty chic! Instead of wine and cheese, this vernissage was BYOB. Drinking beer from brown-bags, some in fur coats others in fleece and jeans, there was a jovial camping feel to the evening. Elisa London, an actress playing the role of real estate agent, lead tours of the Shany’s amenities emphasizing BUY NOW! Join today and get your week while it is still available!

Once the exhibition closes, the Shanty built out of 52 parts, will be installed in the Brooklyn Navy Yard for 52 weeks. Membership into the timeshare is available $199.99 Basic membership includes one week rental of the shanty and a deed. Upgrade and get one piece of Shanty to keep, and one step more is getting a piece of shanty bronzed and signed.

Dror Studios and Dov Talpaz for Yigal Azrouel Men

Dror Studios and Dov Talpaz for Yigal Azrouel Men Collection F/W 2009

Dror Studio created □2 , a structural system of four identical L-shaped pieces requiring no fasteners. These panels, at first frame the catwalk, are the □2 that pop into dimension and become the constructed wall. The mural is painted by Dov Talpaz, his prints are also incorporated into Yigal Azrouel garment design.

Not just a metaphor, the harmony of the 3dimentional creating a solid, strong, and unity, is the perfect elegy for this triple threat collaboration.

Skulls... Still All The Rage!!

Skulls.... still all the rage! We've seen them in bone, diamond encrusted, and now duct tape!

On view at D'Amelio Terras Gallery

Sigumoto at Gagosian

At Gagosian Gallery, "7 Days / 7 Nights," an exhibition of fourteen photographs from the Seascapes series by Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Where sea and sky merge, Sugimoto created this series where the horizon blurs and then gradually sharpens in each successive photo.

One room is white and brightly lit, the other is black and each photo illumated by a spot light.

Thomas Hirschorn

Thomas Hirschorn is a conceptual artist who builds familiar yet disjuncted spaces, with a lot of brown packing tape and plywood.

Universal Gym at Gladstone Gallery featuring makeshift gym equipment, tvs showing pulse rates and biological rhythms, and the usual mannequins in vitrines.

Much more relatable than the last show of Hirschorn at Galerie Chantal Crousel called Concretion Re, some kind of narration on the body, manipulation and mutilation, disease, and torture. Concretion Re involved heavy amount of photos of mutilated bodies surrounding them mutilated mannequins, and ducttape the glue that held the ceiling and floor together.

On Kawara One Million Years

On Kawara's One Million Years is a project in process at David Zwirner Gallery. The project is about time, and years, the time it takes to narrate every year from One millions years ago until one million years from now.

A man and a woman sit in the booth, each couple for a 2 hour period. They read the date... 3756BC.... or three thousand seven hundred fifty six bee cee, 3757 BC.... three thousand seven hundred fifty seven beeecee.

Chatting with the tech guy who has been recording and editing the audio said some times the best couples have voices that sound like song, it is very zen and very relaxing.

The best so far has been a poetry student who was participating to get over his fear of public speaking. He approached his reading prepared with a systemic reading pattern. 10 minutes into his reading, his partner began unconsciously mimicing the beat... which roled into an increadable techno remix beat.

This project has travelled to destinations around the world and will continue to travel. Though the participants are speaking the years, the project is actually about the time it will take to say every year.

Fashion Photography and the Defunct Gallery Space

Chadwick Tyler and Paul Rowland are editorial photographers bringing their glam fashion photographs out of the magazines and temporarily taking over bankrupt gallery spaces to host crossover exhibitions.

Walking down 11th Ave at West 21st St there is a white wall with a cutout entry... SUPRISE, yes Alice in Wondeland... it is a narrow doorway to the HoneySpace.

Tiberius is Chadwich Tyler's exhibition. He said the title is a word he likes, because it could be a place, a clan, a harem, a community.
30 black and white photos are hung salon style, with ornamented frames painted the same egg shell colour as the walls. The images are of beautiful young models in a dark dirty vaudeville-esque narrative. They are active, pensive, often smoking cigarettes.

The didactic material reads like a magazine call sheet, where the stylists, make up assistants, and models are all thanked by name.


A few blocks later we find a recently bankrupt art gallery which is has become temporary exhibition space for Transformations by Paul Rowland.

Rowland created Women Management, a modeling agency with a mission to explore visual perception by finding talented models that could transform into a character that would engage and stimulate the viewer, and create a real meaning behind the image.
Transformations is a survey of Rowland's photography which was first shown during the Miami Art Fair, and now in this temporary space in New York.
Very large format photos are beautiful young fictional versions of Diane Arbus characters.

