New York’s Week That Was: The Art Fairs
Over the past 25 years, the role of the art fair has evolved with the times.
At their inception, in the 1980s, these were clubby events, and whether held in Cologne or Chicago or Basel, you saw the exact same groups of collectors, dealers, eager journalists – and artists checking their prices – at almost every venue. Everyone knew who was having dinner with whom and (in many cases) where and what they ate. Transparencies were traded wildly in the aisles both prior to openings and during the fairs (for those of you born into techno-world, a transparency was a large-scale, photo-ready film image of artwork to be looked at over a light box, the most reliable method of copying available at the time). One collector, a major Miami developer, was heard in the Madrid airport saying, “Have we made art history yet?” Stunts were pulled, as when the late, great dealer Lucio d’Amelio of Naples showed up in a bathrobe and pajamas at one opening night. It was fun and it was fast; it was a sensuous amalgam of looking, eating, art sales and romance, as exhilarating and exhausting as a five-day, one night stand.
What a difference a couple of decades make. The club has become a diaspora, with new galleries, dealers, collectors and art appearing at the speed of, well, the Internet and iPhone. Art fairs are now so many in number, you could probably do one every week; they are also a significantly larger artery of sales, some dealers reportedly doing 50 to 75 percent of their annual business at numerous fairs, or picking up new clients who would rarely appear in their town or gallery. MFA programs have increased the number of artist hopefuls exponentially, many of them aspiring to the career of any one of their famous teachers or mentors such as Cindy Sherman or Brice Marden. Like everything else, the art world has become relentlessly global, with commerce ruling on as high a level as the art itself.
The Art Show – sponsored by the Art Dealers Association of America – claims the jewel in the crown of New York art fairs. It’s also one of the oldest, having been in operation for more than 25 years. Situated in the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street, in the fancy part of the Upper East Side, and theoretically, near a ton of ready money, it features sky-high ceilings, large, inventively imagined booths, and the blue chip, established art (mostly modern and contemporary, with some 19th century and older) that only the deepest pockets can aspire to. It also boasts only members of the ADAA – membership requires five years in business and established contribution to the cause of art — with only 72 galleries participating. This is the only New York fair venue where you’ll see the Barbara Gladstone Gallery (the dealer for Anish Kapoor, among others), the Michael Werner Gallery with its amazing contemporary German art, Sperone Westwater with its Italo/conceptual slant, and others, until they appear in Basel in June or in Miami in December. It’s a five-day, all-out marketing and selling extravaganza.
This year, the Art Show felt like it usually does: exclusive, grand, and high end. Los Angeles industrialist and museum owner Eli Broad was seen at the opening along with other Big Guns such as private equity Tsar Donald Marron, and the usual suspects from the Whitney, the Met, and the New Museum. Food and drink flowed: one waiter caused quite a stir when he narrowly missed spilling a glass of champagne on a Picasso drawing. Some of the art was transcendent, such as the truly spectacular John Baldessari installation at L & M Arts, under the general title: “I’ll Make No More Boring Art.” The tensions in the general economy still weighed on many, although the art market has not been hit as hard as some others, mostly due to the top one percent of wealth (hedge fund managers like Steve Cohen) steadying it through their purchases over the past five years. There may have been some free-flowing anxiety, and the proliferation of art fairs globally may have watered down the exalted stature which The Art Fair desires, but no one of import – from curators to collectors – would miss this affair.
“It’s always great,” said Wendy Olsoff, co-owner of P.P.O.W. Gallery in Chelsea, “with a fantastic opening, serious collectors and curators, and booths that are unpredictable.”
In fact, P.P.O.W. had one of the more interesting booths, with provocative paintings by the late David Wojnarowicz and the language-oriented, over-painted costume pieces of Hunter Reynolds, who is having a show at the gallery this spring. People did well: the three large, varied geometric graphics by Michael Riedel at the David Zwirner Gallery – his whole booth at the fair – sold out in the first half hour of the opening. Another major highlight of the fair were photographs at the Marian Goodman Gallery by Francesca Woodman (an offbeat, almost Arbus-esque visionary and daughter of esteemed ceramics artist Betty Woodman) who committed suicide many years ago. A show just opened at the Guggenheim today, and interest surrounding her will certainly increase – these pieces, priced at around $32,000 a pop, probably will not see such – relatively – low prices again.
The Armory Show, in contrast, grew out of a genius concept. Years ago, before the Gramercy Park Hotel was renovated, art dealers took over rooms and each “furnished” them with artwork. Soon, of course, the dealers, their artists, the collectors, just became too wealthy or too numerous for the dark, narrow halls of the hotel and a permanent home was eventually found on Piers 92 and 94 on the West Side. Compared to the grandeur of The Art Show, The Armory Show is, well, a zoo. In fact, the original founders – like Matthew Marks – are now exhibiting uptown at The Art Show.
Installed on two full piers, both floors, this show has hundreds of exhibitors, is cheaper to attend than The Art Show and so encourages more non-purchasing visitors, and generally gives off a feeling of controlled chaos. There are long lines and mad rushes out of huge, packed elevators to get to the exhibitors – not to mention an 8.5 ounce Coca Cola in a signature silvered bottle for $3.50 at the overcrowded watering holes. One dealer, on guarantee of anonymity, said of his booth, “This is my cell block; I am here for a five-day sentence.” Others still swear by it.
Marc Selwyn, who operates the eponymous gallery in Beverly Hills, said, “Art fairs like this are good for business. They generate urgency in decision-making – some clients need that. The one thing I sometimes regret is that I don’t have time to see the rest of the fair.”
Aurel Scheibler, an art dealer from Berlin who did this fair for a few years but was here this time as a visitor, said, “A lot of people (in Europe) have stopped doing this fair because the amount of buying has gone down. The organizers are aware of it and attempting to change the situation.”
In fact, a new and more compact, but no less serious, fair is headed for New York this spring.
In May, the Frieze fair, such a hit in London, will bring mostly dealers from the UK and Europe to the Big Apple. This isn’t to say there was not some great art to see. At the Sean Kelly Gallery a giant Kehinde Wiley painting of two figures dominated his space; and Howard Greenberg, as usual, had some fine examples of 20th century photography, including a wall of photographs that had been taken in the 1950s and then painted over in the 1980s by a relatively unknown artist. The Hyundai Gallery from Korea showed a wonderful porcelain piece, a whole wall of blue and white vessels by Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist recently freed from house arrest by that country’s government. It was just a matter of willingness to navigate the crowds that did, eventually, bring people to the art, although at this fair, purchases were not in depth or magnitude anywhere near The Art Show.
The last two fairs, Volta and Scope, were sideshows to the Main Events – Volta took place on a floor of an industrial building on 34th Street; Scope had a small tent across the street from the piers. Volta made itself friendly by handing out goody bags; Scope was small and intense, featuring mostly unknown artists, predominantly video and a lot of heart. The one piece at Scope that caught the eye was a birdcage with two videos of birds in it, each singing to the other as though they were actually there. Perhaps one day we can all Skype into these art fairs, not only avoiding crowds, but actually being able to see the art up close and without the interruption of pushy crowds or clumsy waiters bearing flutes of champagne.
