DECEMBER 2013 • $5.00
www.fineartmagazine.com
Willem
Lisa
THE LOST PORTRAIT By Matthew Troyan In 1972, after having lost contact for some 20 years, de Kooning asked his old friend Troyan to make a portrait of himself with his daughter Lisa. Before it was delivered, de Kooning went back to Holland, the two lost touch again and the painting remained with Troyan. It is featured in a new book written by Troyan scholar Robert H. Baker‌ page 43
Photo JAMIE ELLIN FORBES
Pink Flamingos at the San Diego Zoo
Hooo, What, Where and When…
Little Owl
www.FineArtmagazine.com Installation at Art Basel, Miami by Benjamin Moreau and Samuel Boutruche
Fine A r t Magazine’s re f re s h i n g l y unbiased coverage brings our observations and featured updates about art, artists, events, and fairs through our multimedia platform for your review. You can find our current and back issues at: FineartmagazineBlog. blogspot.com, Youtube.com/Fineartmagazine Fineartmagazine.com, Fineartmagazine.org, and issuu.com/fineartmagazine where we keep you updated with in depth features as well as daily news. The above Owl and the Flamingos were images I captured while covering events. When I am mobile I frequently see only the best and most glamorous of life. The creatures pictured here remind me that we share a planet with others not the same as ourselves. Like viewing an abstract painting or the differences in stated cultural observations, artists push the envelope further to play an integral role in shaping our views. For me, nature and the environment, goes hand-in-hand with art and creativity. Exhibitions like “Artists for Peace and the Environment” as featured at Woodstock ’99 and recently exhibited at the New York City Contemporar y Art Fair (page 8), underscores Fine Art Magazine’s commitment to encompassing relevant movements and subject matter with topics like graffiti and outsider elements working at home and abroad,
even in war zones (page 36). Our published book “The Sweetest Way Home” resonates with nature and spirit. Scratch the surface of all the current art fairs at Miami this year and you will find artists, organizations and non-profits reaching out beyond the mainstream striving to make a difference (see Gilda Oliver, page 20). Retrospectively, Fine Art magazine’s coverage has included Christo’s environmental works of art, and the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin. Today at Art Basel Miami 2013 the French art duo Benjamin Moreau and S amuel Boutr uche, who make up Kolkoz, will continue conceptual impact art with an environmental paradox installation to explore the impact of the rising seawaters. “We have taken this idea of an invader exploring a foreign land and applied it to the snow-covered chalet that has set off on a journey and arrived in the middle of a maritime stadium in the hot Florida sun,” Kolkoz said. This year, Art San Diego was unique and different. Ann Berchtold drew upon the depth of cross-cultural currents between Mexico and California using ArtLabs, Contemporary Designers, Salon Projects, as well as solo artist and galleries to offer a sophisticated platform for those in attendance. Only at Art Basel, Art Miami, the Hamptons, NYC, and Armory have I seen such density of crowd (page 41). – Jamie Ellin Forbes, Publisher
founded in 1975
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Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 1
Galerie Arch
de
Noe Chatenay
In cooperation with the Noah’s Ark Art Gallery, the castle Chateau De Chatenay of Cognac now has its exhibit hall and it is called Galerie Arch de Noe Chatenay. A rich nectar of scent can be felt evaporated from the oak casks held in storage over the many centuries in the area with cognac production dating back to the 17th century. The “Domaine de Chatenay”, owned by Mr. Hrayr Hakobyan, is a historical 18th century castle which has been renovated and reborn into a place of legacy, elegance, and a high-end blend of extravagant tastes. The Domaine encompasses a large 40 hectares of land which includes a rich vineyard, a French Gastronomy restaurant, seminar rooms, a wedding venue, a luxurious guestroom, a Gallery, and the Cognac Club, where one can enjoy one of the largest Cognac collections in the world. The Chateau located in the peaceful countryside of Cognac is surrounded by the Charente River which runs one hundred miles north of Bordeaux. A twenty-mile area of cognac production encompasses Cognac and the second distilling town of Jarnac, the Chateau is located in the heart of this so called “golden circle”. In appreciation of and in order to conserve the historical and cultural meaning of aesthetic value of the Chateau, the administration has decided to turn it into a cultural centre. Along with annual music performances, there will be a wide variety of literary events, fashion presentations, art symposiums, exhibitions, and similar cultural activities. The Chateau at the moment stands as an all encompassing gallery including works of art in all of its rooms from the main hall to the seminar rooms and so on. Entrusted to Noah’s Ark Art Gallery the gallery section of the Domain has been called Galerie Arch de Noe Chatenay. The gallery hosts a wide range of works differing in styles, periods, and movements. A collection of works which establish and share with the Chateau´s visitors a unique group of artists and a unique collection of works brought together for the first time. The Chateau and gallery will be a place of wonder, one which will keep developing and continuing to surprise and welcome the people of Cognac and abroad.