Yves Saint Laurent SALES SALES and PUBLICITY

On Feb. 23, auction house Christie's International will begin a three-day sale of up to $425 million worth of art collected by the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, industrialist Pierre Bergé. The sale of nearly 700 artworks -- from Roman antiquities to paintings by Mondrian and Picasso -- will feature a celebrity-studded red carpet, $400 souvenir catalogs and a 44,291 square-foot salesroom built into the Grand Palais, Paris's glass-domed exposition hall near the Champs-Elysées.

Concurrently, YSL has put out what they are branding as the MANIFESTO, which is actually an oversized glossy catalogue of the Spring/Summer 2009 collection. A defunct ground floor retail space has become host to this special New York presentation called Edition Unisex from Feb 12 - Feb 21 at 55 Great Jones Ave @ Bowery.

Marlene Dumas at the MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art presents Measuring Your Own Grave, a retrospective of South African painter Marlene Dumas. The dark expressive paintings present intimacy in a raw crude way. From the diversity of people, races, expressions, and faces comes naked bent over figures, massive over sized babies, and highlights of colour dotted throughout a predominantly dark show. Dumas is asking questions of gender, identity, race, religion, and sexuality. The viewer is challenged, as indicated by the title, how deeply do you want to plunge into this darkness?

I was first introduced to Dumas’ work in 2002, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art show Marlene Dumas' First Drawing Retrospective. Mostly black ink on paper portraits, the walls were grids of gestural blurs and watery streaks which created intensely focused faces. The series Models and Jesus Serene, I was struck by the profound expressiveness Dumas achieved with such little technical articulation. Dumas plays on subversive means of expression; the interplay between tension, joy, desire, thought, the ambiguous, the anonymous, and the relationships of reaction and interpretation.

For Measuring Your Own Grave the paintings are shown grouped thematically rather than chronologically. I broke the show down into six prominent themes. Early colour portraits circa 1985, babies circa 1990, faces circa 1994, naked paintings circa 1999, soft close ups circa 2003, and finally the newer works of articulated portraits. Not that every retrospective should be chronological, but the dispersion of these themes dilutes the cohesiveness of these already challenging works. The viewer’s attention is distracted and jolted from painting to painting.

In one particular room hung Male Beauty, a water colour on paper of a nude male viewed from the back with exposed genitals, The Shrimp and Miss Pompadour, both paintings of women bent over with exposed buttocks and genitals, and finally The Kiss (2003) an intimate vulnerable downward face kissing with closed eyes. The juxtaposition narrates that not all naked and not all erotic is necessarily pornographic. The Kiss, as soft visually as emotionally, was lost amongst these naked bodies, obvious by one disgruntled visitor who belted out “It not that they are erotic, they are just not appealing.” Just as the life sized gentle portraits of Helena were hung opposite the over sized unsettling contorted babies. It was more the juxtaposition that was just not appealing.

The painting that struck me as the most explicative of Dumas oeuvre is the painting Evil is Banal. An early work from 1984 this large (possible self-portrait) portrait tightly focuses upon a pensive female face with wild orange hair, her head posed on her folded hand. The title does not relate directly to the image, it is more about the cerebral notion of banality, of our psychological conceptions of evil, of what and how we think and how this individual interpretation translates onto facial expressions and emotions. Similarly, upon one large wall hung six paintings, each painted during different years with different subjects and varied stylistic treatment. Dumas’ masterful use of black as the principle palette and use of colour to highlight cheeks, foreheads, and jaw lines, gives the emotional integrity and subtly provocative nature of these large stunning portraits, especially White Disease, The Believer, The Pilgrim.

For my second plunge into Marlene Dumas’ dark portraits, I have defiantly dug deep. I encourage viewers of this show to look at these portraits with the same focus and determination as these portraits are looking back at you with.

Francesca DiMattio at Salon 94 Freemans

Francesca DiMattio at Salon 94 Freemans showing large, Bacon - De Chirco inspired paintings.

New Museum, Snow, Blum, and the Rain Forest

New Museum hosts a interesting show discussing inhabitation and our living environment, our constructed surroundings.

Mathias Poledna's Crystal Palace is a stunning 35mm film showing a lush rainforest landscape with gentle rain and winds blowing through the foliage. The intense soundtrack, suggests the physiological experience of abstract and structural film.

