FAIR FACTOR: The Containers

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This is as close as I got to Art/Positions, aka The Containers. It's the view from my hotel window. The Containers were closed when I left in the morning and closed by the time I got back at night.

FAIR FACTOR: Aqua Art

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Looking in at Morgan Lehman, New York: My pick for best installation at Aqua. Paul Villinski's repurposed records, replete with turntable, are at right.

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The 36x36" sculpture is by John Salvest. I know its dimensions exactly because it's made from antique yardsticks. To its left, Salvest's light sculpture of adaptor plugs.

(I will think differently about Home Depot after this.)

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Another great installation at Bodybuilder and Sportsman, Chicago: Charles LaBelle's compound (i.e. collaged) photograph dominates the far wall, while Diane Guerrera-Macia's vinyl "tiles" hold the floor

It’s hard to overstate the scale of events in Miami during Fair week. Fairs take place in two locations: on beach-side Collins Avenue, a couple of blocks away from The Mothership at theconvention center, and across the causeways in Wynwood, the arts district. Because Basel/Miami is the biggest fair, I always see it first, followed by visits to the hotel fairs on Collins, each with its own look and sensibility. In theory, this helps me remember what I saw and where. But because the galleries often switch fairs from year to year, and because the fairs also switch venues, it’s not easy to remember who-what-and-where.

Here’s the order I’ll follow: Aqua, Flow, Red Dot, Art Now, Bridge, Ink, one post per venue. To give you a measure of how new the Miami fair scene is, Aqua first appeared three years ago and made a big splash. "Favorite Fair" is how many described this 44-gallery venue, which is located in the Aqua hotel. And it didn't hurt that the venue has a courtyard and second-floor balconies, so that any sense of claustrobia is offset by the sky. By last year it was considered an "established fair." And by this year, it was right up there with Pulse and Scope. (So big, in fact, that it established a second venue in Wynwood right next to them. But more about that when we cross the causeway.)

Installation is everything with these small fairs. If you don’t find it interesting as you pass by, you’ll keep walking.

Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, had a suite--a splendid way to show art in an uncluttered, gallery-style installation. Above: framed works on paper by Sarah Walker and a shaped painting by Jovi Schnell

Below: in the bedroom, a framed work by Chris Duncan, surrounded by a selection of work from gallery artists

At Romo Gallery, Atlanta: Loved the installation. The combination of large works that dominated and smaller works organized salon style was effective for viewing a lot of work in a small space. Foreground: Nancy Blum, Tip, 2007, ink, colored pencil, graphite and gouache, 48 x 38 inches

At Lemon Sky, Miami Beach: Terri Friedman's painting on plexi

At Pentimenti, Philadelphia: The installation was blessedly spare, dominated by Jackie Tileston's painting on linen, and a pyramid of paint cups by Sara Hughes. It was a perfect pairing.

FAIR FACTOR: Flow

JG Contemporary, New York. The large work is by Joe Fyfe, Jaetok, 2006; acrylic on muslin, burlap and felt

Collins Ave, which runs along the coast, was chockablock with hotel fairs from 21st Street down into South Beach, so everything is within walking distance: Basel Miami, all the hotel fairs, your own hotel (if you're lucky), and plenty of restaurants. And there’s that other thing people come to Miami for …give me a minute…um…it’s got sand…waves…oh, right, the beach. But if you’re focused on the fairs, you might not even know it exists.

Flow Fair was in the Dorset hotel this year. It's an invitational event, which means that organizers Matt Garson of Garson Fine Art and Julie Baker of Julie Baker Fine Art selected and invited the galleries they want to participate. (Those galleries pay for the privilege, though; invitations go only so far.) The result is a well focused uber-exhibition with enough esthetic and geographic diversity to keep you looking from room to room. Flow also lives up to its name as an "attitude-free fair." Everyone from the organizers to the dealers to the exhibiting artists is extremely friendly, so while there's plenty of A/C in the building, there’s not a cold shoulder anywhere.

Let’s start with the galleries that acknowledged the wallpaper--a celadon and black giant pineapple fleur-de-lys pattern (what was the hotel designer thinking?!)-- and made installations that worked over and around it. Actually, the result was fabulous. You're clearly not in a gallery, Dorothy, but you knew that going in.

Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta. Collages and babies by Marcus Kenney; assemblaged dog in foreground by Mary Engel

Hemphill Fine Art, Washington, DC. Framed work by Steven Cushner and Jason Gubbiotti

Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Larchmont, New York. Paintings by Jackie Tileston, center, and Andrea Kantrowitz, right

Some galleries brought their own white walls--or wallpaper--and made gallery-like spaces:

Mulry Fine Art, West Palm Beach. Work by gallery artists includes a sculpture by Luis Castro, foreground

Linda Durham Contemporary Art, Santa Fe. The gallery-like installation included the work of Robert Kelly, foreground

All the surfaces get used in these fairs. At Winston Wachter, Seattle and New York, it's the bed; at David Lusk, Memphis, it's the floor; and at PDX, Portland, Oregon, it's the desk. (The bathrooms get their own post, Feeling Flush.)