In this way, the Chateau De Chatenay began its cultural mission; it is called to be a noteworthy centre of art in the Charente area. For more information contact the gallery at: noahsark95@gmail.com and the Chateau by the following: Website: http://www.clubchatenay.com/ Reservation : +33 (0)5 45 83 65 12 Address: 150 rue, Robert Daugas, 16100
2 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
ART SOUTHAMPTON SETS A NEW FAIR STANDARD High-Quality Works from Prestigious Galleries in a Luxurious Setting
Show Director Nick Korniloff, Pamela Cohen
As the second edition of Art Southampton, presented by Art Miami, drew to a close Monday, July 29, the overwhelming consensus was that the fair had cemented its status as a premier contemporary and modern art fair in the world, offering the highest quality of 20th- and 21st-century masters as well as noteworthy emerging artists. More than 90 exhibitors hailing from 13 countries in the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East participated. “There’s a very impressive variety of dealers with some really major works by top names,” said Audrey Gruss, a discerning, prominent collector with her husband Martin Gruss. “A fair like this belongs in the Hamptons. It’s the only one on this level.” Blue-chip London gallery Osborne Samuel sold Lynn Chadwick’s sculpture Sitting Figures in Robes I for around $80,000 and Sean Henry’s sculpture of a pair of pugilists for $60,000. Top-notch New York dealer James Goodman placed a print by Frank Stella listed at $30,000 and a painting by Abstract Art pioneer Giorgio Cavallon for close to $50,000. Two sculptures by Venezuelan abstractionist Jesus Rafael Soto went for $80,000 and $28,000 at Miami-based Ascaso Gallery. Heiner Meyer’s metallic Donald Duck sculpture that gleamed beside the VIP lounge at Gallery Terminus sold for $113,000, plus two of his pool paintings for $11,000 and $6,000. The Munich-based heavyweight has requested twice as large a booth for next year, among numerous exhibitors who are already committing to return for Art Southampton’s third edition. Some were still closing deals on important works as the fair ended, including a Robert Motherwell that Jerald Melberg parted with for $50,000 while crating paintings to ship to his gallery in Charlotte, N.C. Stephan Keszler, whose gallery is mere blocks from the fair, parted with a
Alex Cesaria, Owner, and Daniela Mercuri, Owner UNIX Gallery in front of Ingrid Dee Magidson painting
major piece by the notorious graffiti artist Banksy for multiple six figures. Hollis Taggert confirmed two more transactions once back on Madison Avenue, for a total take of $150,000, including two oil paintings from Theodoros Stamos’ early-1980s “Infinity Field” period and a large work on paper by Sam Francis for over $50,000. “There is incredible turnout and very high-quality work by all exhibiting galleries,” Upper East Side gallerist Asher Edelman raved. “We are very pleased to be a part of this exceptional fair.” EdelmanArts sold two macro still life photographs of vivid flowers by Danish artist Torkil Gudnason, who now lives in New York and is best known for his fashion photography, in the range of $45,000 to $75,000. The destination fair pulled in collectors from East Hampton and Bridgehampton as well as Manhattan and Connecticut throughout its five-day run. Among those who converged in Southampton were Wilbur and Hilary Geary Ross; Parrish Art Museum President H. Peter Haveles, Jr. and his wife Elizabeth; financiers Stanford Warshawsky & his son-in-law Matthew Mark; Ziel and Helene Feldman; David and Simone Levinson; and George and Joan Hornig, who have stocked a 2,8000-square-foot barn in Water Mill with important pieces. Also adding luster to the aisles: Stanley Cohen; Vivian Horan; Patricia Birch; Emma Torres; Rafael Her-
man; Sharon Bush; Cheri Kaufman; and financier Jay Sugarman, whose Gin Lane home is filled with contemporary art. New York dealer Eli Klein was “very impressed with the venue and attendance.” His Chinese artists were a big hit, scoring “terrific sales with pre-existing clients and new collectors.”
Beth McNeill, McNeill Art Group
Margarite Almeida, co-owner, Westwood Gallery NYC, Mrs Michael Tansey, Michael Tansey, partner Art Miami, James Cavello, co-owner, Westwood Gallery, NYC, with the Tansey Children.
JULY 24 - 28, 2014 | www.art-southampton.com | info@art-southampton.com | 305.515.8573 Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 3
Author’s Night in The Hamptons
Artist Eric Fischl with his new tell-all autobiography, Bad Boy
Gabby Giffords & husband Mark Kelly
Fine Art Magazine had the best time covering the East Hampton Library’s 9th Annual Authors Night Benefit with Founding Co-Chairs Barbara Goldsmith, Alec Baldwin, and Honorary Co-Chairs Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert A. Caro, Nelson DeMille, A.M. Homes and Robert K. Massie. Many notable guests and authors including Nile Rodgers, Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelly, Eric Fischl, Helen Harrison, and more were in attendance signing their books. This fun, lavish and very popular event is a Hamptons highlight every year. All proceeds go directly to the Library. Beginning in 2005 it has grown to be the pre4 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Gwenyth Paltrow, Honorary Co-Chair, It’s All Good Written with Julia Turshen — IT’S ALL GOOD: Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great — is the result of AcademyAward winning actress and bestselling cookbook author Paltrow feeling run down and out of energy, and asking her doctor for advice. The result inspired It’s All Good, with 185 recipes for the foods she now eats when she wants to lose weight, look good, and feel more energetic—including Huevos Rancheros, Hummus Tartine with Scallion-Mint Pesto, Salmon Burgers with Pickled Ginger, even Power Brownies, Banana “Ice Cream,” and more! A book easily followed and with a promise that mealtime will never be boring.
