The Armory Show 2010
By: Lindsay Casale
The Armory Show, considered the flagship fair of art week, was bustling and hectic on Sunday, the final day of the show. Spread out between two hangar-like piers, the show is expansive yet selective, showing work from some of the best galleries all over the world year after year. The two piers, 92 and 94, were distinctly separate, only connected by a rickety set of stairs in the back of Pier 94. Pier 92 was titled Armory Modern, while 94 bore no name. Though the booths were individual and in some ways, radically different, I noticed a pervading sense of optimism throughout the show, and at times even a bit of whimsy. This was best exemplified by the Other Criteria booth in Pier 94, which showed multiple bright Damien Hirst prints along with the humorous, albeit macabre Still Birth series by Polly Morgan. Walking from the chatty and chaotic atmosphere of 94 into 92 was an oddly serene experience. Pier 92 seemed brighter and more refined; a trait I noticed first in the plush grey carpets underfoot, a stark contrast to the painted and re-painted floors in Pier 94. Although Armory Modern has always made it clear that the purpose of the show is to represent “dealers specializing in historically significant modern and contemporary art”, and so the two wings in some ways defy comparison, ultimately, what I was looking for in this art show was something fresh, alive, and exciting. To highlight what I found to be rather palpable differences between the two piers, I was able to find a few pieces from each pier that had parallels in form, style, or content, but great disparities in effect.
Polly Morgan, Still Birth, Ed. 10, Available through Other Criteria. Image Courtesy Other Criteria.
At Pier 94, almost immediately upon arrival, I noticed a rather noisy piece at Jiri Svetska gallery entitled I see, I see, I see, by Kristof Kintera. Perched atop a tree branch in the corner of the booth was a small, squawky, animatronic raven dressed in a smart leather jacket. As visitors passed by, the fantastical raven yelled raspy statements such as “It’s not funny!” and “I see you.” Unsettling as it was, the dynamism and novelty of this piece could not be denied. A few steps into Pier 92 I encountered an eerily similar subject in Edward Lipski’s suspended Bird. Displayed prominently in the Alan Koppel booth, this piece consisted solely of a large, suspended bird replete with meticulously placed dark plumage. Whereas Kintera’s raven was the epitome of expression, Lipski’s was a beacon of silence. No eyes, no legs, and no range of movement; the bird’s foreboding stillness produced a similarly jarring effect to Kintera’s blabbering bird, but in an entirely unique manner. Perhaps it was Kintera’s sharp leather jacket, but there was a certain sense of cool, which was part if the appeal of Pier 94, in the Jiri Svetska booth.
Alyson Shotz,Magnetic Force # 2, 2010, Stainless steel balls on mirror polished stainless steel with neomydium magnet, 18” x 16” (45.7 x 40.6 cm), at Carolina Nitsch.
I was especially struck by the simple beauty of Louise Bourgeois’ series of spiral woodcuts at the Carolina Nitsch booth in Pier 94. The wood grain showed through the punchy primary colors of the spirals, and the diminutive size of the frames presented together made for a clean, aesthetically pleasing installation. At the same booth were the attractive and intriguing Magnetic Force and Magnetic Fields by Alyson Shotz. Particularly impacting was Magnetic Force, as the “force” of these small sterling spheres was apparent and real, the clusters mounted on a glassy silver surface suggested impending movement, as if the moment you happened to touch the spheres they would break apart and fall into motion. In Pier 92, I noticed two pieces that struck me as quite similar to those mentioned above, in subject matter and form. For one, I found Francis Celentano’s Elliptical Painting in Yellow and Violet at Jacobson Howard to be a quieter, less effective version of Louise Bourgeois’s woodcuts. Celentano’s painting emanated retro in a tired way, and the scale was a bit overwhelming. In comparison to Alyson’s Shotz Magnetic Force, Peter Kogler’s piece at JGM proved a more tame use of silver spheres on the cusp of motion. Kogler’s piece was a maze-like table with multiple silver spheres poised in various locations, which, if moved, would certainly cause a chain reaction. The course of action was clear, and yet the piece lacked the tension so evident in Shotz’s work. I found this most fascinating because, in the most literal sense, Shotz’s spheres were affixed to a surface while Kogler’s were much more free to move.
The Armory Show this year was a balancing act. The pull to play it safe due to a tough economic year contrasted with the push of innovation, and the excitement of visitors was tempered by the serious attitude of discerning collectors. The comparisons between Armory Modern and Pier 94 demonstrated the optimism perceptible in the art world today. One can only hope for the same, or better, next year.
Armory, Pulse and Volta
By: Gallery Crawler
By last Friday, Art Newspaper was already trumpeting the success of this year’s installment of the Armory Show, and rightly so; Armory 2010 positively bustled with cheery energy. As I reported a year ago, Armory 2009 was a dreary affair, peopled by bored galleristas with forced smiles. After enduring the last two years of gallery death watches, it seems that the art world is ready for some cautious optimism. However, after visiting Armory, and two of the satellite fairs—Pulse and Volta—I found that many of the most engaging works on display continued to mine the uncertainty of recent times by retreating into art historicism and gothic theatricality.
Vincent Desederio, Mourning and Fecundity, 2007 at Marlborough Gallery’s booth at the Armory Show 2010. Photo by Anna Daley.
