Lesley Vance & Ricky Swallow at the Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino

Renown for its European art, the Huntington Art Gallery is currently hosting its’ first exhibition of contemporary painting and sculpture, showcasing the work of the Los Angeles-based artists Lesley Vance and Ricky Swallow. The exhibition is a visual dialogue between the two artists who also happen to be husband and wife.

Lesley Vance, “Untitled”, 2010, oil on linen, 16 x 12″, Huntington Art Gallery

Lesley Vance is one of my favorite abstract painters so I was particularly intrigued to see her work in this context. While the conversation between the two artists is of some note, the serendipity lies in her relationship to the European paintings in adjacent galleries. Vance’s process begins with a still-life setup. Through reduction, insight and ingenuity, she transforms the shapes into pure abstraction. While passing through various rooms at the Huntington, Vance’s palette and composition find great resonance in the historical echo. It’s a lovely viewing experience, until March 11.

William Harnett, “After the Hunt”, 1883, oil on canvas, 52 x 34″, at the Huntington Galleries

January Fairs

By the time the January art fairs begin, the town has recovered from New Year’s and is ready to roll. Photo LA kicked off on January 17 at the Santa Monica Civic Center. The LA Art Show followed on January 23 at the LA Convention Center and Art Los Angeles Contemporary debuted on January 24 at the Barker Hangar. The fair organizers know well that the education and social programming surrounding the fair add an important component and a foil to the primary commercial goals. What struck me this year is the degree to which these programs have become an anchor.

“Robert Redford and Paul Newman”, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, photograph at Photo LA

Photo LA was not a particularly compelling show (although I love the photo above), but the four days of various panel discussions and presentations that coincided with it were impressive. I attended two of the Saturday sessions. In the first one, Weston Naef, Curator Emeritus, Dept of Photographs, J. Paul Getty Museum, moderated a 6-person panel that included prominent collectors Daniel Greenberg and Michael Wilson along with Keith F. Davis, Senior Curator of Photography, Nelson-Atkins Museum, among others. Another panel featured Tulsa Kinney, Editor of Artillery magazine guiding a fascinating discussion with curator and writer, Colin Westerbeck and museum-collected artist, Ken Gonzales-Day.

The LA Art Show was generally missable from my perspective. The highlight of the show was the exhibition, Letters from Los Angeles: Text in Southern California Art, curated by Jack Rutberg in association with Aldis Browne. Jack moderated a panel with Alexis Smith and other artists from the exhibition discussing the significance of text in their work. Another panel featured two of Los Angeles’ most seasoned collectors, Clifford Einstein and Blake Byrne in conversation with Bruce Helander. Despite the uneven quality of exhibitors, the fair provided a valuable opportunity to learn from the pros.

Neil Beloufa, “Untitled”, 2012, steel, electical outlet, MDF plywood, 55 x 40″, at ALAC

Art LA Contemporary, had a much edgier program of speakers and events, including an introductory presence for MOCAtv. The exhibitor offerings were lively and fresh, mostly from US and European galleries. Two artists particularly caught my eye, Dan Rees at Jonathan Viner and Neil Beloufa at Francois Ghebaly. Both artists featured work that addressed aspects of everyday consumerism and commodification. Dees showed paintings in vacuum-formed plastic recalling product packaging. Beloufa showed a minimalist painting with electrical outlets for plugging in devices, like charging an iPad. Beloufa screened five films as part of the events program. He has a current solo show at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and will be doing a project later this year at the Hammer Museum. While the focus is on offerings within the booths, there is much to gain from offerings outside of them.

Llyn Foulkes at the Hammer Museum

Llyn Foulkes, “Dali and Me”, 2006, mixed media, 33 x 26″, collection of Hammer Museum

Speaking of the Hammer, the Llyn Foulkes exhibition opened February 3 and it is a knock-out. The show is so thoughtfully curated and thoroughly illuminating as to cement the artist’s career. While many pieces are drawn from institutional collections, the synergy created by the whole is what a retrospective strives to be.

