Kyle DeWoody
Wednesday: The Armory Show
Wednesday was a long one. If I could give only one piece of advice to art fair newcomers, it would be to pack snacks. Food is the savior of all fair-goers. To my delight, I found a few friends eating in the lounge when I arrived at Armory. Once we were all stable, we headed into the trenches.
The pieces that immediately caught my eye were beautiful metallic sculptures. At Hauser and Wirth, Roni Horn’s gold-leaf Double Mobius was simple and ornate. A chrome piece by Los Carpinteros at Sean Kelly Gallery, a lamp and its spilt oil, was equally eye-catching. Another stand-out was Anthony James’ Birch Cube at Nichola Robinson. Side note: I actually traded my car for one of his pieces. It was worth it.
In one booth, my friend Jen DeNike recreated part of Scrying, a ballet performance I first experienced at MoMA. As someone pointed out, it made sense because we look at ballet dancers as beautiful objects anyway. Gilbert and George took over the Lehmann Maupin booth with their Urethra Postcard Art.
Stand-out installations definitely help draw attention, but there is as a lot of beauty in the quiet art. At Galerie Vera Munro, Miwa Ogasawara, an artist I’d never seen before, had two grayscale oil paintings that were peaceful but striking. One installation that was easy to miss was the small taxidermy sparrow lying on its back in the corner of the Ingleby Gallery booth. A subtle and harrowing reminder of the small and beautiful things in nature, taken for granted and disappearing under our crush.
Friends’ picks:
-1st Dibs Founder Alexander Jakowec: Marina Abramovic’s Light/Dark at Sean Kelly.
-Art Collector George Farias: Angela de La Cruz’s scuplture at Lisson Gallery.
-Gallerist Cristina Grajales: Jesús Soto at Leon Tovar Gallery. She said, “The piece was magical. The perception of depth and movement was outstanding.”
-Artist Chris Dorland: Don Dudley’s works on paper at I-20. (Don Dudley is the husband of Chris’s former teacher. He hadn’t had much attention since the ‘80s, that is, until Chris brought the right people to see his work. Since then the Whitney Museum bought several pieces, and the boxes of his works on paper that I-20 brought to the fair sold out in less than a few hours. Another box had to be retrieved from the Gallery. Rightly so – it is truly beautiful work. Pay attention, collectors!)
In a daze, we finished Pier 94 but hadn’t even done pier 92, the modern section. Quickly, here were my highlights:
-Robert Wilson’s Voom portrait of Steve Buscemi and bloody meat at Jiri Svestka Gallery.
-Rob Wynne’s Night Visit at JGM Gallery.
-Mike and Doug Starn’s Black Pulse 17 at Wetterling Gallery.
-Arman’s untitled cube of squeezed yellow paint tubes at Allan Stone Gallery. (Arman is a recent obsession.)
-Alex Prager’s video and photo series at Yancey Richardson Gallery. (I first saw her in MoMA’s New Photography 2010 Show.)
Jasper Johns’ Skin with O’Hara Poem at Craig F. Starr Gallery.
(Craig, a dear friend, explained that Johns created this piece by covering his face in baby oil, then rolling it on a piece of paper on the wall. He then inked the oil marks and had Frank O’Hara add a poem.)
-Kim McCarty’s Yellow Girl at David Klein Gallery.
-Kelly Reemsten’s paintings Insiduous and Unrequited, also at David Klein Gallery.
-Ricardo Lanzarini’s collection of tiny sketchbooks on rolling paper booklets at A.L.F.A..
Thursday: Alternative Fairs and Galleries
Look for highlights from Pulse, Moving Image, Scope, and Independent in the slideshow. After a day at the fairs, I headed out for a night of, well, more art. First up was a Jose Parla Show at Bryce Wolkowitz. His paintings are like graceful re-creations of chalked or graffitied and papered walls, and he even covered the walls of the gallery’s corridor as if we were walking to the subway in the ‘80s. Jose arranged for two subway drummers, buckets and all, to play outside the show.
Afterwards, I headed to a panel on what “sculpture” means today. Hosted by 360° Bespoke and held at Phillips de Pury downtown, Simon himself moderated as four artists and one curator spoke about their projects and installations. It was interesting to hear from the artists themselves about how they transcend the formal boundaries of sculpture with site-specific installations or video pieces, and it didn’t hurt to be surrounded by great works installed for Phillips’ next auction, Under the Influence. One piece I had to photograph was the portrait of Stephen Colbert, famously altered by various artists to make it “art." Frank Stella called it art, Shepard Fairey added stencils, and Andres Serrano doodled on it. Now it’s up for auction (with all profits going to charity, of course).
