Arto Lindsay "untitled" (colored filters) 2013. Image courtesy South China Morning Post

They say Hong Kong is a cultural desert, a city that only welcomes commercial high-brow art. Though I don’t completely disagree, that cliche is slowly  disappearing and for a performance curator coming from New York’s vibrant art scene, it is exciting to break through new grounds. I wouldn’t have missed the chance to create a massive public art project– an Art Basel commission, for the launch of its inaugural edition in Hong Kong. When I was asked to produce such an event, it seemed just a perfect fit, perhaps even a dream project, as I’ve been an admirer of the progressiveness of its cultural programming (think Basel Miami’s Oceanfront Nights and Art Parcours), and an excuse for me to work with many talented artists and performers all at once.

Cedric Maridet at Art Basel Hong Kong

Cedric Maridet "Messages from the Outer World" 2013, with CU Choir (image courtesy Art Basel)

Nadim Abbas: Barricades 2013

Heague Yang "Sonicwears" 2013. Kung Chi Shing performing solo.

Angela Su "Une Charogne" 2013

Alice Ma Dance Group

Kung Chi Shing

Otomo Yoshihide

Shane Aspegren (Parade soundtrack compositions with Arto Lindsay)

Otomo Yoshihide (left), Filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and artist Ming Wong (right) courtesy Art Forum

Han Bing and friends, Art Basel, Miami, 2006/photographer unknown

I wrote my first poem after participating in poetry as a “good audience member” by attending the performances of  friends who were poets.  I was sharpening my ear for a style of poetry writing I prefer–work written to be performed rather than for the page. In celebration of National Poetry Month for this month’s Artcards Review,  I returned to earlier work which was inspired by interdisciplinary approaches to life, living, and learning–Expatriate Recommends Diaspora and the accompanying photograph is the result of those forces–transcribing an interview about its subject, Anthony Xavier Edwards, for artist Nathalie Latham, whom I met at Paris Photo in 2006 formed the content for the poem.  Later that year, I arrived at Art Basel, Miami, met artist Han Bing and his wife Maya Kovskaya (right of Han) pictured above, learned about his performance piece which become part of the movement “walking the cabbage”, and also learned of their friendship with Nathalie.  Poetry creates community and rewards minds with the imagination to see that everything signifies and that everything connects.

Expatriate Recommends Diaspora

Now Tony, dear, what do you call yourself?

Enthused, confused, stunned, besotted…and a designer

Anthony Xavier Edwards, unlikely fashion star, moves to Shanghai from down under

Ensconced to the Bund by postage stamp, envelope sealed by Yves Saint Laurent

Tony loved his Australia, then left it

~~~

Do it, but, where? Do it, but, where?

Pack the tuxedo, treat the crème one with care

Ooze north with glamour, oh aren’t you fab

Design a restaurant? Sure, take a stab

Line China with cashmere

Your office with mirrors

Find the modern in the erhu

Minus the tears

Press the chairman for his email

You want to scatter your seeds

Feng shui for the Wall

Will it include beads?

First, headline failures

Think turbine engine tour

You wanted appreciation

Damn Australia, it’s a bore

Next, wool deal goes awry

Valise emptied of money

Stripped to your tee

Terribly unfunny

Soon there were scarves for Hillary

the dressing of Chinese King Tuts

Costumes for the orchestra

lace and tailoring and fine hautes

~~~

It ended all “prêt-a-porter”

“Nothing’s better than you” he’d say

and “That’s not ego

but confidence

I pray”

There is a lot to be learned from the 21st edition of arteBA in Buenos Aires.

1. One art fair at a time can be a good thing.  In contrast to art fair weeks with multiple, concurrent art fairs, arteBA held the spotlight with no competing fairs, which led to an intimate and enjoyable experience for collectors. The city of Buenos Aires offers plenty to capture your mind and eyes, including: Fundación Proa, an amazing contemporary art museum; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), a must-see for Latin American art; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, a survey of international art; and many sights of the city like Cementerio de Recoleta and Centro Cultural Recoleta. Given this full agenda of sights to see, not having to worry about multiple fairs frees you to enjoy everything the city has to offer at an enjoyable pace.

