Last week I researched a lot of art materials, so when I attended the Armory Art Fair it seemed like the thing that attracted me the most were materials.
Spared from crowds and achey feet, you’ll have to excuse the poor-quality snapshots.
First, some novel materials or presentation styles I found attractive, interesting, or fun. Followed by some examples of exuberance/knickknackery, good ideas, nice techniques, and one lone example of an interest in psychology.
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- Some kind of interference-coated acrylic sheeting. Sculpture by HC Berg at Gallery Florsbaum.
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- Gold wire screen used for glamorous obscuration. Installation by Tunga, Mendes Wood Gallery, Sao Paolo.
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- I love funny-shaped frames. Luis Roldan, Henrique Faria Fine Art.
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- Fiber optic fabric, lit by LEDs. Yes! No black light. Stripes by Daniel Buren, Lisson Gallery.
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- Holographic foils used completely appropriately in this quirky narrative scene. Collage/painting/drawing by David Jien at Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA.
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- Side view of Douglass Coupland’s direct-to-substrate signs on coated plywood. Love the chambered edges, very nice touch. Art Dealers Association of Canada, Toronto.
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- Douglass Coupland signs. Can’t go wrong with text on a grid with different colors. Art Dealers Association of Canada, Toronto.
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- A perplexing not-Dan Graham. Polarized glass. By Ebbe Stub Wittrub at Martin Asbaek Gallery, Copenhagen, in the Armory’s Nordic focus section.
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- I see what you did there. Mirror backs installion by Kader Attia, Galleria Continua.
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- More mirror pizzaz! Monir Farmanfarmaian, Haines Gallery, San Francisco.
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- Nice layered colored gradients of hand-rolled glass. The quarter-log shelf really does it for me. You know who it is. Olafur Elaisson at i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.
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- Fantastic beaded stretched canvases. I’m pretty sure that’s fluorescent orange. Sabine Boehl at Dirimart, Istanbul.
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- Lenticular foil prints with screen print and offset litho. Whatever on the imagery, but it’s interesting to see foils take off in fine art printmaking. Sigmar Polke at Mike Karstens.
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- Mirrors with images, possibly direct-to-substrate printing; it’s got that pebbly sheen. I couldn’t figure out who this is. Rashad Newsome, maybe? Marlborough Gallery, Chelsea, NY.
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- I don’t know who this artist is either, but he/she wins the Freshest Installation prize. Monique Meloche Gallery.
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- EXUBERANCE/KNICKKNACKERY. Bright colors, pattern, decoration. Something about this seemed relevant to something at the time. Delson Uchoa, Luciana Brito.
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- Glass head stuffed with stuff. Heavy-handed, if not to mix metaphors, but the gesture seems to bear potential still. Richard Dupont, Gallerie Michael Janssen, Berlin.
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- Loved this over-the-top installation. Suits the drawings well. Yes, that’s a colored pencil drawing of a surfing T-Rex. Like the knocked-out face too. Eric Yahnker at Amback and Rice, Los Angelies (Could you tell?)
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- Sculpture using table-top lamps, Björn Dahlem. Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf.
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- Nick Cave is making wall art that’s not sewn! And it uses knickknacks! Lots of knickknacks!!!! Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
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- Nick Cave. Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
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- Cut vinyl-masked acrylic paintings that are super flat. Lots of digital patterns, and some that are quite Spirographic. Sangnam Lee, PKM Gallery, Seoul.
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- Fine art shiny material throw up. Metallics, acrylic paint, acrylic sheet, some pebbly paint that could be melted Nerds candy. Kind of fabulous, and kind of Fabuloso. Unidentified artist, Kukje Gallery / Tina Kim Gallery, Seoul / New York.
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- Back-room photo of pennant flag shadows. Nice. Unknown, Sies+Höke.
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- Detail of Vibha Galhotra’s piece at Shainman.
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- Thousands, or probably millions, of trinkets (tiny bells?) make up Vibha Galhotra’s piece at Jack Shainman.
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- GOOD IDEAS. Leandro Erlich’s cloud case. Spraypaint on layered acrylic sheets. Brilliant. The cabinet makes it. Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.
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- Another fair-specific project by Peter Liversidge: this year, it’s mail art objects in the form of rulers and t-squares. Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.
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- Framed without glass, b/w pigment prints of signs by Geof Oppenheimer at Ratio 3, San Francisco, CA. Now that I look at them again, they remind me of Stephanie Syjuco’s as well as Susan O’Malley’s work.
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- This oversized sculpture works for me because Kris Martin makes super subtle, nearly invisible work too. Sies+Höke, Düsseldorf.
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- NICE TECHNIQUE. Andrea Bowers’ insanely good hand, on display again in a rendering of, presumably, an AIDS quilt featuring Cooper Black. Andrew Kreps, NY.
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- Something about these pink Brits with dot eyes works for me. Richard Hawkins at Corvi Mora, London.
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- PSYCHOLOGY. The cards in these photos are psychological tests. Ebbe Stub Wittrup, Asbaek Gallery, Copenhagen.
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I did attend VOLTA, but my battery promptly quit. On my camera, that is. View a catalog. I loved Patrick Jacob‘s miniature vistas as seen through a miniature domestic set (The Pool, NYC). Also nice to see Ed Pien‘s work at Pierre-François Ouelette Art Contemporain, Montreal. Neat retroreflective paper cut.
R+D 