My final stop Thursday night was down at The Wooly, the private lounge I helped design with my brother and its owner Eric Adolfsen. Invisible-Exports, Smith-Stewart, and Eric Shiner hosted a party celebrating the Moving Image fair. They also had two artists modify the space. Alexander May scattered the place with Xeroxed printouts of various texts, while Fay Ray did an extreme magazine collage.
What I missed Thursday:
An interesting show at Liz Kabler’s gallery, Skylight Projects. From what I heard, there are only two pieces and “though they are large, the image is small.” It sounds like a riddle, and I’m dying to know the answer.
Friday: More Galleries
Friday brought a much-needed break from the fairs. I caught a screening of my friend Jakob Boeskov’s film at SVA’s theater. The film documented him marketing an imaginary gun that can shoot a GPS tracking device into a person without their knowledge. He brought the gun to a trade show in Qatar, presenting it as a solution to terrorism or keeping track of dissidents. Needless to say, several investors were interested, and, weeks after the show, he received thousands of emails from people connected to various governments. The film documents his success in the art world mixed with his internal struggle with the world he briefly forayed into. Like The Yes Men, he entered the lair of the enemy to expose their true colors. Will these interested parties turn around and create a working version of his idea?
I had to lift myself out of that doom-laden thought process and see two shows. First was Balice Hertling & Lewis, a group show from a Parisian Gallery and an American art critic. It was so packed that I did not see one piece of art, though I did notice a piece by my friend Ara Dymond when a fellow attendee knocked it off its marble pedestal. Luckily, it is made of pure bronze and, as the artist explained, more likely to hurt the floor. The piece was cast from an inflated plastic glove that was then fitted with a bright blue glove. Its subject is elevated by the precious materials or, inversely, the comical blue glove subverts the high-art status of bronze and marble. I’ll have to ask the artist when we’re not overwhelmed by show-opening hysteria.
Before dinner and bed, I stopped in to see Meghan Boody’ show at Salomon Contemporary. My favorite pieces are what I would call cuteness interrupted. Sweet plastic figures are stacked in vtirines on top of amorphous alien-like globules, and a tiny pig fetus is fitted with a pretty necklace and placed on a flower. Her frames are crafted with objects embedded in them or cast in neon-blue acrylic. Her sensibility is on display in her newly-redone apartment, which was featured in the recent New Yorker.
What I missed Friday:
Video installations by Stephanie Dodes in It Equals Light and the Unknown at Splatterpool Artspace. According to Eric Adolfsen, it “includes several multichannel videos, one housed inside a large, black crystal-shaped structure, as well as several paintings from which tiny stone pyramids protrude, creating real shadows that are hard to distinguish from painted ones. This play of realities parallels the videos, which look at the world through a prism. They are a mix of surrealism, speculative fiction, and fashion – part Alejandro Jodorowsky, part Ryan Trecartin. It’s work that both provokes and provides pleasure to the senses.
Upon My Word, the comic operatta at The Players Club, tells a “Victorian tale of pompous lords and sumptuously bedecked ladies." I have seen a previous performance, and it is hysterical. Look out for future shows.
After Saturday, I’m officially cutting myself off from art shows for at least a few days. There is such a thing as overstimulation. But the last few things I saw were definitely worth it. Untitled (Mylar), the Tara Donovan piece that takes over the large Pace Gallery on 22nd Street is breathtaking. Spheres made of folded silver Mylar in various sizes are attached to create an extensive and shimmering piece that looks almost like a beautiful tumor. John Chamberlain just replaced Christian Marclay at Paula Cooper Gallery, and his incredible metal formations installed on the floor, lifted on pedestals, and hanging off the walls, are definitely impressive enough to keep you from missing The Clock. To top it all off, I enjoyed tea at a model apartment at the new HL23, appropriately titled for it’s position on 23rd street next to the highline. The building almost mimics the angles of the tracks, though more futuristically rendered. The apartment on display was decorated by Ryan Lawson with furniture from Magen H. Gallery and adorned with art curated by Sandra Antelo-Suarex and Sara Meltzer.
Last thing I missed:
Rikrit Tiravanija’s Fear Eats the Soul at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise. I did in fact show up for the experience, which, like his Pad Thai show twenty years ago, included food prepared by the artist for the gallerygoer to enjoy. But when I arrived at exactly 6:00, the experience wasn’t going to get started for a while. I left the pig pit and soup kitchen with the intention of returning (my pup needed a walk), but I was tempted away by dinner with friends. I was able to check out the makeshift “T-Shirt Factory” and another makeshift space that recreated a ‘95 show: Rikrit’s pad thai wok next to Warhol’s shining silver Brillo box.