2. Surrounding events enrich the experience. The 98 galleries showing at arteBA gave collectors an expansive look at Latin American artwork and a great opportunity to get a good deal; additionally, surrounding events organized by the fair with local spaces added energy and enrichment to the experience.

3. A dynamic art scene lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Local spaces in Buenos Aires range from institutions like MALBA and PROA to lively artist residencies like Boulogne Sur Mer Art-Bulding. Nascent galleries with international vision are beginning to take hold. For example, Peña Galería recently opened a beautiful space in Recoleta. Make sure to map their address before visiting, as the underground space is hidden behind a nondescript wood-paneled door. The gallery features emerging artists and organized a show in New York City earlier this year. Rounding out the scene, established galleries display interesting works, most notably at Ruth Benzacar Gallery.

4. There is much great Latin American art to be seen. Below are some quick pictures from the events.

arteBA Fair Opening Night

arteBA: Isabel Aninat Gallery

arteBA: Cultura Pasajera, Sante Fe, Argentina

arteBA: Museo International de Chile

Open Studio at Boulogne Sur Mer Art-Building

Open Studio at Boulogne Sur Mer Art-Building

Open Studio at Boulogne Sur Mer Art-Building

Lively Reception after Open Studio at Boulogne Sur Mer Art-Building

Excellent food is the norm during arteBA

Eduardo Alvarez and Leopoldo Estol at Ruth Benzacar Gallery

Eduardo Alvarez and Leopoldo Estol at Ruth Benzacar Gallery

Alberto Sendros Gallery

Ignacio Liprandi Arte Contemporaneo

Foster Catena Gallery

Ruthie Harris and Morgan Croney at Foster Catena Gallery Reception

Foster Catena Gallery Rooftop Reception

Foster Catena Gallery Rooftop Reception

Peña Galería

Peña Galería

Loren Connors, Julien Langendorff, Jim Jarmusch, Hiraku Suzuki (photo: Louie Metzner. courtesy of Opalnest)

Hiraku Suzuki (photo: Louie Metzner)

Photo: Amy Mitten

Hiraku Suzuki (photo: Amy Mitten)

Loren Connors (photo: Amy Mitten)

Julien Langendorff (photo: Amy Mitten)

Hiraku Suzuki (photo: Amy Mitten)

(photo: Amy Mitten)

Helen Homan Wu (Opalnest), Jim Jarmusch, Jozef van Wissum (photo: Amy Mitten)

Printed Matter (photo: Amy Mitten)

Printed Matter (photo: Louie Metzner)

Loren Connors, Helen Homan Wu, Julien Langendorff, Hiraku Suzuki (photo: Amy Mitten)

All photos courtesy of Opalnest

All photographs courtesy Sam Matamoros

The Aipad Photography Show in New York, held March 29-April 1, 2012, continues to unite the past with the future of fine art photography under one glorious roof at the historic Park Avenue Armory. Here, the past’s usefulness is on display as prescribed and thoughtfully described by Israel Zangwell–namely, the past is for inspiration (not imitation) and continuation (not repetition).

Presumably, the English writer would have appreciated the close proximity of historical images to those belonging to our decidedly post-photographic era, which is what makes this the premier, annual show for fine art photography in the United States, in part, for its educational value.

Here, too, one visits old friends, as exemplified by familiar, vintage works and discovers new ones.  Berenice Abbott’s perennial Gunsmith, 6 Center Market Place, 1937 and Edward Weston’s first nude, Nude (IN) 1918 by Halsted Gallery, Franklin, Michigan were among two “old friends” whose exploration of signs and portraiture, respectively, presaged the ubiquity of such images which found their way into photography conscious, mid-century newspapers and magazines.

