Fair and Fair Alike: Miami 2009. Working the Angles

Fair and Fair Alike coverage so far:

. A Little Peek at the Geometry of the Next Post
. Five Woven Grids
. House and Home
. Bourgeois, Benglis, Wilke
. Mano a Mano
. The Pretenders
. Art Miami
. Red Dot
. NADA
. Scope
. Aqua Art
. Pulse
. The Big One, Art Basel Miami Beach
. An Overview Before the Individual Fairs
. Art Bloggers at Art Miami
. Are We Out of the Woods?
. A Little Gossip
. Art? Or Not Art?
. Nosing Around
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ABMB: Stanley Whitney at Team Gallery, New York
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I've often said that in my next life I plan to come back as a curator (in a large museum where there's pay and institutional support, thank you). In the meantime, I get to indulge my curatorial urges with posts like these. One of the great things about curating blog-style is that it allows for a nicely non-hierarchical coming together of artists and galleries. .

Art Miami: Charles Arnoldi, Eckert Fine Art, Kent, Conn.
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ABMB: Gerhard Richter, Quattro Colori series, at Marian Goodman, New York
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ABMB: Peter Halley, Cross Currents, at Mary Boone Gallery, New York
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ABMB: Poul Gernes, Untitled, Galeri Bo Bjerggaar, Copenhagen
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ABMB: Robert Mangold, Split Image, at Pace Wildenstein, New York

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Pulse: Shirley Kaneda and David Ryan, at Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard, Paris
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Below, detail of work by Ryan
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ABMB: Steven Aalders; at Slewe Galerie, Amsterdam
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ABMB: Paulo Pasta, Galleria Millian, Sao Paolo
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ABMB: Harvey Quaytman, Recidivist, at McKee Gallery, New York
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NADA: Michael Rey, at Karyn Lovegrove Gallery, Los Angeles
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ABMB: Victor Vasareley, Axo, 1974, at Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris
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Pulse: Linda Besemer, at Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard, Paris
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Installation view below
with another closeup below that
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ABMB: Sarah Morris, Portuguese Bowline, at Capitan Petzel Gallery, Paris and New York
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ABMB: Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (8-116), 2009, at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
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Pulse: Jeff Kellar,Wall Drawing, at Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque
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ABMB: Daniel Buren, Emerging Cubes, at Lisson Gallery, London
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NADA: Ben Berlow's tiny geometries on book pages, at Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco
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Below, closeup of one
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ABMB: Anne Truitt, acrylic on paper, 1969, at Matthew Marks, New York
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Pulse: Patrick Wilson, at Marx & Zavattero, San Francisco
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Pulse: Robert Courtwright, untitled collage construction, at Pavel Zoubok, New York
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ABMB: Mira Schendel gouaches, installed in the Art Kabinett at Galeria Millian, Sao Paolo
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ABMB: Al Taylor, acrylic paintings on newsprint, 1985, at David Zwirner Gallery, New York .

ABMB: Susana Solano, La Imaginacion III, at McKee Gallery, New York
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Pulse: Siemens Art Lab, Vienna
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Red Dot: George Dunbar, at Myers Contemporary, Annapolis
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NADA: Eva Berendes silk square, at Jacky Strunz Gallery, Berlin
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NADA: Sarah Crowner, pieced paintings, at Nicelle Beauchene, New York
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ABMB: John McLaughlin, V-1958, 1958, oil on canvas, at Greenberg Van Doren, New York
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ABMB: Heimo Zobering, installation wall from Galleries Nagel Grasslin
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ABMB: Esther Stocker installation, at Galerie Krobath, Vienna

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Next post: Blanc et Noir, mostly geometry in an achromatic palette

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Want to see more? There are two important and expansive online resources for abstraction of the geometric and reductive kind: Geoform and Minus Space. While there's some visual overlap, Geoform has the more expansive vision, Minus Space the more stringently reductive; both are international in scope. Each online project is founded and maintained by artists who are passionate about this particular aspect of artistic expression.

SoHo Geo

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A geometric fixture in NoHo

There was some great geometry in SoHo earlier this month, and because I’ve been busy—with Marketing Mondays here on this blog and several exhibitions of my own—I’m only now getting to show these to you.

We’re starting with the painted wall that’s been in SoHo, actually NoHo, forever. (It might be part of NYU.) I’m including it because it has a nice visual connection to the two shows here.

At OK Harris: Detail of painting by Doug Navarra

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The first, at OK Harris, was a small show by Doug Navarra. Called Palimpsest, it featured an installation of found historical documents, most stained and worn over time, upon which the artist has superimposed geometric shapes in brilliant hues. The idiosyncratic work synthesized time and order, intent and chance. I particularly loved how crisp geometry hovers over the fluid, almost florid, calligraphy of the pages.