Lee Mullican, “Ninnekah Calendar”, 1951, 30 x 50″, collection of Hammer Museum

In adjacent galleries, selections from the Grunwald Center and the Hammer Contemporary Collection are on view. Artists such as Mary Weatherford, Lee Mullican and Kori Newkirk add to a very satisfying visit.

DOROTHY GOLDEEN ART ADVISORY
A consultancy in modern and contemporary art, guiding clients with
access and expertise, throughout the international art community.

Please contact us to learn more about the Advisory and how we can be of assistance to you in the acquisition or resale of the best in modern and contemporary art. 

Frieze tent exterior

The inaugural Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island in New York, May 4-7, was both a highly anticipated event and a barometer for the viability of another significant art fair, in New York specifically, and on the international art calendar generally. Despite the naysayers and the risks involved, Frieze hit a homerun. Tickets were available in advance and only online. On Sunday the fair was sold-out.

Frieze interior

The choice of Randall’s Island was highly suspect by New Yorkers, but it turned out to be a delightful venue and easily accessible by ferry, taxi and bus. The bespoke “tent”, created by the Brooklyn architecture firm, Solid Objectives-Indeburg Liu (SO-IL), was a structure like no other. Immense and sensuous, with soaring height and an excess of natural light, views to the park’s greenery and open spaces within the fair, it was both complementary to the artwork and a pleasure to navigate.  Frieze founders, Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, are the publishers of Frieze Magazine and the seasoned veterans of the Frieze Fair in London, which they initiated in 2003. Their expertise and discernment suffused every aspect of the event. From the excellent roster of galleries to the sumptuous food provided by Manhattan favorites such as Sant Ambroesus and the Fat Radish, the exhibitor and visitor experience was paramount.

Anish Kapoor wall piece & Ai Weiwei sculpture at Lisson booth

Isaac Julien photograph and Yayoi Kusama sculpture at Victoria Miro booth

The heart of every fair lies in the selection of exhibitors. Frieze presented over 180 exhibitors from 30 countries including top international galleries like Gagosian, Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth and White Cube. While prominent artists graced many booths, two special sections, titled “Focus” and “Frame”, were devoted to younger galleries, vetted from the US, Europe, China, Japan, Turkey and Russia, among others. In these areas the majority of artists were not widely known.

Tonico Lemos Auad (hanging sculpture) & Jim Hodges (on bed) at Stephen Friedman booth

While the entire atmosphere of the fair is of a convivial nature, the stakes remain high for the galleries. They must curate a strong presentation, establish the quality of their brands, make substantial sales to cover their overhead, engage new contacts and earn an invitation to subsequent fairs. The huge amount of business now transacted during the art fairs makes participation in them mandatory and highly competitive. Sales are always a top priority, securing the next booth in the best fairs is a simultaneous goal.

Thomas Scheibitz, Charles Long & Olafur Eliasson at Tanya Bonakdar booth

In addition to a heady buying opportunity, the most successful fairs also offer a platform for education and exposure to a wide range of aesthetic viewpoints. Programmed by Cecilia Alemani, Frieze Talks offered presentations, panels and discussions with artists, curators and other art world commentators. Luminaries such as Glenn Lowry, Director of MOMA, Okwui Enwezor, Director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich and artist, Taryn Simon, were among the speakers. There were guided tours and an outdoor sculpture park curated by Tom Eccles. Fifteen artists were presented including Ernesto Neto and Subodh Gupta.

Ernesto Neto at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

After the fair, I spent several days previewing the auctions and visiting the galleries. Frieze has consciously aligned its dates with the Spring contemporary auctions, a strategy that has worked for Frieze in London and for HK12, the Hong Kong fair produced by ArtBasel coming up May 17. With ArtBasel Switzerland opening June 14, the era of attending all of the fairs every year is over. So pick your favorites around the globe – from New York and Miami, to London, Paris and Madrid, to Dubai, Hong Kong or Delhi. And then the secondary fairs in Chicago, Brussels or Shanghai – and what about Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Santa Fe or Aspen…

DOROTHY GOLDEEN ART ADVISORY
A consultancy in modern and contemporary art, guiding clients with
access and expertise, throughout the international art community.