The Stieglitz Memorial Portfolio/ Jeff Hirsch Books

Photobook dealers Harper’s Books of East Hampton, New York and Jeff Hirsch Books of Evanston, Illinois, guest exhibitors for Aipad for the past four years, contribute to conversations about photography expressed in the book format. The Stieglitz Memorial Portfolio offered by Jeff Hirsch Books with 18 reproductions of photos by Alfred Stieglitz (edited by Dorothy Norman) was an excellent example. Several poignant, black and white plates, including Venetian Boy, The Steerage, and the Equivalents series validate the autonomous art form of photobooks while simultaneously giving a visual primer about the origins modern photography since the death of its “father”, Alfred Stieglitz.  In addition to photography for the wall, new photography collectors will want become acquainted with the photobook.

New friends include John Cyr, whose Developer Trays series, shown by the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, are among the most admirable images in the show.  Cyr photographs the residue left behind on the surfaces of stainless steel and plastic silver gelatin printing trays. His project simultaneously captures and conserves two facets of analog photography’s history—the technology and the history of the artists whose trays he photographed.  His first participant, Emmit Gowin, immediately appreciated the project idea and Cyr continues to receive a great deal of positive reinforcement about the importance of the series; some of his research has led to the realization that the estates of well known photographers like Avedon and Penn have dismantled and disposed of the dark room equipment.

Developer Trays by John Cyr

London-based, Hackelbury Fine Art, showed selections from Bill Armstrong’s most recent series, Film Noir, part of the “Infinity Series” started in 1997.  Armstrong’s photographic practice experiments with color science and extreme de-focusing.  The results are out-of-focus, other worldly photographic collages. In Film Noir #1405, the artist reaches a new level of refinement of the series by featuring a pedestrian moving through artist generated weather, the perfect contextual background for the figure’s challenged boundaries.

10 Chancery Lane Gallery

The 2011 Hong Kong Art Fair in its 4th year, is the biggest fair to date, and has been extremely well received on many sides. Compared to the previous year, the 2011 fair has a tighter selection of galleries (I’ve been told the quality of art went up as well), better organization of events and a spacious layout of fair grounds, with superb marketing and service. On day one of the fair, while trying to tackle the jet lag many gallerists from New York seemed somewhat nervous, but by the final day many have completely mellowed out and happy with their results. Many say they look forward to returning next year, especially being speculative about the merge with Art Basel. The fair is separated by the main section of galleries, emerging galleries in Art Futures, and a focus on Asian artists in Asia One. Red art is speckled here and there, and so is the talk of Ai Weiwei. Organizers and galleries have been giving out “Where is Ai Weiwei” tees and buttons, although so far I haven’t seen anyone wear them in China.  Leaving the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, and arriving in an artist village hideout in Shenzhen, China, I’m finally able to reflect a little on the events.  Enjoy the photos.

Liu Wei

Michael Lau (Hong Kong artist)

Ming Wong (Vitamin Creative Space)

The Horizon Placed at Home, Pak Sheung Chuen (seawater collected from Victoria Harbor)

Alex Katz

Yang Fu Dong

Selçuk Artut (CDA Projects)

Videotage

Leap Magazine editors

local media

Barnaby Furnas (Marianne Boesky)

Zhang Huan in conversation with Royal Academy of Arts

Elin Melburg

Standing inside Elin Melburg's "I Wish I Wish I Wish in Vain" installation

afterparty at The Pawn

(photos: HW)

Enjoying the undercover street vibe of the Pheonix Hotel, we headed into the imaginative re-purposing of this Miami-esque hotel to report back on the ArtPadSF experience.