Barbara Goldsmith, founding Co-Chair
mier literary event of the Hamptons with over 100 authors and more than 1,000 people in attendance. Funds raised from Author’s Night go to sponsor community programs for The East Hampton Library including The Long Island Collection. which includes the Thomas Moran Biographical Art Collection which is comprised of original pen and ink and pencil sketches, etchings, lithographs, engravings and several water color sketches by Thomas Moran and other members of the Moran family. For further details and to participate in 2014, visit www.authorsnight. org; authorsnight@easthamptonlibrary.org
Nile Rodgers, Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny
CONTEXT, Aqua Expand Art Miami’s Reach and Range Wor ld-renowned for its refined ambience, consummate quality and accessible diversity, Art Miami now encompasses all levels of the international contemporary art market: from the modern masterpieces and blue-chip contemporary works at Art Miami to the cutting-edge pieces by emerging and mid-career talents at CONTEXT and Aqua Art Miami. The purchase of the theneight-year-old Aqua during Art Week 2012 brought the perennially popular satellite into the Art Miami family of fairs, which is retaining Aqua’s relaxed, youthful vibe while providing the amenities, infrastructure and collector base that are signatures of its other fairs. “Aqua embraces emerging talent, acting as an incubator for CONTEXT and Art Miami, and introducing collectors and curators to fresh faces whose exciting work complements the pieces by more established artists that they are already displaying,” says Nick Korniloff, Director of Art Miami LLC. “We can now provide our loyal international collector base with opportunities to acquire works of art at the highest level from all categories of the contemporary market.” Aqua also gives Art Miami a foothold on the beach, conveniently serving art collectors, professionals and enthusiasts on both sides of the Intracoastal Waterway, connected by shuttle buses and multiple-day passes for entrance to all three fairs. On the mainland, the juxtaposition of 125 galleries at Art Miami with 69 at CONTEXT forms a comprehensive art community spanning 250,000 square feet of the Midtown Miami complex. Its cosmopolitan population represents 22 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia, with exhibitors converging in the Wynwood Arts District from more than 50 cities, including 25 all across the United States. The 2012 debut of CONTEXT helped Art Miami attract a record-breaking 60,000 visitors and generate sales of more than $50 million. Art Miami and CONTEXT will showcase a series of special exhibitions curated by Julia Draganovi, Elena Forin and Claudia Löffelholz of LaRete Art Projects. CHECK OUT will install captivating sculptures, presented by selected exhibitors, in prime positions including at the entrances and in front of the neighboring pavilions. THINK BIG will give artists participating in Art Miami space to stretch out in the passageways linking the flagship fair’s three main pavilions, making solo statements
bold not only in scale but also in vision and innovation. The sixth annual Art Video | New Media Lounge, now located at CONTEXT, will spotlight an institution specializing in digital and moving images. In a new video exhibition entitled ZOOM IN, La Rete has invited five galleries to screen their artists’ works in viewing booths set in the courtyard between the CONTEXT and Art Miami pavilions that also features an al fresco café and bar. An independent jury of video art experts will view the pieces onsite and choose one of the five artists to honor with the inaugural ZOOM IN Award on Saturday, Dec. 7. CONTEXT will once again offer insight into Berlin’s influential art scene with six contemporary galleries selected by a panel of expert curators and art critics. ART FROM BERLIN is presented by the Galleries Association of Berlin (lvbg) – with official support from the municipality of Berlin and the European Union (EU) – which will entertain and enlighten guests at the BERLIN LOUNGE. This microcosm of the global art capital’s extensive gallery community will include a cross-section of established and emerging exhibitors. Across the water, the intimate rooms overlooking the Art Deco courtyard of the Aqua Hotel will be transformed by 46 diverse exhibitors presenting exceptional early-tomid-career artists as well as innovative interdisciplinary programming. Curated projects include: Sound Vision at Aqua, a dynamic day-to-night mix of multimedia art and music produced by Lyons Wier Music & Audiophile Plus; MINI-MONKEY TOWN, a custom-scaled version of New York’s premier underground video cinema and culinary platform; exhibitions of emerging artists and acclaimed artists’
Gerhard Richter, U.L. (Abstraktes Bild), 1985, oil on canvas, 32.3 x 26.4 inches, Galerie von Vertes | Zurich at Art Miami; Courtesy of Galerie von Vertes and Art Miami
collaborations with master printmakers; and solo artist installations and happenings to create an immersive experience for fairgoers. Art Miami and CONTEXT will kick off Art Week on Tuesday, Dec. 3, with the VIP Preview, attended by 11,000 art connoisseurs last year. The beneficiary will once again be the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), opening concurrently in a grand new Herzog & de Meuron-designed building on the downtown waterfront. The opening of Aqua Art Miami has become the traditional Wednesday destination of influential collectors and art professionals who migrate en masse from Art Basel Miami Beach’s Vernissage a short stroll away. The lively atmosphere encourages many to linger late in the hotel’s inviting open spaces and seize the chance to have their pick of the exciting pieces on display. Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 5
Hamptons International Film Festival 2013
Two-Time Academy Award winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple’s newest documentary, for the OWN Network, focuses on Mariel Hemingway, a granddaughter of the legendary Ernest Hemingway, as she explores her family’s disturbing history of mental illness and suicide. Kopple allows the participants to bring forth in their own style, their message on mental health, while telling a story resulting in hope for healing.