Please contact us to learn more about the Advisory and how we can be of assistance to you in the acquisition or resale of the best in modern and contemporary art. 

The take-away from the Armory Show week in New York in early March was not the art fairs, each merging into the next. The Armory Show at the Piers had a better layout and a tighter mix of exhibitors than in prior years. The Independent made a very worthwhile presentation. However, the truly memorable viewing was at the museums.

Cindy Sherman, "Untitled #90", 1981, at Museum of Modern Art

Cindy Sherman, "Untitled #465", 2008, at the Museum of Modern Art

Among the plethora of pleasures was the Cindy Sherman Retrospective at MOMA. The exhibition is an enthralling chronicle of identity and representation, manifest in 170 photographs over thirty years. The images move from the nostalgic to the grotesque, from the fantasy of youth to the attempt at preserving it in later years. Among various issues, Sherman has spent her career examining gender and the politics therein. As a female, I can project myself into the photograph of a teenage girl staring at the telephone, waiting for it to ring. I can stare at the late photos and recognize a woman of a certain age, staring back. I can look at other women viewing the show and see them having a similar experience. Does a male looking at the photographs have a very different experience? Whatever your gender, it’s a Do Not Miss, through June 11 and then travelling.

Fra Filippo Lippi, "Portrait of a Woman w/a Man at a Casement", at the Metropolitan Museum

There were so many great shows at the Metropolitan Museum, it was a lavish buffet awaiting my consumption.  Following the MOMA show, I resumed the contemplation of portraiture with “The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini”, an astonishing show of rare international loans. For example, the image above is the earliest surviving Italian double portrait in a domestic setting. The show surveys early portraiture, beginning with the first portrayals of specific individuals in Florence in fifteenth-century Italy. It chronicles the development of style and technique. Prior to this period, achievement of artistic likeness in sculpture far exceeded that of painting.  Like Cindy Sherman’s photographs, the paintings depict and communicate the values of their time, the social status of their subjects, the concepts of power and of beauty separately relegated to men and to women. Visual metaphor and understated signifiers abound.

Islamic Galleries, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Parviz Tanavoli, Metropolitan Museum of Art

I then traversed the museum to the Department of Islamic Art where I luxuriated amidst the Art of the Arab Lands (Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and South Asia). These fifteen galleries reopened after an eight-year renovation in November 2011. Here one can momentarily forget the alleged nuclear aspirations of Iran and focus on the glory of the culture that has resided in this part of the world for millenia. The pottery, textiles, calligraphy, jeweled artifacts, carpets and architectural elements, as well as re-created rooms, are superb. Pieces date from the seventh century all the way up to a room of recent painting and sculpture featuring signature work by contemporary luminaries like Monir Farmanfarmaian and Parviz Tanavoli.

I had already seen “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde” at SFMOMA. I wished I had time to see it again. What a fabulous story of the intertwining of life, art, taste, and politics. Another Do Not Miss. I did a quick walkthrough of the newly reconfigured American Wing, now 30,000 square feet offering one of the finest collections of its kind in the world. And I always do the Contemporary collection. Time for a cappuchino!

John Chamberlain, "Divine Ricochet", 1991, at the Guggenheim Museum

The John Chamberlain career survey, “Choices”, spirals around the Guggenheim Museum, celebrating and exploring the artist’s transformation of Abstract Expressionism into three dimensions. Marvelous pieces a few inches tall give way to totemic works on a grand-scale. In addition to the crumpled aluminum works that move from the monochromatic to the florid, there are lesser-known works made from urethane foam, mineral-coated plexiglass, galvanized steel and even treated paper. Chamberlain used a phrase called “articulate wadding” to describe his technique in creating the paper sculptures. That phrase seems to encompass his entire ethos in sculpture – an intention of purpose guided by unpredictable gesture, all put together by a formidable intellect. John Chamberlain passed away on December 11, 2011, so the show functions as a tribute as well as a retrospective.