Pool installation

First off, let’s consider the location: the Pheonix hotel was a “pay by the hour” location that was bought by Joie de Vivre Hotels and renovated into a boutique hotel. Made famous for hosting raucous parties and rockstars, this is not the first time a hotel has functioned as an art fair (numerous references were made by visitors to ArtPad’s more extravagant and humid counterpart in Miami), not is it the first time this particular space has presented such an event.  The Pheonix hosted an art fair in 1996, organized by celebrated ex-San Francisco gallerist, Jack Hanley, that included many top-tier and critically exciting galleries. This version lacks it’s predecessors global and critical reach.

Hanley was one of only two galleries based outside the Bay Area to present at this fair, begging the question for locals of whether or not an art fair can be useful if they generally present what was already on offer here. However, the fair does give locals a forum to discover or re-acquaint themselves with a selection of local galleries that often work with emerging artists. Visitors to the preview opening were also made aware of a certain problem in the Bay Area considering the role, funding and circulation of “art”. The event was billed as a benefit for the Black Rock Arts Foundation, the organizer of the annual dust covered ritual of excess and expenditure, Burning Man. Though one must also remember that BRAF funds public projects outside the single week of their main event, such “benefits” (that are ubiquitous throughout the Bay Area) often exist only to raise money for self-professed “eccentrics” and rich hangers-on to party and decorate. This attempt to bridge two of the Bay Area’s art scenes that often compete for attention and public funds  demonstrates that both forms are not fully serving publics outside their own, are not only not in dialogue, but diametrically opposed, and each operate under certain myths of their usefulness.

People’s Gallery

Pushed by the organizers to use the spaces thoughtfully and not present overloaded liquidation sales, few of the exhibitors did so, and even fewer used the systems of display of the hotel itself to determine their choices. Many of the exhibitors treated their room like any other kiosk, a fact made most apparent by a portfolio of photographic prints that presented in situ images of more prominent art fair exhibitor’s displays.

Erin Riley and Ben Baumgartner

There were a few exceptions, however, where the gallerists and artists teased the context of the hotel. Guerrero Gallery, for instance, turned the anonymous hotel suite into almost a teenager’s dorm room: juxtaposing Erin Riley’s woven tapestries of internet-derived pornographic and party-heavy images with a bed outfitted with quilted Heavy Metal comforter and pillows by Ben Baumgartner. Other galleries filled their bathrooms with abject installations, Another notable use of the space was Jack Hanley’s bathroom.

Jack Hanley Gallery

Overall, ArtPad succeeded in slowing the art fair shuffle and allowing for more contact between the viewers and their surroundings. The gallerists themselves were more available creating a enjoyable atmosphere despite the close quarters of the hotel rooms.

Rachel Kaye at Triple Base Gallery

Dina Pugh of Triple Base Gallery and René de Guzman of the Oakalnd Museum of California

Mission and Oakland galleries seemed to be taking advantage of Artpad to show their wares including: Johansson Projects, Krowswork, and Swarm Gallery from Oakland and Steven Wolf Fine Arts, Galeria de le Raza, Triple Base among others from the Mission.

Daniel Tierney at Steven Wolf  Fine Arts

More Steven Wolf Fine Arts

Kimberly Johansson and Matthew Draving of Johansson Projects

Last but not least, the smaller and even Tenderloin and outer Market based (where the Pheonix Hotel resides) galleries made their presence known, like Ever Gold, Park Life, and Unspeakable Projects.

Ever Gold Gallery

Unspeakable Projects

This post was written by Emma Spertus and Post Brothers.

Guy Dill

Popular criticism of art fairs is hardly new, the supermarket like conditions and the favoring of blue chip, easy to sell work over experimental emerging artists. SF Fine Art Fair is no exception.   The exhibition space was adorned with all of the requisite  Picasso, Miro, Lichenstein, Warhol, Stella, and Calder. The environment was for the most part quite conservative. However, there were some gems for the dedicated viewer.