Tim Hutton featured in Louder than Words & Anthony Fabian, Director
Fine Art magazine publisher Jamie Ellin Forbes with Whitney Ransick, Director and co-producer of Misfire: The Rise and Fall of the Shooting Gallery. Hear our Fine Art Magazine audio interview with Whitney Ransick and read our review: fineartmagazine.org/blog/2013/10/08/hamptonsinternational-film-festival-world-premiere-ofmisfire-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-shooting-gallery/
Director/Co-writer & Alfred P. Sloan Award winner Steven Bernstein and Annie Parker Decoding Annie Parker
Seen at NYWIFT & herFlix Sunday Brunch, HIFF 2013: HerFlix creator Adriana Shaw, Joanna Plafsky in association with the David Lynch Foundation, Executive Director Terry Lawler, NYWIFT President Alexis Alexanian, and cofounder and executive producer for Chicken & Egg Pictures Wendy Ettinger
Dori Berinstein and Andrew Herwitz - American Masters, Marvin Hamlisch - What He Did For Love
BAFTA New York co-sponsors “Focus on UK Film” at HIFF: Richard Curtis, Eric Fellner, Stuart Match Suna, Tim Bevan, Ron Meyer, Edgar Wright, and Anne Chaisson
Louder Than Words: David Nugent, David Duchovny, Anthony Fabian, Director, Olivia Steele Falconer, Tim Hutton, and Anthony Mastromauro
John G. Morris, Photojournalist & Cathy Pearson, Director, Get The Picture 6 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
David Duchovny FineArtMagazine.com * FineArtMagazine.org YouTube.com/FineArtMagazine Ustream.tv/channel/Fine-Art-Magazine-TV-Talk FineArtMagazineBlog.blogspot.com Facebook.com/FineArtMagazine Twitter.com/FineArtMagazine
David Joel, Executive Director of Larry Rivers Foundation, Edward Albee, 2013 Arts Patron of the Year, and Faith Ringgold, 2013 Artist Lifetime Achievement Honoree
Art Hamptons: A Very Good Year
Rick Friedman, Hamptons Expo Group President, Cindy Lou Wakefield, and friend welcoming the patrons on opening night
Photo by Joan Himmelstein
Damien Hirst, The Manifold Gallery
Steve Zaluski, David Kushnir, Bob Baker, Carla Baker, Ruth-Ann Thorn, and Jamie Ellin Forbes
Building upon 2012’s record-breaking attendance and art sales, ArtHamptons sales activity exceeded expectations in 2013 for most of the 78 dealers. ACA Galleries Dorian Bergen said, “We were delighted that ArtHamptons attracted serious art enthusiasts, curators, trustees, educators and
Peter Tunney & Young Ms Tunney, The Peter Tunney Experience
collectors. It was a very successful fair. We had a wonderful time and look forward to 2014.” Added Richard DeMato of RJD Gallery, “Rick Friedman and his staff have again created a very exciting and successful art show in the Hamptons. We are happily overwhelmed with the record attendance
and sold more art than we normally do in three months. We met many new clients that bought work or we know will buy when they come to the gallery.” To get in on the action in 2014, apply here For more details, contact Group Sales Director Rich Ferrante at rich@hegshows. Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 7
Hampton Classic Horse Show 2013
Georgina Bloomberg, daughter of New York City’s outgoing Mayor Bloomberg, took home a third place trophy
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York visiting The Hampton Classic Horse Show
The Hampton Classic 2013, featured more than 100 classes of competition for horses and riders of all ages. In addition to its Grand Prix and open jumper classes featuring Olympic medalists and other Grand Prix veterans, the Classic featured a wide range of jumper, hunter, equitation, short stirrup and leadline classes, as well as competitions for riders with disabilities. The highlight was the $250,000 FTI Consulting Grand Prix (winners pictured below) and FEI World Cup™ Qualifier served as a qualifying competition for the 2014 Longines FEI World Cup Final in Lyon, France next April. www.hamptonclassic.com LA Reid with Jon Bongiovi
Matt Lauer
Kent Farrington, Grand Prix winner, Richie Maloney, second, and Georgina Bloomberg, third place Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 33
Works by Ausgang, Wavy Gravy/Trixie Garcia and Yuri Gorbachev of Artists For Peace & The Environment exhibition that was featured at The New York City Contemporary Art Fair
Artist Thomas Durand and the missus
Artists For Peace & The Environment Sustain the Spirit of Woodstock
By JAMIE ELLIN FORBES CURATOR/DIRECTOR
The Earth is finite and destructible. This thought was introduced to me when I was four years old standing on a stool to wash dishes in Chula Vista, California beside my grandmother, a member of the Kumeyaay nation. She told me, “Jamie, be careful. Don’t use too much water. There must be enough for the others who come after you.” I ran two inches of water in the sink, under her direction, placing a rinsing pan on the side to remove the soap from my clean dishes as a person who had just become responsible for my actions, an environmentalist. Artists for Peace and the Environment was first exhibited in 1999 in Rome NY in the Art Tent of the mega festival,
WOODSTOCK ’99. Art has been a part of the Woodstock Festival since 1969 and
Victor Forbes, Jamie Ellin Forbes, Steve Zaluski hanging the exhibition at the Javits Center, New York City Contemporary Art Fair
for Woodstock ’99, high quality 4’ x 8’ canvas was sent to about 70 select artists who contributed their creativity to form this collection to tell a story of peace, love and conservation. Artists For Peace and the Environment are more relevant than ever in the face of the Kukushemia nuclear meltdown’s radio active waste reaching the shores of Alaska and the Boston terror in the Spring of this year among many other calamities. This fall exhibition at the Javits Center was sponsored by Fine Art Magazine in conjuncntion with the New York City Contemporary Art Fair. The images have been shown widely from Germany to Southampton. Future exhibitions are in the planning stages with dates and venues to be announced. www.fineartmagazine.net
Mark Gagnon, Royi Akavia, Eric Galandak, Michael Shapiro, Billy, Planas, and John Morgan Crapps (“In the Beginning, They Was Tadpoles…” 8 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Stan Natchez diptych “I Will Fight No More Forever”, Joan Himmelstein photographer, in front of Steve Kerner., JD Lawrence and Ron English works
“Art is an eternal and essential cornerstone in the process of creating great musical events. Art and music are connected to the soul. This has been fundamental throughout all of the Woodstock Festivals starting in 1969 and continuing with monumental art walls and canvases in 1994 and 1999.”