The Whitney Biennial and the New Museum’s Triennial, “The Ungovernables” are both huge shows with multiple artists of very divergent concerns, materials and methods. I have become disenchanted with most of these sorts of exhibitions. Too many voices, too little context, too demanding to consume amidst the crowds and distraction.  The Whitney exhibition is heavy on performance and video. In that regard, I did admire Wu Tsang’s “Green Room”.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakeye, "The Ungovernables", New Museum

Jon Kessler, "The Blue Period", Salon 94 Bowery

The New Museum show relies heavily on installation work. Since I favor object painting and sculpture, I took note of Julia Dault, who had an echo of Chamberlain. I admired the intense paintings of Lynette Yiadom-Boakeye. The best installation piece for me was actually unrelated and next door to the New Museum at Salon 94 Bowery. There Jon Kessler showcased “The Blue Period”, an encompassing experience of visual intrigue.  Those folks standing are simulations, not real people.

Jesse Fleming, "The Snail and the Razor", Moving Image fair

Jesse Fleming, "The Snail and the Razor", Moving Image fair

For pure video, I enjoyed Moving Image, the art fair devoted exclusively to contemporary video art selected from an international group of galleries and institutions. The showstopper was “The Snail and The Razor” by Jesse Fleming.  As the snail mounts the razor’s edge, slithering over it in a ballet of  exploration and imminent demise, no eyes dared leave the screen.   Unbelievably, the snail completes its’ sojourn unscathed.  The edition of five sold-out, including one copy acquired by the Whitney Museum.

If Armory Week was not on your calendar and you still yearn for the Fairs, the Frieze fair of London is debuting its first New York presentation from May 4-7. NADA will also have its first NYC fair, along with other satellite presentations.

Roy Lichtenstein, "I Can See the Whole Room...", top selling lot at Christie's 2011 for $43,202 million; top lot at Sotheby's, Clyfford Still for $61,682 million

As the New Year horns sound, January streaks out of the blocks. PST exhibitions at the museums continue, gallery openings abound and the art fairs jockey for calendar space. The press is full of analysis of last year’s winners and losers in every realm. Art has been declared a winner. The Mei Moses World All Art Index (MMAI) which tracks art sales across several categories, indicates that art returned 10.2% in 2011, trouncing the S&P’s zero growth. Even Time Magazine hosts an article in their Jan 30 issue touting the amazing growth and profitability of the art market. Citing wealth diversification, emerging market participation, particularly China’s, and the bonus of social cache, investing in art is the place to be.

Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) total auction sales of $506.7 million in 2011, displacing Picasso as top seller

Art can certainly be a lucrative investment.  However,  acquiring artworks with investment potential requires sophisticated knowledge, due diligence and sometimes privileged access to opportunities, similar to the stock market.  While art risk and return may not correlate with equities, neither guarantees a profitable investment.  Record prices at auction are generally awarded to sanctioned artists of historical significance, for works from the artist’s strongest years of production with favored style or subject matter. These works are of limited availability, in perfect condition and fresh to the market. Because these characteristics are rare, more people with increased wealth are ready to pay bigger prices. The cycle continues upwards. The press sells the story to the public.

Damien Hirst, "Spot Painting", on view at Gagosian Galleries world wide

Financial gain from selling art is wonderful.  I seek it for my clients and on my own behalf.   However, I also lament the absence in headline articles of any mention of the intangible benefits in acquiring and living with art: the intellectual, emotional and spiritual gift inherent in the best work. Investment, branding and global reach are increasingly prized. Art’s commodification is complete. What could be further proof than Damien Hirst’s Spot paintings in all 11 of the Gagosian Galleries?

