Installation shot-The Armory Show


Installation shot- Kodama Gallery- Osaka


Kim Sooja with the blurry photos (left) and John Beech with wall painting/photo (middle) and wall sculpture (right) at Peter Blum Gallery


Heidi Silmane with the giant wall photo of the boy and Katja Stranz with the wall paper airplane at Gallery Almine Rech- Paris


Rosson Crow at Canada Gallery -NYC


Rosson Crow (detail)


Alexandra Croitorou Plan B Gallery- Romania

Interesting, Amy mentioned a lot of paintings at the Armory this year, which seems bourne out in this small sample.

Ive also heard that the Red Dot fair was really spotty with some booths doing very well and others did nothing at all in terms of sales. Apparntly it wasnt like Miami, you needed to have something special... those galleries with something good did real well. Ive heard the Pulse fair was much better than Red Dot.

Reports on the Scope Fair were similarly spotty and like Red Dot you had to have something that differentiated your gallery to do well.

Yes, overall fairs have a certain sameness to them and I generally prefer shows or studio visits to the outright profusion on a flooded showroom floor. Still, there is something to be said for really drowning in art... to determine either what really makes you gag or swim towards.

I do think the fairs are producing a wider group of experienced eyes, though the eyes that only get experience at fairs are missing out on some critical and conceptual depth of field that only shows and studio visits can provide.

The Armory show looked really good- maybe better than Art Basel Miami Beach- or maybe it was just a less confusing layout. My personal favorite was a giant Adam Cvijanovic painting at Bellwether:
http://www.bellwethergallery.com/artistsindex_01.cfm?fid=10&gal=1

I also saw 'LA Art in NYC,' which was abysmal. Galleries not even trying to hang work well- lots of crappy drawings and a general feeling of apathy and exhaustion. Maybe the dealers were too cold to function.

Some great shows in Chelsea, though:
Francis Alys and Toba Khedoori at Zwirner:
http://www.davidzwirner.com/
gorgeous kinky drawings at Jeff Bailey:
http://www.baileygallery.com/
Huang Yong Ping at Gladstone:
http://www.gladstonegallery.com/default.asp
and Brock Enright basically destroyed Perry Rubenstein Gallery for a creepy Paul McCarthy-esque installation featuring a video piece that looked very Oregonian- like 'Old Joy' redone by Matthew Barney:
http://www.perryrubenstein.com/home.html

Interesting and thanks.

Yeah the Oregon Territory aesthetic (whatever that is) is big these days. Bruce Conkle has been better than Marc Swanson since before Swanson had his first solo show (working for Castelli for years didnt hurt).

Interestingly, Bruce is now working with Coconuts and carnivorous plants after his residency in Rio with Ernesto Neto's project there. They are actually very different artists, Bruce was probably raised by Sasquatch (though his parents seem remarkably unfurry).