Sculptor Zaluski in his “Sphere of Love”
— MICHAEL LANG
Artist Tom Durand, photographer/author Phyllis Sims and Victor Forbes, of Fine Art magazine Paul Wegner
Mike Ernst, with Tico Torres’ Still Here, performed at the Fair
Sev Sederling
Wavy Gravy, Yuri Gorbachev, Alexander Zakharov, Ron English, sculpture by Zaluski, Craig Cartwright, Van Arno Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 9
Natural Magic Words of Light, cyanotype on mulberry paper, 20 x 24”, Leah Sobey Red Door, encaustic and mixed media on birch panel, 36x 24”, Lynn Bregman Blass
Our Stories in Focus, commissioned by the Town of Chapel Hill, 8ft round by 15ft high. 10 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
In 2007 Lynn Bregman Blass and Leah Sobsey began a conversation about the qualities of photography and encaustic; a process involving beeswax and damar resin, first used in Fayum mummy portraits in Egypt in 100-300AD. Each medium uses the idea of time in similar yet disparate ways; photography as a way of bringing the moment to bear—an ephemeral way of remembering: encaustic through it’s translucency, allowing the viewer to look back through a paintings layers and see how each moment, each stroke, informs the present. The artists became interested in how these two processes could be joined together to speak to the idea of time and memory, a subject both have been investigating through their personal work. “We founded the Visual History Collaborative in 2008 where we create participatory artworks with individuals, families, communities and organizations. The art pieces are rooted in archiving and memory to tell stories that would otherwise be lost,” notes Ms. Sobsey, who is on Faculty in Photography at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Her individual work explores memory and the notion of collections as they relate to personal and public identities. Working at the intersection of science, art and wonder, she explores photographic historical processes and intertwines them with digital technology. Her most recent National Parks Project came out of a month long artist residency at the Grand Canyon where she photographed the museum collections that included both herbarium and natural history specimens. These specimens are housed inside drawers and hidden in darkness. She exposed them once again to light using the alternative photographic process of cyanotype— one of the earliest photographic processes that relies on sun exposure to capture the images. In a sense the objects were once again able to bring their stories forward after decades of darkness. Lynn’s work both as an artist and psychotherapist investigates the inner narratives and the stories one develops to make sense of life. Her work explores ideas of uncertainty and the tension of opposites as we navigate the endless stream of events, images, feelings, thoughts and actions that constitute our day-to-day lives. “In this complicated world of chaos and order,” she says, “My work seeks to look at how we negotiate our personal identity and history.” Her encaustic paintings of houses, grids, containers, and elements of the natural world are metaphors for what holds our stories, dreams and the psycho/ spiritual underpinnings of human nature. Lynn & Leah’s artwork both individually and with the Visual History Collaborative is a perfect amalgam of artists who share a deep interest in life stories and value weaving cultures and communities together. www.visualhistorycollaborative.com
JENS ROSSEN Light and Gravity Balanced Into An Excess of Color By JAMIE ELLIN FORBES
U
nique, powerful and worthy of attention, Jens Rossen’s new collection of paintings, represented by Empress Gallery of San Diego, California, portray the dichotomies and polarities experienced by a very creative human being in a series of works that both challenge and satisfy. With a contemporary feel rooted in traditional painterly styles employing an occasional hi-tech element, Rossen’s staccato brush application of paint to canvas gives his images classic blocks of richly colored texture that are expressive and charged with emotion. They emerge as strong coherent statements that serve his quest to, as he says, “make sense out of this life through these paintings.” Obvious influences of de Kooning, Kline and even Pollock are melded together with his Scandinavian sensibility of naturalism so that a fresh new experience is to be found for the viewer in these welcoming, enlightening works of art. Born in Denmark in 1971, Rossen spent his formative years with a unique parental set that fostered diverse creative paths. His father, a renowned chemical engineer with Carlsberg Laboratories, and mother, an Autism specialist, exemplified a unique right-brain/left-brain perspective on creativity and science. This has manifested in each of the mediums in which he has been involved. His talents reside in music, painting, installation art, and photography. In his 20s and 30s, Rossen spent his time between Denmark and California with exhibitions that ranged from still life erotica to interactive kinetic sculptures before settling in San Diego to live and work. A professional musician with a career stretching from Copenhagen to Los Angeles, Rossen manifests in his paintings a cohesive flow from which everything springs. “As jazz will have themes and motifs, the pushing and pulling of colors in my art is designed to allow people to be The Mechanisms Of Gravity, oil and acrylic on board, 48” x 32” able to grab a chunk of the painting and to disappear into it. The pieces have a lot going on with much elements, paint responds in unique ways to his application of it, information. My goal is to make it all comfortable to look at, to find which is part of the charm of the work. He can never really plan a balance.” The movement of light suggested within his use of white and what the result will be. “That,” he says, “is the most fun for me.” Rossen’s paintings are firmly rooted in Biomorphism (a pronounced amorphous forms contained within black accents emerge movement primarily focused on the power of nature as naturally as color defined, which is the basis of his mature line and confident occurring shapes) with a distinct nod to both the COBRA and brush strokes. Textural influences adding weight and interest to Abstract Expressionist schools with a definitive contemporary feel his compositions