Joanne Mattera Art Blog: Geometry

Art Basel Miami Beach: Jon Thompson, The Toronto Cycle #2--The Beach Midday Sunlight, at Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London

I saw the painting above on the evening of the second day of viewing. It had a wonderfully unsettling quality, like heat rising up off the surface of a road on a 95-degree day. Those dots vibrated. But as the days wore on and my eyes wore out, subtleties like this just registered as blur.

I saved the most retinally intense for last--not because I saw them all on the last day, but because by the sixth day of looking at art, this is what looking felt like. I liked all of these paintings. Just not all at once.

Supernova at Art Basel Miami Beach: Ara Peterson at John Connelley Presents, New York

Supernova at ABMB: Ignacio Uriarte, 4 x 4 Single Line Labyrinth #1 and #2 at Nogueras Blanchard, Barcelona

Individual work below, with detail below that

.Aqua Hotel: Thomas Burke, OS3: Spiral Scratch, Version 2. 23 inches in diameter, at Western Projects, Culver City, California
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12.20.2008

FAIR WEATHER: Geometry (Second of Two)

Miami Art Fairs, Art Basel Miami Beach, Aqua, Art Miami, Bridge, Pulse, Red Dot, Scope, Rubell Collection

Already posted:

FAIR WEATHER: Deal or No Deal

FAIR WEATHER: Prologue

FAIR WEATHER: Art Basel

FAIR WEATHER: The Containers

FAIR WEATHER: Art Miami

FAIR WEATHER: Art Imitates Art

FAIR WEATHER: Pulse

FAIR WEATHER: Trends and Coincidences-Animals

FAIR WEATHER: Trends and Coincidences-Cut Paper

FAIR WEATHER: Trends and Coincidences-Looms with a View

FAIR WEATHER: Aqua Hotel

FAIR WEATHER: Aqua Wynwood

FAIR WEATHER: Trends and Coincidences-Stacks and Bales

FAIR WEATHER: Trends and Coincidences-Giants

FAIR WEATHER: Trends and Coincidences-Manual Labor

FAIR WEATHER: Scope

FAIR WEATHER: Red Dot

FAIR WEATHER: Bridge, Both Locations

FAIR WEATHER: Trends and Coincidences-Suspense
FAIR WEATHER: Trends and Coincidences-"We Are the Borg"
FAIR WEATHER: Geometry (First of Two)

ABMB: Sarah Morris at Capitan/Petzel, above,

and at White Cube, London, below

It wouldn't be Art Basel Miami Beach if the crystalline compositons of Sarah Morris were not on exhibition. These are splendid paintings! Made with household gloss on canvas, they are typically shown on an outside wall and they stop you in your tracks.

With Morris thus setting the scene, there was a range of geometry--not just angles but curves, as flat pattern, or with a suggestion of depth, or with actual dimension. One surprise was the degree of decorative pattern, which I'll talk about more when we get to that section of the post.

ABMB: Heimo Zobernig at Galeria Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid

Scope: Ted Larsen's two- and three-dimensional geometry at Pan American Projects, Dallas and Miami

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Art Miami: Merrill Wagner at Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York and elsewhere

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ABMB: Odili Donald Odita at Jack Shainman, New York

ABMB: Gert and Uwe Tobias, Team Gallery, New York

. Art Miami: Amy Ellingson at Charles Cowles, New York

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I'm not focusing on materials in these posts because keeping track of the information is more than I can do, but a few mediums stand out. Ellingson's paintings are encaustic, noteworthy because the substantiveness of the medium creates a dimensionality that complements the deep visual space of her compositions.

David Poppie's work, below, is a mosaic made from Prismacolor pencils sliced lengthwise. (His pencil-point mosaic opened the Pulse post.)

Pulse: David Poppie at Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York

In the fairs this year, there was a whole set of geometric expression that refered directly to pattern and decoration, and to textiles. For instance, Philip Taaffe's paintings, one of which is shown below, channel tie dye, stained glass, and the Alhambra; Delson Uchoa's unstretched painting referenced tapestries, or more specifically, Colonial floorcloths (the poor-person's "carpet"); and several other artists seem to have incorporated Amish quilt patterns. Interestingly, all of this decorative geometry was made by men.