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12.17.2008

FAIR WEATHER: Red Dot

There's no mistaking where you are

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I liked Red Dot's hotel space last year at the South Seas Hotel, but I like this space better. The booths were large and the aisles airy. I didn't love everything I saw here, but one gallery--Eric Firestone from Tucson--was a revelation, and there were quite a few others who had work I liked.

If the real estate dictum is location, location, location, the dealer's must surely be presentation, presentation, presentation. (Well, and location, too.) Firestone had the corner booth as you walked in, and he brought his own wood flooring. Talk about welcoming. Inside the booth there was museum-worthy geometric abstraction by two artists I'd never seen before: Jorge Fick--a Black mountain contemporary of Robert Rauschenberg and John Chamberlain--and Douglas Denniston. The gallery handles their estates.

The corner booth: Eric Firestone Gallery, Tucson




A wall of oil paintings and framed gouaches on paper by Jorge Fick. This work is from the period 1965-1975, but it looks as fresh as any geometric abstraction being done right now.

Below, a closer look at some of the pieces:






In the "office," larger work by Fick, oil or oil-and-acrylic paintings from the Pod Series, each 63 x 45 inches. The middle work has a bit of Woodstock Nation about it, but the other two have traveled well into the 21st Century--especially the orange and green painting at right



Selection of Douglas Denniston paintings from mid century. I particularly like the paintings--idiosyncratic, with a color sense redolent of the Southwest



Across the aisle, LewAllen Contemporary, a Santa Fe gallery, held court, with work below by Dan Christensen, left, and Ronnie Landfield, right



One of the things I love about the Miami fairs is the Latin American galleries that participate, often bringing great caches of abstract geometric work by Latin American artists. Here it's a booth devoted in large measure to the largely dimensional work of the Venezuelan Jesus Rafael Soto.


Jesus Rafael Soto at Gomez Fine Art, San Juan
Detail below:


Other likes:

Reeves Contemporary, New York


Eo Art Lab, Chester, Connecticut

John Belingheri painting at Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco
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Posted by Joanne Mattera at 9:14 PM
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