brings us full circle to the merging of the NY specifically found in his use of color friction. The Mechanism of Gravity Expressionists of the 1950s with his COBRA roots. His uncanny represents the COBRA mantra of complete freedom of color and use of structure, spatial illusion, and color relationships is created form, as stated in their manifest “La Cause Était Entendue” (“The to form the artistic process that has become his own style. “I have Case Was Settled”). The paintings are free and unencumbered always been a fan of anything painterly, I can sit and watch paint visions of inner and outer possibilities executed with great depth, drip. I love the process of how paint separates when I paint. I compositional integrity and purposeful cohesion amidst the chaos. respond to that. It’s just elaborating on the incidental thing that In The Weight of Distance, for example, the use of subdued colors happens when I combine three or four colors into a brush stroke brings into focus emotional separations we all experience. Cool with extenders and driers.” grays, muted greens and tones of blue work to emote the lonely Because he fuses so many diverse and unconventional spaces people inhabit at times. Along with Rossen’s structurally Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 11
Sensitivities Lifted, oil and acrylic on board, 49” x 33”
The Weight Of Distance, oil and acrylic on board, 48” x 32”
“Calmness is what I strive for out of chaos or too much emotion.” of unifying color and form appear with introduced qualities, these themes take on very distinctive messages with an entirely mature assurance. Strong brushstrokes different meaning, left, of course, for a firmly rooted in Abstract Expressionism discerning viewer to analyze and interpret. with a definitive contemporary feel What appears to be child-like is a specifically accent his use of color to create difficult process to master as Rossen’s movement or friction. Rossen is bringing surety of composition illustrates he has. his viewers along to partake in the In works like Sensitivities Lifted, there is sensitive experience he is communicating. a seeming lack of pronounced black that In Moving On A Horizon, quite a lyrical would normally be employed to create work, he explores multiple techniques line-depicting form. Instead, a grayish with great feeling — action expressions application of thicker paint contains the fulfilled and transferred to canvas in blocks of color placed against a colorful unspeakable but not silent emotion. formless background. de Kooning’s Here, a quick spirit seems to be passing Woman V is brought to mind. Dated through a landscape of pronounced red 1953-54, this work was done by the Dutch at the top of the horizon over a field of master well after the disbanding of the blue and green. With possible white skies COBRA School when the influences of developing clouds, the movement is noted Corneilli are brought to the attention of in several vertical lines above what may the NY Expressionists. Here is a prime be interpreted as a stick man painting example of the lineage of modern art his story. Grids comprised of splattered Jens Rossen in his studio in the 21st century as the mantel of paint all convene to draw the viewer into Expressionism is passed to a new breed a space filled with possibilities of emerging and mid-career artists, of which Rossen is a leading “I initially paint and texture the whole painting using only whites proponent. and then respond to the lines and shadows that have formed,” he Playfulness of Rossen’s line in works employing this concept states. “On one or more of those shapes and textures I’ll put down an 12 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
initial color. From that color I can determine the next color by whether its influence needs to pull or push the painting in a specific direction. Once I’ve established a mood, I can continue to react. The shapes, textures and colors are reduced to a fundamental level almost like the games children play with blocks, which allows the work to have an immediate impact on the viewer.” Through this profoundly immediate and at times aggressive process, the paintings are a collision of all scapes, where passions strive to exist, where everything is affected by light and gravity. His quest to find that balance by moving color is the gift that puts Rossen’s work into the conversation of the hierarchy in the cultural continuum of art history. “The thing about my painting today is at the end I have no choices. The paintings decide, so I work to give them life. I don’t look at my process as something I want to master. I just want to get better at responding to it.” Rossen realized, “pretty late” that he was destined to be an artist. “I always drew and did a little painting, but I came form a mostly academic household where art wasn’t too encouraged. I never really considered myself an artist until I spent some time with James Wrinkle, a contemporary of Ron Davis (an abstract illusionist artist) who introduced me to Be-bop Jazz. I did some painting in his studio and with his encouragement, in my late teens, I applied to the San Francisco Art Institute. He had a photographer shoot the paintings I was creating and once I was accepted, I realized ‘I’m an artist.’” That was in 1992-93 during a very musical period in Rossen’s life. The music, he realized, was taking over and he moved to Copenhagen, performed and recorded there and didn’t paint for a while. “I came back and forth to the US quite a bit playing mostly progressive electronic music — jazz influences with East Indian leanings.” All the while he was casually painting, not putting together a substantial body of work, just finding “cohesion” in his approach until he viewed a film on Gerhardt Richter, an important artist in the 20th and 21st centuries whose work spans nearly five decades. As he noted Richter was using many of the same techniques, Rossen was inspired and began to seriously focus on his own technique and approach. “It started really coming together about a year ago, when I started these pieces for the San Diego Contemporary Show. “I don’t necessarily have a specific narrative behind the work other than I am definitely listening to jazz improvisational music and approaching it with an essence of organization of all these different shapes and lines, without any sort of grid-like plan.