Contrasting with Agathe Snow decoupage installation Master Bait Me, a cage with blue magnetic balls, surrounded by decoupage of found images, celebrities from magazines.

Be(com)ing Dutch at a Distance Blum’s work Exodus 2048, commissioned by the Van Abbemuseum for Be(com)ing Dutch, is installed on the fifth floor as part of Museum as Hub: Be(com)ing Dutch at a Distance. The multipart project presents an “Imagined Future” in the year 2048, in which the state of Israel has dissolved and the Van Abbemuseum serves as a temporary camp for Israeli refugees. The project’s “what-if” scenario addresses the role of the host and the refugee far into the future. In the context of the New Museum, the U.S.’s own particular history in relation to emigration and its strong relationship with Israel are reflected.

Peter Doig: New Paintings

Peter Doig’s first exhibition of new paintings in the United States in nearly ten years is being shown as a joint exhibition at two distinctive New York galleries. During these difficult economic times this artist is cleverly marketing his new work by actively choosing what he shows and where. At Michael Werner’s 77th Street gallery is an intimate austere show that articulates a natural succession of paintings in Doig’s style, contrasted by the paintings at the progressive downtown Gavin Brown’s Enterprise which show Doig’s Trinidad inspired paintings and portraiture.

The Upper East Side townhouse that was once occupied by legendary art dealer Leo Castelli is the very same in which we find the Michael Werner Gallery. The gallery feels more like a homely space, a narrow foyer lined with small landscape paintings, capped by a dimly lit square room featuring three large canvases. Doig’s series Man Dressed as a Bat shows a life sized abstracted yellow figure on the edge of jetty, looking out over a sea horizon. The somber colours of the dark ground and the abstracted figure are created by fluid washes of paint which permeate and saturate the canvas. The paintings at Michael Werner Gallery look like what a Doig collector would happily anticipate the new work to look like.

The Gavin Brown Enterprises is a large white cube style gallery, with polished concrete floors, florescent lights and high ceilings. Trinidad’s affect on Doig is dramatic and reminiscent of Tahiti’s influence upon Gauguin. The large exhibition space allows Doig to ease his audience into his new work with a broad spectrum of paintings. He presents Music for the Future, a typical Doig style large painting of small houses in dark natural landscape. Doig moves us forward to Moruga, a distant town with lone figures surrounded by an overbearing Trinidad landscape. Most surprising is Doig’s concentrated foray into portraiture. There is a long wall of small portraits of a mustached man playing table tennis. These lead up to a large untitled painting of this same man in front of a bright blue checkered wall playing ping pong alone.
Doig seems intent on pleasing his audience by strategically showing two very different shows in two very different spaces for the joint exhibition Peter Doig: New Paintings.

John Beech at Peter Blum Gallery Soho

Obscure / Reveal is the title of collaborative show at Peter Blum Gallery featuring paintings by John Beech complimented by words by Edward Albee.

Beech's overpainted photos are beautiful and nostalgic and Albee hits this delicate insight with his brief yet poigniant words.

Mr. Nobody Dies at Lehmann Maupin Chrystie St.

Lehmann Maupin showing Mr. a Japanese artist, discovered by Takashi Murakami in 1995 and since then has been involved with Murakami's art studio and enterprise Kaikai Kiki.

The exhibition of paintings, photos, and a film installation, is an examination of the Otaku subculture in Japan, which emerged in the 1970s and mainly consists of obsessive males whose fetishes include cuteness or kawaii.


Mr. highlights these typical Japanese kawaii girls weilding plastic guns in technocoloured camoflauge army fatigues, being cute and violent.

Lily Ludlow Sowing Circle at Canada New York Gallery

For the first time in a long time it was a great pleasure to watch an entire video piece. This was a captivating and seductive glance through the keyhole, into the lives of a group of women.

Canada New York Gallery presents Lily Ludlow's Sowing Circle, a 3 screen installation showing the intimate and mundane moments of a group of women. Effectuated in a cinematgraphic vibrance and nostalgia, the music fluid and rhythmic, your eyes transition across the screens as the drumming beats fade into each scene change.

The black and white scene of all the women gathered around a table fit for a still life, with the pears, Morocain tea pot, wine bottles and an Oldenberg-esque 2 layer cake, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes. The tribal pulsating beats of the soundtrack reverberate as the scene cuts to ripples of smoke billowing in a black space.

These scenes are interlaced with nearly silent scenes of the guests of the tea party in their everyday lives. Making coffee, drinking coffee, folding laundry, sewing laundry, packing bags, and singing off key in the bathtub. Documentary style footage made these domestic scenes familiar and accessible.