For instance, Cain Schulte Gallery presented the work of Midwestern drawer and printmaker, Justin Quinn, whose drawings recalled the work of conceptual artist, Hanne Darboven.  Quinn’s develops his drawings  by distilling the letter e from passages of Moby Dick, treating the English language’s most ubiquitous letter as a white whale that haunts his image. What results are strings of the single letter arranged in swirling waves that are at once funny and poetic, creating a stream that function as both graphological inscription and phonetic intonation.

Justin Quinn

Another opportunity came toward the end of Fort Mason’s pier from an excerpt of Cream from the Top, originally presented at Performance Art Institute this winter, this selection was a standout to the typical art fair drudgery.  The exhibition highlighted graduates from the Bay Area’s MFA programs, including CCA, SFAI, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, San Jose State, SF State, etc.

Favorites include Dana Hemenway’s Artificial Rocks: A Multimedia Slideshow, a banal slideshow featuring hundreds of artificial rocks, complete with a musical soundtrack by Yanni, which echoed beautifully across the stand from Wafaa Yasin’s work. Wafaa Yasin’s performance featured a bodily conversation between the artist and a rock, invoking both ritual and labor. The artist balanced herself upon the rock, stepped cautiously around it without looking, picked it up, and sat, cradling it. As she performed this series of gestures, a speech and slideshow played considering the Museum of Tolerance in Jeruselum, a controversial museum that has been approved to be built on former Muslim cemetery grounds, containing the graves of many important Islamic saints and scholars. Her deliberation on this topic, where rocks embedded with history are displaced and archoitectural and ideological projections are overlayed nto the body.

Wafaa Yasin

Hilary Wiedemann’s Brightest Light from the Darkest Day played out the shifting relationship of reality and fiction by presenting a solar powered music box powered by the projection of documentary photographs of the sunrise.

Hilary Wiedemann

Since it was preview night for all 3 fairs, we rushed over to artMRKT and the scene shift was palatable.

Charles Linder Gallery

From the noise and periodic glimpses of Bay at the SF Fine Art Fair at Fort Mason, to the quieter more intimate feeling artMRKT in the Concourse Exhibition Center, thanks to the dark-toned carpet that engulfed the space. From a quick read on the room, the crowd seemed hipper and in the know. However, the galleries still walked the line between old and obscure, yet in this second Fair of the night, there seemed more art to chew on.

Eleanor Harwood Gallery had a interesting presence with several younger painters, including the above painting, maybe by Paul Wackers.

This piece caught the eye in its incredible depth, perhaps the most 3-D painting ever.

Mel Blockner

On our way out, I passed Paulson Bott Press, with a lovely grid of Mel Blockner flower prints, which left a sweet note on an otherwise less then underwhelming preview. We made it to SF ArtPAd, but the description will have to await the next post.

This post was written by Emma Spertus and Post Brothers.

"Misty Discovery," courtesy Angell Gallery

With the musical successes of Arcade Fire, Feist, and Do Make Say Think, Canada has been steadily shedding its second-country status and gaining better cultural traction globally. (Don’t know the last example I cited? Focus instead on the almost equal valuation of the Canadian and American dollars, and you’ll realize just how much our neighbor to the north has accomplished in recent years. In fact, the Canadian dollar is projected to surpass its American counterpart in value over 2011. Ouch). Canada pops up in insidious ways, too, with record labels sporting names like Secretly Canadian and, closer to home, the Ontario bar in Williamsburg.

Still, all that hoopla doesn’t mean Cannucks actually want to be in their own country. At least that’s the impression artists Catherine Bolduc and Alex McCleod leave. Both are showing at this year’s PULSE or, more specifically, IMPULSE, the second-floor exhibition that features work made in the last two years. Represented by Gallery SAS and Angell Gallery respectively, the two offer works about imaginary worlds and in the process invite viewers to consider the points at which reality and fiction meet to create the environments we inhabit internally and externally.

"The Lost Island," courtesy Gallery SAS. Photo taken by Paul Litherland.