Moving On A Horizon, oil and acrylic on board, 72” x 48”
“I don’t think a painting can be too bold. I want people to feel energy and movement” Calmness is what I strive for out of chaos or too much emotion. “ When I feel they have all come together — the energy the shapes, the colors — even if they are fighting each other in certain areas the overall is what they are supposed to be and that is the organization of life. “I don’t think a painting can be too bold, I want people to feel so much energy and movement that they are impacted, that they
can go into one of my paintings and pull out a chunk to actually feel the work.” Rossen’s abstractions display a dynamic energy, the expression of which he compares to creating music. “When the first abstract music was made, there was a release of energy, and people expressed something about sounds in terms of some instrument that was not verbal,” wrote the noted artist and critic Fairfield Porter and Rossen emphatically subscribes to that theory. Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 13
Dual Reality, Anya Rubin, Mixed Media
2013 International Art Festival Honors Winners The 2013 edition of the International Art Festival (newartfestival.com) forcefully demonstrated the diversity and creativity of some great contemporary visual artists, some of them veterans of the local art scene, and many of whom participated in a New York art exhibition for the very first time. Artists from 22 countries entered this competition; the organizers were gratified that several international artists traveled to join the celebration from places as far away as India, France, Italy and Poland. International Art Festival, Inc. was established in 2012 to provide a showcase and promotional vehicle to allow outstanding visual artists from around the world to break through the barriers between them and their audience. This year, prizes were awarded in five categories: painting, graphics, photography, mixed media and sculpture. This year’s competition was powered by software systems created by competition co-organizer Emil Lansky, founder of artworldbeat.com. A panel of expert judges, led for the second year by Professor Margaret Ditkovskaya, chose just over 100 works from nearly 1,200 digital submissions for exhibition at the 25CPW Gallery in Manhattan. Beginning at 6pm on June 27 in New York, the jury (together with hundreds of gallery aficionados, art collectors and friends of the artists) had a chance to observe the actual works, from which they selected winners in five categories. The Category Winners exhibition reception, held at the Museum of Russian Art in Jersey City, NJ on the evening of August 14, represented a triumphant moment for all concerned. Neda Raffiezadeh Kermani, who signs her works as “Myra Darious,” gained the favor of the jury in the highly-competitive Paintings category. Neda has built her reputation on intimate scenes — personalized allegories — that employ vivid colors and sharp out14 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Origin, Gerard Frances, Graphics
lines to depict the inner struggles of human beings to stave off the forces of the everyday, superficial and fake, that distract us from the pursuit of our inner ideals. Twelve-o-Five, her winning entry, depicts a woman and her black cat on a crumpled sofa in front of a table with a teapot and cups. The sofa is upholstered in brilliant primary colors, heightening the sense of isolation we get from this tired, bored-looking woman, who covers her mouth with her hands as if to yawn. She seems pensive, perhaps waiting for the telephone next to her to ring. The painting draws us into her story, without making it possible to establish definitively what that story really means. Is this an ordinary woman waking up late, or a prostitute waiting for her next client? Neda revels in ambiguity and sexual innuendo, jolting the viewer into an uncomfortable awareness of the presence of dark forces in vignettes drawn from everyday life. French artist Gerard Frances won in the Graphics category. The extraordinary work he submitted this year included paintings and photographs, as well as painting/photograph mixed media work. Frances’ preferred tool is the Chinese brush, which he dips in mixture of ink, oil and water to create figures and landscapes inspired by nature, reducing the descriptive aspects of his subjects to create greater expressive power. Anya Rubin, the 2013 Mixed Media laureate, is well-known to New York-area contemporary art aficionados. Her stunning installations, illuminated from within by electric light, make creative use of computer graphics technology that combine painting, photography and mixed media collage techniques to depict a juxtaposition of images taken from history and daily life. In works such as Dual Reality, two faceless women draped in clothing created from metaphorical symbolism run over the rooftops as an angel patiently waits atop the crumbling buildings. These female
Tiger Sleeps, Neda Rafiezadeh Kermani, Painting
figures, who are guided by a hand holding a computer mouse, represent how the rapid growth of Internet technology in recent years has supplanted old forms of social interaction, to the point where our Facebook-only friends become as important to our lives as people we meet in the physical world. In Feeding the World, Rubin surrounds a Raphael Madonna and Child with close-up photos of babies feeding at anonymous breasts. A third surrounding layer shows abstract faces, seemingly looking in at the inner levels. Origin of the World Part Two centers on Courbet’s famous image of a woman’s mid-section, prominently displaying her vagina, which in Rubin’s version now sprouts vegetation, and has diminutive images of babies and children splayed above and below. The four sections at the upper part of the design feature images referring to the world’s four major religions. What appears to be a pool of water at the bottom of the work is filled with cut-out photographs of babies and great cultural figures, including Picasso, Einstein and Marie Curie. Each of Rubin’s provocative multi-layered explorations of technological and social evolution sparks a heated debate. “My paintings are my philosophy on life,” she says. The Photography winners, Ralph M. Ferraro and Peter van Stralen, share a passion for capturing amazing moments, but the subjects they chose and the images they presented this year could not be more different. Ferraro, who is a practicing clinical social worker as well as a visual artist, uses his knowledge of psychology and emotional energy to capture the emotional energy in people, nature, and abstract environmental colors, patterns and textures. Ferarro’s recent book, Flashes of Light, includes striking images of sky, nature and fireworks as well as his poems. His highly expressive photograph Water Crystals, was taken in perfect light conditions just after a
