The Armory Show 2010: "As Good as it Gets"

Art fair mania controlled New York City's art scene this past weekend, with the Armory Show as the main attraction. Like the thousands of excited art-enthusiasts, I too trekked to Piers 92 / 94, crossing the scary West Side Highway to reach the massive Armory Show 2010.


I had never been to the Armory Show before, but it definitely lives up to its "NY's largest contemporary art fair" title. I was overwhelmed at the hundreds of galleries and thousands of paintings I saw... loving some, hating others, and not knowing what to think of a few "overly-contemporary" pieces. (I also have to admit I was a bit offended by one piece - a painting of a black swastika with a yellow background at gallery Nicole Klagsbrun's booth). Regardless, while some reviews say exhibitors "played it safe" this year, I had a wonderful and enriching experience (and kind of wonder what previous less tame armory shows have been like...)

Switching gears now - If you've visited the Armory's Website, you've probably wondered why there are images of either a screw sticking out of a wall, dripped paint on wood or another seemingly un-artistic image. These are actually the works of Susan Collis. Each year the Armory Show commissions an artist to "create the visual identity" of the fair, and this year the selected artist was Susan Collis. Her screw in the wall work, "As Good as it Gets" (below) is the epitome of her creations, as Collis is known for crafting art out of every-day / mundane objects. The artist recently revealed a little bit about the unconventional way she gathers materials for her pieces.

The British artist finds her objects (screws, nails, bits of wood splattered with paint, etc.) by dumpster-diving. She tells NY Magazine that dumpsters are called "skips" in England. Collis admits her assistants help with the dirty work, but she definitely delves in as well in the process (which she refers to as "skip-trawling").

Collis remarks:

"I look at these really disgusting pieces of wood and I imagine that rats had peed on them or something ... in the studio, we held them with rubber gloves the whole time. I do actually encourage my assistants to wear gloves. I am quite a good boss."


Bravo to the 150 + exhibitors. The show was fabulous, and I can't wait for the Armory Show 2011!

Wolfgang Tillmans at Andrea Rosen Gallery

Chelsea's contemporary Andrea Rosen Gallery is currently displaying the photographs of famed artist Wolfgang Tillmans. While it is extremely difficult for photographers to create original, deeply personal and instantly recognizable visual styles, Tillmans has successfully done so, transforming himself into an innovative artist-photographer of modern life.

While the photographer has boldly explored various genres, techniques, and subject matters throughout his career (which began in the early 1990s), his eclectic creations all point to a “Tillmans-esque style” (one that is widely imitated and well – known). Tillmans' images portray beauty and nonchalance – accomplished through the photographer’s use of monochrome colors and abstract and fragmented styles. He seeks to create uncontrived pieces and sticks by his belief that photographs should occupy wall space more like a sheet than a piece of art (this is why he frequently leaves his photos unframed).

In his current exhibition, the photographer masterfully adheres to his signature style - as much of the gallery is hung with unframed pictures of varying scale – with some clustered and some isolated. In a recent review in NY Magazine, Jerry Saltz remarks,

“Visiting is like being suspended in a photographic aquarium. Although at first you might think he was just traveling around, snapping the shutter willy-nilly, you soon see that he’s trying, with each picture, to make something powerful and personal out of impossibly clichéd subjects.”

I’d love to be a fish in this aquarium! The exhibition runs through March 13th.

Check out other current exhibitions going on in Chelsea

Check out these photography exhibitions now on display at galleries and museums around NYC

Free Art in Manhattan

Not many things in NYC are free these days, but there are several art-related events going on in the next month that are FREE of charge! So save your spending money and explore NYC's "Free Art Scene."

NY Magazine lists 21 free art events in Manhattan. Some highlights include:

Alex Prager @ Yancey Richardson Gallery - Prager's complex photographs include images of California blondes with weird stares, waxy tans, retro buoyancy and forceful body language. All of the artist's photos were shot in the LA neighborhood where she grew up and the models' clothes came from an actress friend of her grandmothers, adding a uniquely personal touch to the show. (Oh how I love Hollywood Glamour!)


Gelitin @ Greene Naftali - Blindfolded half-naked Austrian artists (all part of the art collective, Gelitin) have composed sculptures of found materials at Green Naftali. Their creative style and chaotic perseverance blend masterfully. Hmm... I can't quite picture it, but it definitely sounds intriguing.


Johnny Swing @ Knoedler & Company - Go see Swing's functional - yet fun furniture, which he crafts from re-purposed materials (like baby-food jars and leather floor tiles).

Thomas Ruff @ David Zwirner - David Zwirner never seems to disappoint - and now is no exception. The influential German photographer, Thomas Ruff, ventures away from his usual portraiture, landscapes and architecture to create fascinating and elaborate visual systems (via computer-generated images depicting 3d curves).