Of the two, Bolduc more directly investigates the topic. “The Lost Island,” a multimedia piece constructed of chocolate, wax, light, and beaded necklaces of various sizes, dominates one wall of the booth, immediately confronting visitors with its scale and, erm, brownness. Like the topographic maps found in grade-school classrooms, “The Lost Island” hangs in 3-D glory, but unlike those maps, it depicts an imaginary place where inhabitants live free of poverty, famine, PMS, negative thoughts, break-ups, and insomnia, among a long list of other ills large and small that the artist catalogues.

But is such a place imaginary? The title says the island is lost, not fake, so maybe all that’s really needed is a concerted effort to discover this magical place, which (it would serve us right) is probably just off the Jersey shore.

"La lueur des neons chez Kawabata," courtesy Gallery SAS. Photo taken by Paul Litherland.

Definitely on the map is Japan, where Bolduc traveled for a residency. The works produced during her time there—watercolors of a landscape awash in vibrant reds, yellows, oranges, and blues—comment on assumptions she held about Japan prior to her arrival and how the reality of the country squared or did not square with those preconceptions once she stepped off the plane. Not surprisingly, the watercolors that resulted don’t offer a recognizable Japan, but neither do the images stand wholly apart from the corporeal everyday. One offers an expertly rendered life-size, nude female form shod in socks and slippers and surrounded by volcanoes and pearl necklaces, oblique references to Japan’s natural resources. Fantastical as the image may be, it still locates a (headless) figure in a landscape, prompting the question: what does an objective reality look like? Who is doing the looking (and imagining) in that image?

Filled with nonexistent and therefore unidentifiable locations, McCleod’s work ignores those questions altogether. His C-prints instead offer entirely subjective worlds of his own making, brightly hued landscapes caught on photographic paper. Like other visitors to the art fair, I assumed that he built the miniature trees and houses that compose the images, took photos of his constructions, and then manipulated them through Photoshop to produce the framed works on view at PULSE. Not so. The 26-year-old uses ZBrush, a digital sculpting tool, and other architectural software to create his new media works.

"Isle of the Dead," courtesy Angell Gallery

The prankster in McCleod nudges viewers toward the same mistake I made: “Isle of the Dead” appears to have a shimmering gold plastic shower curtain for its backdrop, as if the photo’s subject was made in the artist’s workshop. Of course, that would only be the case if, by “workshop,” we meant the digital space of McCleod’s hard drive. Captured there are entire universes, ones that you and I navigate on a daily basis because I assume you, like me, use Google’s street views to check out unknown corners and neighborhoods. And if in our hard drives contain such terribly real-seeming worlds, then are McCleod’s landscapes any less virtual than those depicted by Bolduc?

Decide for yourself and see both artists’ work for real through Sunday. Gallery SAS and Angell Gallery conveniently occupy booths kitty-corner from one another at PULSE, held this year at Metropolitan Pavilion (123 W. 18^th St.).

"Steven-Circle-Green" 2010, Thomas Dozol (courtesy of NP Contemporary Art Center)

Join us on a gallery walk in the Lower East Side this Sunday, March 6th, as a wrap up and recap to this week’s art events. Led by Artcards editors, who are also independent curators, Helen Homan Wu and Howard Hurst. The tour offers an exclusive opportunity to engage in conversations with gallerists, curators, and the art. We will also be attending the closing party of Thomas Dozol’s All Together Now (Studies for a Missing Utopia)! exhibition at NP Contemporary Art Center. Being a native LES New Yorker, I wanted to start the tour with a slightly exotic touch, going for dim sum brunch on the brim of Chinatown. Sign up here, or if you have questions, contact me at Review@artcards.cc.

Tour Details:

March 6th, 2011
Sunday, 1PM
Brunch in Wing Shoon Restaurant
165 East Broadway

10 1/2 Galleries
Starting at Reena Spaulings Gallery and ending with Jen Bekman Gallery.