Art Now is the sister fair to Red Dot, but I have to say that Red Dot got the better end of the deal: a great-looking hotel, a nice lobby, and galleries with some fair experience. Art Now has some catching up to do.
While there were many good galleries at Art Now (disclaimer, I’m represented by DM Contemporary, Mill Neck, New York, which is a terrific gallery), the narrow corridors and tiny rooms worked against the best interests of the dealers and their artists. And the fact that many seemed to be first timers meant that the intricacies of installing and lighting were just beyond their grasp. One well-known New York City dealer, for instance, brought work by a well-known painter and then used the room-provided pole lamps to illuminate the work. Mistake. And, like the Bridge Fair, which I’ll talk about next, the corridors are too narrow to contain the crowd.
But the good news is that it did draw a crowd.
The other good news is that the tiny rooms created the ideal setting for small work. Including work on paper. When you’re nose to glass with a drawing, you look! And maybe acquire. Writing in Art Info, Robert Ayers had this observation: "Unless you’re enormously wealthy…it’s in these so-called satellite fairs that the real interest lies." And he went on to say that "there is wonderful, affordable work in both Red Dot and Art Now."
Intimate viewing: Doris Mukabaa Marksohn of DM Contemporary, showing work on paper by Mary Judge, left, and Karen Margolis
At DM Contemporary from top: digital photograph by Jerry Marksohn; silver gelatin photo by Linda Cummings and ink-on-paper drawing by Karen Schiff; on Floor, ink on paper work by Babe Shapiro and drawing by Eung Ho Park
WWII tattoo patterns inked onto an encaustic ground by Irene Pressner at ArtSpace Virginia Miller Galleries, Coral Gables, Florida.
Individual work, below
I love the Siennese colors and mysterious narrative of these three paintings by Gabe Brown, center, at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Individual work below
A corner at DM Contemporary with paintings by David Headley, left, and myself
Below, my Silk Road 79, 2006, encaustic on panel
Murmuring Tingle by Jackie Battenfield at DM Contemporary, New York