This brings me to the art fairs here in Los Angeles this January. Art Fairs have proliferated and for many are the preferred and often only venue in which art is viewed for purchase.  Time and convenience are of the essence.  Art Fairs may be enjoyable and functional, but they are a challenging environment in which to hone the eye.

The odds of ferreting out quality and a potentially investment-grade artwork is greatly enhanced by the excellence of the fair’s exhibitors. In fairs like Art Basel Miami or Switzerland, the vendor quality is meticulously vetted and consistently high, so buyers are greatly assisted in their search. However, in a fair like the LA Art Show, it’s a very mixed bag.  The organizers did strong publicity, had significant sponsors and a worthy charity for the gala opening night.  They provided a solid lecture series and filled the convention center space. But where’s the beef? Works of merit were in short supply; the vendor level was exeedingly uneven.

The IFPDA section of the fair is limited in scope, but is of good quality. The Fine Art Show had some pleasing pictures. But the LA Art Show, the primary draw, continues to disappoint. I went in with low expectations so I was less depressed than in years past. Now that the show has been acquired by the organizers of Art Miami, let’s hope it perks up in the future.

DuYanFang photograph at ME Photo Gallery booth, LA Art Show

Among the highlights at the LA Art Show was Jack Rutberg’s booth. It featured works by Patrick Graham and Hans Burkhardt as well as an editioned Jasper Johns flag of note. Jonathan Novak Contemporary presented works by Sam Francis, among others. The Paul Thiebaud Gallery is a reliable source for Wayne Thiebaud paintings and prints.  Among the overseas galleries, ME Photo Art Gallery from Beijing brought some of the new young photographers from China. The Chinese artists have been doing excellent photography for over two decades. While these works have been collected by institutions in the West, it is an undeveloped area of collecting for the Chinese. This is beginning to change slowly inside China and we will undoubtedly be seeing more work on our shores.

Art Los Angeles Contemporary housed many of the best Los Angeles galleries with a smattering of exhibitors from elsewhere. It was a small show with an emphasis on younger, edgier work.  There was no pretense.  It’s a fair where one can look, learn and acquire a potentially rising star at a reasonable price.  As for investment, be sure to also buy what you love…

Gusamo Cesaretti, photograph, at Roberts & Tilton

Regarding highlights around town, I’ll mention just two that illustrate the vast range of offerings. Roberts & Tilton has a fascinating show of vintage photographs by Gusmano Cesaretti. Curated by Aaron Rose, the show includes 24 unique prints that feature the East Los Angeles sub-culture of the 1970’s. The night of the opening, the Klique Car Club had some of their hottest rides parked out front in all of their glory – a great display of passion and pride.

Peder Mork Monsted, Painting of a Nubian, ca 1900, Weisman Museum, Malibu

At the opposite end of the aesthetic spectrum, the Frederick R. Weisman Museum at Pepperdine just opened “The Epic and the Exotic: 19th Century Academic Realism from the Dahesh Museum of Art” in New York. These 32 paintings are romantic, skillful, idealized pictures that epitomize the values of their time.  Another kind of fantasy.

Duane Valentine, Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla

Jennifer Steinkamp, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

Lastly, “Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla and San Diego is arguably the quintessential show of the Pacific Standard Time initiative, among the mainstream offerings.  As indicated by the title, it showcases the unique contribution of Southern California artist’s in the 60’ and 70’s in their exploration of  light and space as manifest  in objects and installation.   Their legacy is powerfully brought forward in the  dazzling room installation by Jennifer Steinkamp that accompanies the show.

DOROTHY GOLDEEN ART ADVISORY
A consultancy in modern and contemporary art, guiding clients with
access and expertise, throughout the international art community.

Please contact us to learn more about the Advisory and how we can be of assistance to you in the acquisition or resale of the best in modern and contemporary art.