Convoluted Connections

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James Siena, Kinked Non-Slice, second version, 2008, app. 20 x 16 inches

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I saw this small painting of James Siena's at the Pace Wildenstein booth at Art Basel Miami Beach. I thought of it again when Laura Moriarty, an who lives upstate, sent me some images of her new work, visceral sculptures made with textured sheets of pigmented wax that had been rolled and sliced, sort of like jelly rolls. I liked the visual connection. Then I mentally related them to a painting of Sharon Horvath's, which I'd seen in her show in November at Lori Bookstein Fine Art in Chelsea.

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Next week I'll post installation images from Horvath's exhibition, but for now let me make a convoluted connection between and among these three works.

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Laura Moriarty, Skerry, 2009, pigmented beeswax, detail from an installation 20 x 30 feet. Image from the artist's website

Sharon Horvath, July Mountain, 2009, disperse pigment, ink and polymer on paper on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
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Looking Back

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Now that the end-of-year lists have been published, everyone is looking ahead to what’s looming for 2010. Not me. I’m going to spend the month in retrospection. The Miami extravaganza aside, I normally post two or three times a week, which means I don't get to write about everything that interests me. So this month I’m going to dedicate my blog time to a look back at all the art I wish I'd been able to squeeze into the year: some gallery and museums shows, a great public sculpture, and a few studio visits.

To start, I’m going to look at my own favorite posts. Here's what I chose out of the 172 I wrote (though to tell the truth, I liked them all). Click on the titles to access the posts.
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Cold? Come Stand Next to These

A stretch of frigid weather inspired this winter post, in which a suggestion of licking flames and glowing embers from Teresita Fernandez, Julian Jackson and others, even Fra Angelico, heated up the room, at least conceptually.

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Here, Morris Louis at Paul Kasmin Gallery

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Armory Week: Salvage Operation


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Left, Sarah Braman at Museum 52, New York; at the Armory Fair
Right, Joy Garnett, Unmonumental 126

For this post I got to be both reporter and curator, pairing the trash-into-art sculptures I saw throughout the fairs with photos from Joy Garnett's Unmonumental series. Big thanks to Joy for letting me pull images from her blog, Newsgrist. And a first for me: I was able to limit my Armory coverage to three posts.

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Stephen Haller: Remembering Morandi

My dear friend and mentor remembers his good friend and mentor. It took 40 years for the story to get told, and I’m pleased to be the one who got Stephen to tell it over the course of two months and several interviews
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Here, Stephen in the viewing room of his gallery holding a book on Morandi. That frontispiece photo of the artist was shot by Stephen in Morandi's home in Bologna in the 60s


Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded at MoMA

MoMA's second-floor drawing galleries often have the best shows in the house: thoughful and generally small in scale, the very opposite of the bombastic blockbusters upstairs. And because the work is typically organized from work in the collection, photography is allowed. (I posted about the Geo/Metric show there in 2008.)
Here, work by Eva Hesse, foreground, and Dorothea Rockburne

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What I Saw This Summer

In this eight-parter, which started in August, I wrote about the art I saw in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Boston, and Brunswick, Maine; in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; up the Northway in Washington County, and then farther north in Montreal.
Here, Grace DeGennaro's studio in Brunswick, Maine
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Getting High in West Chelsea

My running route used to take me under a rusted hulk of railroad overpass, a home to pigeons that paved the sidewalk below with their droppings. What a difference now! The newly renovated High Line is a park is where you come to stroll and look out at the Hudson.
Here, the tracks planted with native wildflowers
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Trees!

Trunks, branches and roots were everywhere in evidence. I saw plenty of arboreal attitude in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Miami. I looked to metaphors to explain the abundance. Are we putting down roots for stability? Branching out? Out on a limb? All of the above?

Here, Sandra Allen, Ballast, 2009, graphite on 15 sheets of paper; at Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston

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Fair and Fair Alike: Miami 2009

It’s my annual obsession, er, opus. The thematic posts were the most interesting because they went beyond reporting on the who, what, where and allowed me to begin to make visual sense of an event that brought together some 1000+ dealers and 10,000+ artists.
Here, from Working the Angles: Robert Mangold at the Pace Wildenstein booth, at ABMB

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Marketing Mondays

The series in 2009 comprised 43 posts. I’m kind of amazed that I found enough to write about--and the time to write about it. Thanks for your responses, which really move the posts along. The first post for 2010 is already up. The sidebar lists them all, with links.
Here, Jackie Battenfield signing her book The Artist's Guide. And guess who's quoted in it?

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A chance to write about my own projects

In this down economy I decided to focus instead on group shows. I wrote about them--not as a reviewer, of course, but as a participant. I also got to be a sho’nuff curator, for BlogPix, and moderated two blogger panels.
Here, an installation of my Silk Road paintings in Slippery When Wet at Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn

These are links to some of my projects this year:
. Blogpix, the Show
. Blogpix, the Panel
. Art Bloggers at Art Miami
. GeoMetrics at Gallery 128
. Summer Guest House at Marcia Wood Gallery
. The L’eau Down: Slippery When Wet
. A First Look at DM Contemporary

Marketing Mondays: How Do You Define "Emerging Artist" And Other Career Levels?