Yaddo: Making American Culture @ the New York Public Library - This ongoing exhibition shows the legendary Saratoga Springs artists' community Yaddo's fantastic array of papers, art and ephemera. Since 1926, the community has hosted thousands of creative people, from Flannery O'Connor to Jacob Lawrence.

Have fun with these freebies!

Alicia Keys Supports "Africa Now" at Bonhams

Last Year Bonhams New Bond Street in London hosted Britain's first ever auction sale of works exclusively by contemporary African artists entitled "Africa Now." Now, famed singer, songwriter, actress, author, and philanthropist (with extreme interest in Africa), Alicia Keys, is showing her support for Bonhams New York, which will host the "Africa Now: Contemporary African Art" sale on March 10, 2010. Keys' charity, "Keep a Child Alive" will partner with Bonhams for a VIP reception, which is sponsored by Afren plc, the African focused independent oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in several African countries.

Keys and Leigh Blake founded "Keep a Child Alive" in 2003 with the mission of providing life-saving anti-retroviral treatment and health care to children and families with HIV/ AIDS in Africa and India. The organization has served more than 250,000 children and families.

Keys talks about her organization's work and her recent trip to Africa,

"It's amazing to return to Africa and witness those who were so ill and near death, being brought back to life because of the medical care they were able to receive. Just knowing that your time and effort has helped build paediatric wings in hospitals and supply medicine to those who might not otherwise receive it, gives me a real sense of purpose."

The "Africa Now" sale at Bonhams New York will be the first commercial auction of African contemporary art ever held in the US and features work by both new and established artists.

CLICK HERE to read the entire ArtDaily Article associated with this post.

Art Adds: Public Art on NYC's Taxis

New York City's taxis are frequently topped with advertisements. However, this month approximately 500 cabs will replace their ads with art in a project called "Art Adds." Las Vegas company Show Media, which owns about half the cones (as their called) that rest on top of NYC taxis, decided to take on the project in order to give back to the people of NYC (at a cost of nearly $100k in lost revenue).

John Amato, one of Show Media's owners, contacted the Art Production Fund (a NYC nonprofit that displays art around the city), asking the organization's co-founders to select artists for the projects. Appropriately, they chose Shirin Neshat, Alex Katz, and Yoko Ono: three New York-based artists whose works fit (conceptually and physically) into the confined spaces of the cabs' cones. Each artist's work will appear on about 160 cabs.

To read more about each artist, how they responded to the project, and the entire article associated with this post, click here.

For a list of art exhibitions going on around NYC, click here.

The Guggenheim Museum's 50th Anniversary Exhibition

Not many buildings in New York City cause me to stop, look-up, and take a minute to appreciate their architectural beauty, but the Guggenheim Museum is definitely one that continually grabs my attention. The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum, which opened in 1959, has forced artists and architects to challenge their own creative minds and produce unique solutions to the building's central void and rotund shape. Their various responses have led to some extremely memorable exhibition designs and site specific solo shows over the past several decades.

Thus, it is only appropriate that the Guggenheim celebrates its 50th anniversary in a way that showcases the masterfully complex design of the building. The Guggenheim Museum has invited over 200 artists, architects and designers to produce design and display works for the exhibition, titled"Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum," on view from February 12 to April 28, 2010. The much anticipated display will emphasize the rich and diverse range of proposals that have been received from an eclectic array of creative minds.

To read more about this exciting exhibition and the artists whose work will be exhibited, click here.

The Bauhaus

Looking ahead, and looking forward, to next week...

Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity

opens at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on Sunday, November 8th.

From the MoMA website:

This survey is MoMA’s first major exhibition since 1938 on the subject of this famous and influential school of avant-garde art. Founded in 1919 and shut down by the Nazis in 1933, the Bauhaus brought together artists, architects, and designers in an extraordinary conversation about the nature of art in the age of technology. Aiming to rethink the very form of modern life, the Bauhaus became the site of a dazzling array of experiments in the visual arts that have profoundly shaped our visual world today.

The exhibition gathers over four hundred works that reflect the broad range of the school’s productions, including industrial design, furniture, architecture, graphics, photography, textiles, ceramics, theater design, painting, and sculpture, many of which have never before been exhibited in the United States. It includes not only works by the school’s famous faculty and best-known students—including Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, Marianne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, Lyonel Feininger, Walter Gropius, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Lucia Moholy, Lilly Reich, Oskar Schlemmer, and Gunta Stölzl—but also a broad range of works by innovative but less well-known students, suggesting the collective nature of ideas.

Click here to find out more

Bauhaus 1919-1933 will be on view from November 8, 2009 until January 25, 2010.