Installation of paintings by Doug Navarra at OK Harris gives you a sense of the scale of his work

Above and below: two works by Navarra

At Jose Friere’s Team Gallery a three-artist show could well have been a solo, so formally did the work relate. The two little pics below, impossible (for me) to Photoshop well because of the competing light sources, orient you to the space. Better images are below that.

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Above and below: two shots to orient you to the Team Gallery space

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Davis Rhodes used the simplest stuff: spray paint on what looks to be foam core. Two such objects, one black with an uneven stripe of lavender at the top, and another with a strong yellow/black diagonal, were placed opposite Gardar Einar Einarsson’s knife-edge black and white graphics. The result was not so much a conversation as a standoff—High Noon at the SoHo corrall. I liked it.

Above, with the front door unseen to the right: two freestanding objects by Davis Rhodes and a painting by Stanley Whitney

Below, with the front door to your back; three by Gardar Einar Einarsson and a painting by Stanley Whitney

Stanley Whitney’s work is more conventional oil-on-linen painting. His blocks of color expand and contract in their compositions, dominating the surface or steadfastly holding onto a small bit of it—classic push pull—and some are seemingly flattened by the weight of the big hues above them. With its brushy brushstrokes and imperfect geometry, this work is the opposite of refined. I really like it.

Stanley Whitney, The Last of the Bohemians, 2008, oil on linen, 72 x 72 inches

In the back gallery: Davis Rhodes, Untitled, 2008, enamel on foamboard, two panels 96 x 44 inches each
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FAIR WEATHER: Geometry (First 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"

ABMB: Frank Stella "protractor" painting, John Chamberlain sculpture, Josef Albers painting (another Chamberlain/Albers pairing) at Waddington Galleries, London

I feel like the marathoner who has hit the wall and pushed past it. I'm almost there! To those of you who have commented here on the blog, mentioned my effort on your own blog, or e-mailed me directly, thank you. You've been like the folks on that 26-mile route handing out water.

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If you follow this blog, you know that I write regularly about geometric abstraction. My own work falls into this category, and I'm intellectually and visually engaged by the endlessly inventive ways artists have employed a few basic shapes with a variety of materials (a few in these Geometry posts: household gloss on canvas, tempera on canvas, wax on panel, plastic tape, lights, paper and pins, needlepoint, cast resin, plexi, collage, painted wood and aluminum, and colored pencil as both drawing material and collage element).

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I've included many splendid examples of the genre in the posts from the various venues, but I wanted a dedicated post on geometry. Turns out there will be two. Even after I edited and re-edited my selections, I still had too much for one post.

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ABMB: Alfred Leslie, Cough Control, 1961-62, at Allan Stone Gallery, New York

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So let's start with some works from the Sixties and Seventies, and then follow a visual narrative of shape, color, proportion and material as one image leads into the next.

Art Miami: Artist and date to be identified at McCormick Gallery, Chicago

Art Miami: Jesus Rafael Soto, Mural Cinetico, 1983, painted wood, aluminum and other materials, at Leon Tovar Gallery, New York

Detail below

Art Miami: Frederick Hammersley (two paintings at left dated 1965), Jeremy Thomas and William Metcalf at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe



ABMB: John McLaughlin, paintings from the 1960s, including 1963, foreground, at Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles

ABMB: Jo Baer, Untitled (White Square Lavender), 1964-1974, and Dan Walsh at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

ABMB: Esther Stocker at Galerie Krobath Wimmer, Vienna

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ABMB: Francesco Vezzoli, Galerie Neu, Berlin

ABMB: Robert Mangold at Pace Wildenstein, New York and elsewhere


ABMB: Richard Tuttle, also at Pace Wildenstein

Closer view of one work below




ABMB: Rachel Whiteread at Luhring Augustine, New York


Scope: Pepe Lopez at Hardcore Contemporary, Miami

Art Miami: Joseph Goldberg at Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle



Art Miami: Regine Schumann at Galerie Renate Bender, Berlin

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Art Miami: Carlos Estrada Vega at William Siegel Gallery, Santa Fe



Aqua Hotel: Cecilia Biagini at The Hogar Collection, Brooklyn



Art Miami: Mark Fox at Larissa Goldston, New York
Detail below


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Pulse: Ivelisse Jiminez at Diana Lowenstein Fine Art, Miami

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Pulse: Beat Zoderer at FTC Gallery, Berlin
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