At Winston Wachter: paintings on bed by Betsy Eby; on the wall by Susan Dory

At David Lusk Gallery, Memphis, Tad Lauritzen Wright floor
drawing , brush marker on oak

At PDX Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon, a selection of small work, including a sculpture by Marie Watt, next to the lamp

Then there were individual pieces that I loved: Anne Seidman's small geometries crammed with color; a Sheila Berger painting in encaustic redolent of Kashmir; Lisa Kokin's assemblage of photographs stitched and connected with thread--a family tree, except that the photos are found and the only family ties are those made by the artist's hand; and Tim Tate's oddly poetic sculpture of a glass heart atop a blown glass sphere containing a video of a beating heart.

Anne Seidman at Schmidt Dean, Philadelphia

Sheila Berger at Winston Wachter, New York



Lisa Kokin, Forget Me Not, with detail below. Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael




Tim Tate's Heart of Glass Denied at Duane Reade Gallery, St. Louis

FAIR FACTOR: Red Dot

In the hallway at the Red Dot Fair

Give me a minute, would you? I need to drag my soap box over here. If you follow the art blogs, you know there are many comments by artists--some mildly concerned, others extremely pissed off--about the commerciality of these fairs. The Red Dot fair is a good place to address them, because its name says it all. The art fairs are about the buying and selling of art.

Sure, that painting may have been wrested from the depths of your soul, but when it goes onto a gallery wall or into an art fair booth or room, it’s an object available for sale. That’s the process. Of course you hope your work will be placed in a good collection. Miami’s big private collections are open to the public this time of year, and you can really see what happens when dedicated collectors acquire work. But collectors come in all sizes and price ranges, just like the art. You hope, like love, they’ll find their match.

If you as an artist don’t want to be doing another job forever, you need to get over that old-fashioned thinking that equates selling art with selling out. Align yourself with a dealer, or a network of dealers, who love what you do so that they can place it with people who feel the same way. At these fairs, you can really see the dealers in action: they set up visually appealing booths or rooms, and they interact with a public that may be just browsing or seriously intent on acquiring. I won’t downplay the ridiculousness of some of the exchanges ("Does this come in red?" "Do you have one in a larger size?" Yo, these aren’t bathing suits.) But when I see a red dot next to a work, I like to think that the wheels of the universe are turning as they are supposed to.

OK. The Red Dot Fair. First, kudos to George Billis for putting together such a good fair. The roster of galleries was strong, and there was a lot of good work to see. As with the other fairs, I’ve got both installations and individual works to show you.

Three by Thornton Willis in the hallway, just outside the Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York. Below: just inside, three small sculptures by Elisa D'Arrigo

At Howard Scott Gallery, New York: Werner Schmidt painting on left; a Sati Zech painting--talk about material abstraction--in the background, and below

Here's a detail:

At Arden Gallery, Boston, a familiar face: mine. I'm standing in front of my painting, Vicolo 27, 2007, encaustic on panel, 24x24 inches, which you can see below. To my right is a cast rubber sculpture by Niho Kozuru

Also at Arden: painting by Norma Bessouet

At Panamerican Artprojects, Dallas, small geometric sculptures by Ted Larsen

Love these! Paintings on mechanics' cloths by Jason Rohlf at Tory Folliard Gallery, Milwaukee


More Anne Seidman, here a framed work on paper, at the George Billis Gallery, New York

Mitch Jones's mixed-media painting at the Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco

Below, a small installation of small works by Gutter Pegger (the woven face) and mixed media paintings by Catherine Dudley

The hotel fairs don't typically show large works--the often small rooms just don't permit it--but I appreciate the opportunity to see a selection by individual artists. In fact one of the things I like about these fairs, particularly after the vast expanse of the Convention Center, is the opportunity to see smaller work in a way that feels intimate (even if thre are other viewers jostling for a look at the same time).

At Kathryn Markel Fine Art, New York, each artist was represented by a small installation. Above, Laura Fayer. Below, Julian Jackson

At Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, an installation that includes two encaustic geometries by Barbara Kerwin, far left, and next to them, three acrylic on panel abstractions by Matthew Penkala

At Pepper Gallery, Boston, paintings by Harold Reddicliff, left; small portraits by Daphne Confar, and drawings to the right by Stephen Fisher

Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, showed in the conference room, where the relative expanse allowed this circle of confiscated airport items by Michele Pred

Below: a Richard Purdy geometry in encaustic

FAIR FACTOR: Art Now

Art Now in the renovated Claremont, an art deco hotel on Collins Avenue

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

Remember the pre-digital days of your childhood when you help up those little plastic viewers to your eye? These are the very same--on steroids. Galeria Petrus, San Juan, Puerto Rico

The inner view, below

Hiroyuki Hamada at Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge, Mass. This was one of the largest (and most enigmatic) works in the small rooms