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12.10.2011

Fair Play: A Long, Tall Drink of Aqua

The posts so far:

I love the intimacy of the Aqua Art venue: two floors surrounding an inner courtyard, with small-scale works, for the most part, and plenty of natural light. I typically visit there after the sensory overload of ABMB, a welcome, er, palette cleanser.  Image from Aqua Art website
While most of the fairs are operated by promoters, Aqua is owned and run by artists, Seattle-based Jaq Chartier and Dirk Park, who started it seven years ago as way to give Northwest galleries more visibility. Aqua Art, so named because of its location in the Aqua Hotel, was so well received that after just one year it became established in the Miami lineup. From my point of view Aqua was a harbinger of alternative options for Miami. The dealer-owned and -run Seven, which we'll visit next, is one such option.

(I'm not so keen on the promoter-run fairs that show unrepresented artists, such as Fountain and Pool. The vetting process is not stringent, from what I can see, and indeed one of those venues, Pool, was closed down by the city because of permit issues. The artists, many of whom had planned to stay overnight in their exhibition rooms, were tossed on the street with nowhere to show and nowhere to go. Read about that here.)

But it was all good at Aqua. Here's some of what I saw:
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Arriving early, I watched Miles Conrad, director of the Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tucson, adjust my paintings after installation. (There are more pics from the gallery later in the post)


At McKenzie Fine Art, New York: A salon-hung wall of Don Voisine paintings

A closer view of the large center painting  below
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At the Thomas Jaeckel Gallery, New York: Per Adolfson
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At Pentimenti, Philadelphia: Jackie Tileston painting, Cecilia Biagini wood-shim sculpture


At Littlejohn Contemporary, New York: Annette Davideck


At McKenzie Fine Art, New York: Gary Petersen geometries


At Boltax Gallery, New York: Pilar Olaverri abstraction, about 10 x 12 inches


At William Baczek Gallery, Northampton, Mass.: Jaq Chartier


At Alida Anderson Art Projects, Washington, D.C.: Sandra Ramos


At Toomey Tourell, San Francisco: Gregg Renfrow abstractions

Below: a peek into Toomey Tourell from the balcony


At Triple Base, San Francisco: Bryson Gill


At Season Gallery, Seattle: Sharon Butler


At Beth Urdang, Boston: Resa Blatman


At Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tucson: From left, Jessica Drenk, Eun Kyung-Suh, Robert Moya, Ruth Hiller; foreground, Cameron Luft

Below: closer view of Hiller's biomorphic painting



Two more views from Conrad Wilde: From left, my two Silk Road paintings, Cameron Luft sculpture (on wall and in foreground), Emily Silver watercolors, Jessica Drenk , Carrie Seid

Below: A peek into the closet, which is set up for viewing: John Dempcy paintings, David A. Clark installation of prints on (non-meant-to-be-worn) t-shirt forms. My favorite message: Buy Art



At gallery unidentified: James Sterling Pitt
Installation of three below



At Galleri Urbane, Marfa and Dalla: Jason Willaford


At Steve Turner Contemporary, San Francisco: Gabrielle Ferrer handcolored pages from the book,  The Navajo Blanket. (This is the second time in as many months that I've seen an artist use  this 35-year-old volume in service to their artmaking)

Single page detail below



At Littlejohn Contemporary, New York: Valerie Hammond prints


At the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design, the MFA program of Georgia State University, Atlanta: Bethany Collins chalk-on-slate drawings

Closeup view below



At Soil Gallery, Seattle: Ellen Zeigler drawing


At Froelick Gallery, Portland, Oregon: Ritsuko Ozeki etching


At Prole Drift, Seattle:  Jenny Heishman vessels printed with various basket weaves. Love these!


At Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco: Christian Machack sculpture with chair caning matrix


At Alida Anderson Art Projects., D.C.: Tim Tate sculpture, Dreams of Flying, with blown and cast glass and video


At Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Vallery, California: Jody Alexander

There are always great installations in the closets of hotel fairs. I spotted these small scuptures, with exposed book spines, on the top shelf


At Cain Schulte Contemporary Art, San Francisco: Shawn Smith sculpture
Detail below



At What Is Is Projects, Oak Park, Illinois: Tom Burtonwood wall

Next Up: Seven, a collective of seven commercial galleries showing in a Wynwood warehouse


If you feel that my reports from New York and elsewhere around the country, including the Miami art fairs, bring the art world to you, or that Marketing Mondays offers professional information of the sort you never got in art school, please support this blog. I am a painter with a full-time studio practice; every post represents a significant expenditure of time, travel, photo editing and writing. A one-time annual donation of $20 (though any amount is welcome) will help support my effort. See the Donate button on the sidebar. Thank you.

1 comment:

Jessica said...

Have really enjoyed reading your blog, feels like I was actually there in Miami!