Artlog

Thursday & Friday, May 29 Р30 11 am – 8 pm Saturday, May 31 11 am – 7 pm Sunday, June 1 Noon – 6pm

The 11th annual Sculpture Objects & Functional Art fair, best known as SOFA NEW YORK returns May 29-June 1, 2008 to the Park Avenue Armory, Opening Night Wednesday, May 28. 67 leading international galleries will offer masterworks in ceramics, glass, metal, wood and fiber by major artists like George Nakashima, Peter Voulkos, Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra, Wendell Castle, Lenore Tawney and Anthony Caro, as well as the new generation of emerging artists bound to appeal to both seasoned and new collectors. Galleries from eleven countries including Japan, Italy, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Denmark, Korea, Argentina, New Zealand, Turkey and the United States, present museum quality work which bridges design, decorative and fine art.

“More than two decades ago, I witnessed a host of artists creating work in clay and glass with an unheralded vitality that transcended function,” says SOFA founder and director Mark Lyman, Vice President of parent company dmg world media, who won no less than two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for his own sculptural ceramics. “Today, their work is in hundreds of museums internationally while continuing to climb the price charts at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses.”

In showcasing remarkable artistry from leading artists and designers, museum curators from around the world routinely take in this fair. On view is dazzling contemporary glass art based on centuries old rich Venetian traditions, sculptural Japanese ceramics, superb hollowware by Scandinavian silversmiths, modernist and contemporary furniture, and the most avant-garde European art jewelry. The acclaimed SOFA Lecture Series featuring major museum curators, collectors and artists takes place concurrently. The Designer Champagne Breakfast held prior to the opening of the fair, and an unrivalled, innovative VIP program of exclusive tours to private collectors’ homes along with corporate collections and behind the scene curator-led tours of museums enhances this fair.

Following the lead of key art fairs around the world to open their previews first to important collectors, the SOFA NY ‘08 Opening Night Preview, Wednesday, May 28 at the Armory, has undergone a creative re-visioning! This year’s gala from 5:30 to 9:00 pm will offer invitation-only guests first viewing and selection of top quality pieces offered at the fair. Participating galleries will be sending invitations to their clients. The Museum of Arts & Design, New York will again host a private fundraising dinner in the Armory’s Tiffany Room at 8:30 pm.

Superlative galleries participating in the show to date include two late-breaking additions from London, Galerie Besson and Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon; Barry Friedman Ltd., Joan B. Mirviss Ltd., and Heller Gallery all of New York; and Moderne Gallery, Philadelphia.

Long-time SOFA NEW YORK exhibitor Barry Friedman Ltd., New York has been an important presence in the international art market for the past 35 years, bringing contemporary and 20th century European fine and decorative art works to the attention of the American audience and exhibiting in such prestigious fairs as New York’s International Art & Design Fair, Art Miami and palmbeach3. At SOFA NEW YORK, the gallery will represent new works in glass by Japanese born Yoichi Ohira, whose unique vessels of contrasting colored powders with glass canes are a virtuoso blend of Japanese aesthetics with traditional Italian glass techniques. His works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Showcasing contemporary Japanese ceramics, Joan B. Mirviss Ltd., New York, top specialist in Asian decorative and fine arts, returns for the fifth consecutive year to SOFA NEW YORK. Mirviss exhibits annually at the prestigious Winter Antiques Show, New York’s International Asian Art Fair and serves as a vettor of Asian art at many United States fairs. Mirviss will present a solo show of ceramics by Ken Mihara at the fair. Mirviss says that while Mihara is “younger than most of his equally prominent colleagues, he is able to convey in his vessels a confident design sense, sophisticated style and brilliance of execution of a far more mature artist. His creative brilliance has been widely recognized by Japanese critics as evidenced by the awarding of numerous prestigious prizes and grants.”

Also returning to SOFA NEW YORK is the prestigious Moderne Gallery, Philadelphia. Since 1997, Moderne Gallery has exhibited at the Philadelphia Antiques Show, the first all-20th century gallery to be invited to the prestigious show. Moderne Gallery also regularly exhibits in New York√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s trend setting Modernism show, and has led the way at SOFA expositions for the exhibition of vintage works by important 20th century designers and furniture artists such as George Nakashima and Wharton Esherick (1887-1970). Robert Aibel, Director/Owner of Moderne Gallery says, “Collectors are drawn to Nakashima because of his reverence for wood left in its organic state. Many see his furniture as an art form.

Long-time SOFA NEW YORK exhibitor Heller Gallery, New York has represented premier international artists working in glass for over twenty five years. At SOFA NEW YORK the gallery will premiere new work by Venetian Lino Tagliapietra. Much honored by the world of studio glass, Tagliapietra has received numerous awards and his work is in the permanent collections of major world museums including The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and Musee des Arts Decoratif, Paris. Katya Garrow Heller says, √¢‚Ǩ≈ìTagliapietra combines classic elements of 20th century Italian design√¢‚Ǩ‚Äùwhich is enjoying a major renaissance in the art world√¢‚Ǩ‚Äùwith an expressive freedom characteristic of glass art by Americans like Dale Chihuly and Dante Marioni, who call him Maestro. Lino’s new body of work, debuting at Heller Gallery at SOFA, will continue to intrigue and delight collectors.√¢‚Ǩ¬ù

Six Lecture Series presentations, complimentary with SOFA admission, are slated to take place Thursday, May 29 in the Park Avenue Armory’s Tiffany Room. Speakers include renowned tapestry artist, Helena Hernmarck (browngrotta arts, Wilton, CT), whose work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Akio Takamori (Barry Friedman Ltd., New York), whose ceramic groupings of standing figural sculptures can be found in major museums such as Los Angeles County Art Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and Museum of Arts & Design, New York; and Adam Paxon (Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon, London), Scottish jeweler who in 2002 won the coveted Herbert Hofmann prize at ‘Schmuck’ International Jewellery Exhibition in Munich.

With such cutting-edge dealers as Charon Kransen, New York, Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA and Ornamentum, Hudson, NY in the line-up, SOFA NEW YORK is the place to one-stop shop the best of European art jewelry. And in another exciting Lecture Series presentation, SOFA visitors can go behind the scenes of the Museum of Fine Art Boston’s newly donated Daphne Farago Collection, comprised of 600 pieces of contemporary jewelry designed and made by leading American and European artists from about 1940 to the present—the most comprehensive collection of 20th-century studio jewelry ever assembled. Presented by Art Jewelry Forum, Kelly L’Ecuyer, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will survey the historic and artistic significance of the Collection.