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Cartoon by Eric Gelber

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Artist Pam Farrell posed this question recently: "How do you define 'emerging artist'?”

A decade ago, emerging signified an artist who was getting some attention—emerging from the pack, as it were, and onto the radar screen of curators, dealers and critics. There were a number of indicators that an artist was emerging: inclusion in good group shows, positive reviews, a well-received solo, maybe sales to a few good collectors, and some word-of-mouth buzz.

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By that standard, the newly celebrated Carmen Herrera would be an emerging artist. "After six decades of very private painting, Ms. Herrera sold her first artwork five years ago, at 89," reports Deborah Sontag in a recent New York Times article about the artist. Hmm. Does that make Herrera, after a lifetime at the easel, an emerging artist? Hardly.

Germane to this issue, a parallel, more democratic definition has evolved. Emerging now seems to mean beginning. That's how students and professors use the term at the various institutions where I have taught or visited. By this standard, all newly minted artists (even art students) are emerging. This definition may not appeal to the hierarchic tendencies of the art world, but it does make more sense. And for the 25-year old who emerges bigtime? How about lucky? Or well-connected? Or child of famous parents?

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Since we're on the topic, when an emerging artist become just a regular artist? And when does one become a mid-career artist? Is a decade too soon? How about after a couple of decades of pushing that ball up the hill, whether or not recognition is part of the ball? And what of the artists who take time away from showing to earn an income, have a baby, travel: Does the clock reset? Are they re-emerging when they start showing again or can they just be artists?

When does a mid-career artist become a late-career artist? (Here I’m thinking of Oriane Stender’s comment a while back on Ed Winkleman’s blog: "Who knows how long we're going to live? I could be mid-career right now, or even late-career. Or my career could go nowhere until after I'm dead. Would that make me pre-career?") Oriane has her tongue firmly in cheek but she raises interesting issues.

How would you define emerging and mid-career? And if you're on a roll, thrown in late-career as well. Consider this an open thread for the first Marketing Mondays post of the new year.

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Special thanks to Eric Gelber for letting me include his cartoon in this post. Visit Eric's blog, eageageag

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Fair and Fair Alike: Miami 2009. The Wrap-up Awards!

This post ends my coverage of Fair and Fair Alike: Miami 2009

. Reused, Recycled, Repurposed, and Just Plain Crafty

. Pulling a Thread

. Blanc et Noir

. Working the Angles

. 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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So how do you wrap up 22 posts about 11 fairs--plus a private collection and a guerrilla event-- representing some 1000 galleries and well over 10,000 artists? With an Awards post, of course. Here are my 20 picks:

1. Oddest Premise for an Artwork: The Picasso Sandwich

Tibi Tibi Neuspiel's toast of cast and painted wax, Narwhal Art Projects, Toronto; at Aqua

It's worth noting that "Picasso sandwich" for the Spanish painter would likely have been him pressed between his wife and his mistress

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2. Most Outrageous Premise for a Miami Art Event: Art Burn

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The Wynwood guerilla grill-a-thon presided over by El Celso in the parking lot of Las Tias resale store. There were marshmallows to toast, but given the black smoke coming from some of those art materials, uh, none for me, thanks. And, really, what's more fun than warming yourself by the fire when it's 85 degrees? I think we were all surprised that the varnished frames didn't blow up and that the fire department didn't show up. A good time was had by all. Really.
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3. Oddest Juxtaposition of Art and Venue: NADA

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Those chandeliers in the ballroom of the Deauville Hotel are too imposing for irony, too chichi for elegance--a style of decor my late Italian-American father would have called "neo-greaseball." .

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4. Most All-over Coverage of an Allotted Exhibition Space

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Minimalism be damned.
A tie between the booth at Claudie Groeflin Gallerie at NADA, above, and the booth at Fountain, below
Extra points for the Groeflin Gallerie staff shown here for ignoring everyone who entered their booth
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5. The Tony Manero Award for Best Use of a Disco Shirt Pattern
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And I mean that sincerely. I dig this painting by Geoffrey Todd Smith, at Western Exhibitions, Chicago. Bonus points for the way the carpet matches, um, the drapes.

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6. Best-Ever Use of Castoffs
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Portia Munson's green vitrine at PPOW, Pulse.

Beats a shark in a tank any day
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With special mention to:
Ulla von Brandenberg, left; at Pilar Corrias, London; and Cordy Ryman, DCKT, New York
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And hosannas to the international master, El Anatsui, below, at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; at ABMB

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7. Creepiest Painting
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And it's a tie!