On a small side note, the actors feature Chloë Sevigny and musician Lizzie Bougatsos.

Postcards From the Edge, Benefit for Visual Aids at Metro Pictures

Held at Metro Pictures, Postcards From the Edge is a Visual AIDS benefit show and sale of original, postcard-sized works on paper by established and emerging artists. All works are sold on a first-come, first-served basis for $75 each. The works are signed on the back and exhibited so the artists' signatures cannot be seen. While buyers receive a list of all participating artists, they don't know who created which piece until purchased.

All proceeds support the work of Visual AIDS, utilizing contemporary art for AIDS advocacy and historicizing the work of HIV-positive artists while offering career support.

Contributing artists included Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Nayland Blake, Olaf Breuning, Marcel Dzama, Karen Finley, Joan Jonas, Jeff Koons, Louise Lawler, Hans Haacke, Emily Jacir, Tony Oursler, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smlith, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Kara Walker, Lawrence Weiner and many many more.

I took home an Amy Morken!

Brooklyn Museum

Visited the Brooklyn Museum, and it is immense! It is a multi experiential space showing traditional American paintings, design of furniture and interiors, jewellery, cultural artifacts, contemporary art, feminist art, you name it they have a department.

The feature exhibits of the moment is The Black List Project, photos by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, portraits of influential African-Americans in contemporary society ranging from musicians, politicians, artists, writers, and activists.

Burning Down the House, a feminist art collection. Over fifty feminist artists, housed in the same wing as Judy Chicago's Diner Party.

I caught the tail end of the Gilbert and George exhibition, showing their evolution from sculptors towards their experimentation with digital photography's possibitily of scale.


The American wings presented interesting dialogue in the curatorial choices of hanging certain works amongst others in an innovative way. Like the Mary Blumenschein romantic portrait hung with Sylvia Mangold's still life Floor with Laundry, and the Cindy Sherman photographs hung around Jane E Bartlett's portraits.

We saw the epic monumental scaled Kehinde Wiley's alter with three niche paintings, crowned with a tromp l'oeil ceiling painting.

Helvetica The Film

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film by Gary Hustwit, about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which recently celebrated its 50th birthday) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.

I would never have imagined being so captivated by a documentary on typography, but I was so engaged by the history, the origins, and the passionate eloquence of typographers and designers.

Helvetica was revolutionary in that it is utilitarian, bold, and directness. One scene I really enjoyed was in conversation with renegade type-designer David Carson. He interogated series of words printed in Helvetica and he went through each critiquing the dyanamics of visual impact. Caffinated Caffinated Caffinated

Cindy Sherman, new works at Metro Pictures

Metro Pictures presents new works by Cindy Sherman.

Sherman interogates identity cliches, now she has moved towards the vielle bourgois dame, investigating cliche of beauty and aging.... too much make up, too many facelifts.

The funny part of this exhibition, there was a group of women being toured around Chelsea Galleries, the tour guide was being tactful enough until the one visitor remarked "WOW, she looks exactly like Joan in this one!!!"

Tadashi Kazamata Tree Huts in Madison Square Park

Japanese-born artist Tadashi Kawamata transformative public installations, also known as “displacements,” transform the spaces they occupy, as whole environments are turned inside-out. Under Kawamata’s direction, complex and chaotic architectural growths of raw lumber, found objects and construction scraps bloom around existing aspects of the urban landscape.

Tree Huts is on view in Madison Square Park until Feb 15.

NADA Fair Miami

NADA, the New Art Dealers Alliance Fair, was one of the most pleasurable fairs to visit. The hammocks and lush green space surrounding the tents complimented the light humoured mood of the fair. NADA is a fair which encourages and promotes New Art Dealers and emerging innovative artists.

Some works I enjoyed James Bonachea's organized randomness and Ariel Orozco's reworking of unexpected colour at Myto Gallery, and Scott Treleaven pensive collage at Kavigupta Gallery.

NADA showed a raw and youthful and extrodinary progressive art. It is always an adrenalyn fueled pleasure to see booth after booth of innovation and new novel art works. Honorable mention going to ATM Gallery, Katrin Sigurdardottir at Eleven Rivington, Robert Mann Gallery, and Loretta Lux at Torch Gallery.

I saw this painting with the magnifying glass hung beside it..... If you saw Charlie Kaufman's film Synecdoche, New York, you couldn't help but making the reference to the protagonist's artist wife who creates microscopic paintings which are viewed during a massive retropective assisted by magnification goggles.