The first work I encountered at Armory, Vincent Desiderio’s Mourning and Fecundity (2007) at Marlborough Gallery, was located just inside the entrance to the Armory Modern section. It simultaneously brought to mind Dutch Baroque corporation paintings, such as Rembrandt’s Night Watch, and sweeping Romantic canvases. The massive, history-painting-style proportions of the work, the apparently period clothing of the figures and the use of diffuse natural light give Mourning and Fecundity an academic heft. Nevertheless, what continued to hold my attention was the mystery at the center of the work—what are the men carrying and why?
Mira Pearlman, Subito, 2010 at Caren Goldman Fine Art’s booth at Pulse NYC. Photo by Anna Daley.
Pulse NYC, a smaller, scruffier fair, bills itself as “the leading US art fair dedicated solely to contemporary art.” Yet, I found little to interest me there. Mira Pearlman’s moody, paper maelstroms at Caren Golden Fine Art and Aleksandar Duravcevic shadowy, graphite drawings at Galerie Stefan Röpke were two of the few bright spots. Pearlman’s menacing, papery swirl, Subito, drew me to Goldman’s booth from across the fair and continued to engage me, even very close up. The flimsiness of the paper is a potent metaphor for the ephemerality of weather. Duravcevic’s graphite on black paper works, Mirror and Candle, are the most successful of the several black on black works I saw at this weekend’s fairs. Mirror, in particular, delighted me because not only is Duravcevic clearly having fun with the haunted-house drama of the black on black schema, but the work is also technically masterful.
Aleksandar Duravcevic, Mirror, 2008 at Galerie Stefan Röpke’s booth at Pulse NYC. Photo by Anna Daley.
Of the three fairs I visited, Volta NY was by far the most enjoyable for two important reasons: one, the participating galleries represented a diverse selection of artists, and two, each gallery only exhibited the work of one artist. This allowed visitors to truly delve into the work of artists that interested them. If you have time for only one art fair next year, make it Volta. I was ready to dismiss Yuval Pudik’s photocollage-esque drawings (on view at Kim Light/Lightbox) as an empty redeux of Victorian imagery, but the more I looked at his work, the more impressed I became with its cohesiveness. His collages are three-car-pile-ups of human, animal and vegetal parts, clothed in bits of historicist finery and glam-rock bondage. His works are trendy in their post-modern appropriation, but they also accomplish a rare feat in contemporary art—they are truly subversive.
Yuval Pudik, Fallen Ecotones No. 3, 2010 at Kim Light/Lightbox’s booth at Volta NY. Image courtesy of Kim Light.
The Armory Show
By: Inna Bruter
The Armory Show doesn't know it, but it has single-handedly answered the age-old question: what does it look like when galleristas from around the world are crowded into two buildings in Manhattan? It's like taking the denizens of the international sophisticated art scene- with all their fabulous accents- from Milan, London, Seul, and so on, and packing it into, of all places, Piers 92 and 94. The atmosphere is intoxicating and when you enter, you're sucked into the vortex.
There are hundreds of galleries exhibiting, and thousands of works of art. My extremely academic approach was to walk down the corridor and simply stop at any piece that drew my interest. This brought me directly to Nose on Horse, the highlight of my tour.
William Kentridge, Untitled VI: (Nose on Horse: Napoleon), 2007.
To be specific, I came face to face with a bronze sculpture depicting Napoleon on horseback, a large nose in place of his head. This work stood in the booth of the Italian gallery Lia Rumma. The neighboring space, the Goodman Gallery from South Africa, had other nose works by the same artist, which really made me wonder, what's with all these noses?
It turns out that the Nose is none other than the protruding theme of a series of works by South African artist William Kentridge. Kentridge is clearly preoccupied with this feature, as he's just staged and directed Shostakovich's The Nose, which opened March 5th at the Metropolitan Opera. It's based on a satirical tale by Gogol about a civil servant who wakes up one day to tragically find that his nose is missing; to make things worse, it has acquired a higher rank than him and refuses to return to his face. This story inspired Kentridge into an outpouring of work; he's created drawings, collages, and sculptures over the last several years about the Nose. In fact, the Museum of Modern Art is currently examining five themes in his oeuvre, one of which you can guess right now without any trouble. Apparently you can't turn your head in New York City this spring without bumping into Kentridge and his huge Nose.
The story of an appendage disappearing from a man's face, winding up in someone else's breakfast, taking on human size, and acquiring a social rank, expresses the absurdity of life. And that is just what I felt when I discovered myself beset on all sides by noses on horses and Napoleon with a large nose in place of his head. Thank you, Armory show. If I had to rely on the Whitney Museum's 2010 biennial to actually see some interesting art, I'd have thought art was dead.
The Armory Show, 2010
12th Avenue and 55th Street
Thursday March 4th- Sunday March 7th
www.thearmoryshow.com/cgi-local/content.cgi
Pulse NYC
300 West Street
Thursday March 4th-Sunday 7th
www.pulse-art.com
Volta NY
7 West 34th Street
Thursday March 4th-Sunday March 7th
www.voltashow.com
See more images taken at the fairs at Gallery Crawl's Flickr Stream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gallerycrawl