Alison Schulnick at Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica, left; and artist unknown, at Charlie Smith Gallery, London; both at Pulse

But, hey, you be the judge. Which do you think deserves top honors?
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8. Creepiest Coincidence
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Above, Maria Jose Arjona, Affirmations, at Galerie Anita Beckers; Pulse

It hurt just to look at her. The artist was standing on six glasses, each half filled with water and goldfish. Someone reported that she had been standing on blocks of ice with screws embedded in them, and that as the ice melted the screws dug into the soles of her feet. Now that's positively Opus Dei--and would certainly have made her the clear winner in Marina Abramovic Endurance category
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Below, Maurizio Cattelan, La Rivoluzione Siamo Noi (We Are the Revolution), at the Rubell Collection show, Beg, Borrow and Steal.

That's the diminutive artist hanging by his jacket. Well, it's not actually him. But you knew that

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9. Best Coincidence

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Holey, golden and undulating: There's probably an S&M act for that description, but I'm referring to the works here; both at NADA

.Above, Ricardo Rendon's perforated felt sculpture at Mitterand + Sanz, Zurich

Below, Hilary Berseth's engineered beehive at Eleven Rivington, New York

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10. The Artwork Most Likely to Induce Seizure

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Don't scroll too fast: Your retinas could detach!

Detail above of the painting by Philip Taaffe, at the Rubell's Beg, Borrow and Steal
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Full view, below

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Special mention to Garth Weiser, Flying J, left, also at the Rubell Collection; and Caetano de Almeida, Distrito 4, Madrid

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11. The Barilla-Buitoni Award for Most Unexpected Use of a Pasta Accessory

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Haim Steinbach, Untitled, gallery unknown, at ABMB
(Hey, I have a red one, too. But my untitled is bigger than his untitled.)
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12. Most Gruesomely Creepy

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. There's no blood, and the artist is a master with the use of wax, but this is one creepily cadaverous object, views above and below

Berlinde de Brucyker, at Galleria Continua, San Gimignano

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13. Most Poignantly Unironic
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. Unless the batteries on my bullshit detector are dead, this was a touching and honest sentiment in a booth that was otherwise full of amusing illuminated puns and one-liners, at the Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles; NADA
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14. Best Unintentional Review of a Show by an Artwork in It
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.Adam McEwen at the Rubell Collection's, Beg, Borrow and Steal
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Well, I was not not very disappointed,
but I wasn't bowled over by the show, whose theme was appropriated and reused materials.

The concept was spot on, though, as the current that ran through all the fairs, and I've included images of some of the works in several posts, including here. I do appeciate the generosity of Mera and Don Rubell, who opened their doors to the public (for free)
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15. The I'll-Have-15,000-Cups-and-a-Very-Large-Pot-of-Hot-Water-Please Award
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. One of the works I did love at the Rubell collection was Ai Wei Wei's minimalist block...of tea
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16. Best Reason for Going to Verge














Young artist Zach Storm was in residence, drawing his first-time impressions of the fair, at the Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston. "In residence" means he was not only working there; he was sleeping there at night
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17. The Build-Me-Up-Tear-Me-Down Award
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Build me up: Maximo Gonzalez, at Galeria Valle Orti, Valencia, Spain; at Pulse .
Tear me down: Twenty Twenty, Miami; at NADA
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Are these really award-worthy installations? Not really, but their odd symmetry deserves visual mention

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18. The OMG Award for the Most Fabulously Obsessive Use of an X-Acto

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.I. Love. It.

Jill Sylvia's handcut ledger paper, at Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco; at Aqua

I'm guessing Ponzi schemer Madoff might have considered something similar for his own books

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Detail below

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19. Joan Mitchell Memorial Plaque for the Best Use of Paint to Cover Graffiti on an Exterior Urban Wall

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How fabulous is this? I photographed it just off of N. Miami Avenue as I was walking from Scope to Artburn
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20. Most Likely to Have Been Thrown Out By the Janitors
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An unheard-of four-way tie! All at ABMB
If Joseph Beuys's Fettecke, five pounds of butter applied to a wall, could have been thrown out by an overzealous janitor in 1980s Dusseldorf, it's entirely possible that these trasheriffic pieces could have met the same fate
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Above, Pablo Cabrita Reis, Door as Table as Door, vise and found door; at Galerie Nelson-Freeman, Paris

Below, Ruben Ochoa palettes, at Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles

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.Wait: There's more!

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Above, Rivane Neuschwander, Involuntary Sculptures, a mixed-media collection of objects made by diffrent people during conversations; at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
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Below, Ryan Gander,
Remnants of Theo and Piet's fall from 1924, through the Avery Coonley playhouse window, during the struggle brought on by an argument over the dynamic aspect of the diagonal line, into this white room, 2009, at Lisson Gallery, London
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Apparently the work crumbled under the weight of its title
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That's it from Fair and Fair Alike: Miami 2009. And now I'm going to take the rest of the year off.