Scope Fair Miami

Scope Art Fair the fair that was about collectivity and creation more so than just commerce.
The Friendswithyou Fun House for kids, the Cafe corners.

Brilliant programs which artists created works in and as a part of the fair, like Lucia Madriz EAT, and Russell Young’s screen printing performed live, grafitti artist Mr.Brainwash's works which could be found in around and throughout the fair.

The Girl Project (TGP) is a national initiative that explores the lives of American teenage girls and empowers them to communicate through documentary photography. 5,000 girls ages 13-18, from across the country, of all backgrounds, are being invited to participate by stepping behind the camera to document themselves and their environments.

I loved the photos by Julia Fullerton-Batten at Jenkins Johnson Gallery

Annie Kevans portraits, and Adela Goldbard at Galeria Enrique Guerrero.

Pulse Miami Fair

Pulse Miami is a fair which features international galleries showing cutting edge but polished emerging young artists. I saw some great new artists, but the fair itself was much to maze-like and very difficult to navigate. I kept finding myself in the Grolsch Cafe without knowing which way was up and which way was out.


A special feature was the upstairs portion Geisai Miami, Takashi Murakami's studio of young artists presenting their works directly to the public.

My favorites at Pulse included Martin Golland at Birch Libralato, Timothy Tompkins at DCKT Contemporary, both textured or pixilated landscapes

Elijah Gowin inkjet photos, and view from above interiors by Grzeszykowska.

The very urban paintings at Lyons Wier Ortt Gallery.

Art Asia

Art Asia Fair was the first Asian fair in Miami, and was hosted along side sister fair Scope. The 44 exhibitors from 17 countries showcased the best in Asian Contemporary Art.
As the Asian Art market has been growing over the past few years, Asian art was in all the satelite fairs, but nice to see a collection of pervasive Indian and South East Asian artists at Art Asia.

A unique part of Art Asia was the vibrancy of the galleries. High energy with artists creating in the booths, as well as the bright colour that adorned this fair.

Art Miami Fair

Art Miami Fair hosts a wide variety of leading national and international contemporary art galleries and institutions. The spacious clean and airy interior gave a pleasant and cohesive experience to viewing these reputable galleries.
I especially enjoyed Howard Lonn at Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Jennifer Vasher at Richard Levy Gallery,

The series by Hung Liu, and Xiaoze Xie at Nicholas Metivier Gallery.

Photo Miami

Photo Miami was an interesting fair. Many of the other fairs included a lot of photography, and I feel there is an inherent challenge in hosting an entire photography fair, but viola quite a diversity of works and galleries.

Among the halls and halls of stunning photos, I personally enjoyed the layered stiched technique of German Gomez at Fernano Pradilla Gallery, and José Ramon Amondarain at Galeriea Estiarte.

Design Fair Miami

The Design Fair Miami was the smallest, but most beautiful logistically. The black carpeting, clear signage and homely inviting booths made the Design Fair a sweet pleasure to attend amongst the chaos of the satalite fairs.

Art Basel Miami Beach 2008

Art Basel Miami Beach is the scene-and-be-seen art fair. It is considered the most important art show in the United States, as it hosts over 250 leading art galleries from around the world.

Satelite art fairs have formed and clustered around the main event, creating a true marathon of must see art. Art Basel Miami hosts thematic fairs within the main fair.

Art Projects in Lummus Park on Ocean Drive, outdoor installations, a bit obscure, must see was Ai Weiwei Bubble on Watson Island, and Tadashi Kazamata Tree Huts which can be found now in Madison Square Park NYC.

Art Nova – a platform for galleries to present the latest works by a maximum of three artists, fresh from the studios never more than 2 years old.

Art SuperNova – rethink the traditional format for presentation at art fairs, 20 galleries showing works by their emerging artist within a fluid area including interconnected exhibition spaces, common storage room, and shared common interior space.

Art Kabinett – 18 spaces that were curated in the booths rather than just hung for sale, Including Yvon Lambert, Gmurzynska, Kaufmann,

Art Positions – Beachfront at Collins Park 20 young galleries present exciting projects by their up and coming artists in twenty shipping containers transformed into temporary gallery spaces.
Ultra Environment deformed topography of polyethylene layers cut by robotic technology covered the courtyard of Art Positions. This is also where concerts on the beach were held, this year featuring Yelle and Gang Gang Dance.

Margulies Collection at the Warehouse Miami