rainstorm. Other images he presented at the exhibition showed abstract patterns created by outdoor neon lights and some imaginative use of the camera. Dutch artist Peter van Stralen, who lives and works in Arnheim, is best known for his artistic black and white nude photography. The twists and turns of the contorted dancers he photographs are intended to highlight the design potential of the female nude. These staged photographs, in stark contrast to the degrading images common in female nude photography, portray the grace and power of athletic dancers who surprise us by focusing our attention on the geometric symmetries van Stralen summons forth by means of his “photographic choreography.” On his website, van Stralen states, “These images were not digitally remastered: everything you see here actually did happen in his studio.” This year, the International Art Festival jury awarded prizes for sculpture to Frank Somma and Emil Silberman, two men who revel in the depiction of extreme emotional states. Introspection, Frank Somma, Sculpture Somma, a graduate of the Florence Art entrenched in the Academy, employs “the anatomically precise techniques of the great 19th New York art scene. century masters to depict movements and attitudes “that are not possible Memorable moor probable in nature.” Somma’s work affirms the central importance of ments abounded as the human search for enlightenment. His work draws its power as much Odd Bodies, Peter van Stralen, Photography the artists met and from its mastery of Surrealist techniques as from the Italian academic greeted the large crowds that came to view their work at 25CPW. Many style he learned from his professors. In many of his works, Somma uses of these interactions were recorded for posterity by photographers Misun keys or additional body parts (extra hands, feet or heads) to represent the Jin and Anthony Liversidge, whose images may be viewed on the festiintense psychic struggle between competing options in life. val website. Most gratifying for all concerned is that the festival and its Silberman, who created his first works of sculpture at the ripe website proved to be great vehicles for selling and promoting the works age of three, is a practicing emergency room physician. In that capacthat were selected by the jury: artists reported that some of the works on ity, Silberman has had ample opportunity to observe raw emotions display had been sold before the exhibition; others were delighted when and the physical distortions caused by disease, pain and aging. Fire collectors bought their works at the show; and still others have been able in Our House, a powerful example of Silberman’s recent mixed media to sell work through IAF even months after the show ended. efforts, is a tour de force depicting the pain of a man inside a burnMargo Grant, the contemporary art collector, event organizer ing house and his anguished wife looking on helplessly as the house and serial entrepreneur who launched the competition, is thrilled with burns. It would be a mistake, however, to think of Silberman as an the success of this enterprise over the past two years. Margo is already artist who simply observes and chronicles pain. Silberman’s sculphard at work, together with her co-founders, website builder Emil tures and installations delight the viewer by the means of their innate Lansky and journalist Patrick Clark, to ensure that next year’s edition humor. His exaggerations, however true to life they are as depictions will be “bigger and better than ever.” Those who would like to enter of pathological states and emotions, have a satirical component that next year’s competition and want more information are encouraged to heightens their impact. register at newartfestival.com/nextevent.php. The International Art Festival is now an idea that has become
Water Crystals, Ralph M Ferraro, Photography
Wolf, Emil Silberman, Sculpture Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 15
CONSTANTINE CHERKAS
Aesthetic Innovation and A Search For The Truth
The Burden
By DAN PERAGINE
F
or Constantine Cherkas (Cherkasheninov), the path from Moscow to the United States was filled with fear, war and survival — and from a most unlikely individual, whose love of art gave Constantine a lease on life and an art career that spanned decades. Born in 1919 and living in Russia during the German invasion, Cherkas and his then fiancée, Kira (who later became his wife), made the decision to flee from the advancing horde and they were walking from the Soviet Union during the invasion and into Austria where they were captured. Their harrowing journey was pocked with surviving devastating bombings of villages and cities, where they found shelter in homes that miraculously would be standing amid neighbor’s rubble. People would invite them into their homes for good luck, seeing that they had managed to stay alive under the most extreme of conditions. During their honeymoon, they were captured by the Nazis outside of Vienna and placed in a German labor camp. During one of our many conversations, Constantine, speaking in his heavy Russian accent, said, “I snuck out one night and I went to the Vienna Academy. There I spoke to the Director to ask him about going to school there. He took me in for the evening and we talked about my background. The next day I snuck back into the labor camp, but 16 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
was caught. Several days went by when a guard came to my cell with the director and told me, ‘If you want to go to art school you need permission from the Gestapo.’ So we went there and the officer said to me, ‘Art before politics! You go to Art School!’” That decision changed the course of his life allowing Constantine and his newlywed Kira to go to Vienna, where, in 1946 the Director of the Vienna Academy, Professor V. Dimmel, stated, “Colorists like Constantine Cherkas are born only once in a century.” Able to travel to the United States, the Cherkasheninovs initially arrived in Philadelphia where Constantine found representation with the Newman Galleries. He worked as a portrait artist and was commissioned to paint a mural of America’s national pastime, baseball. While the subject matter may have been a stretch, mural painting was the family business. Constantine’s father Mikael gained fame as a muralist in the former USSR. The tradition of color in Cherkas is genetic, and contagious. Cherkas paintings are like a gem refracting light but beyond the surface. There is an intrinsic value beyond the immediate surface and subject. Once, during a conversation over coffee, Constantine told me that the carefully colored combinations, incorporating shafts of light, not only lend to compositional elements but were indicative
Taos Pueblo
of different times. “Cherkas,” according to John Bowlt, founder and director of the Institute for Modern Russian Culture at the University of Southern California, “apprehends the reality of phenomena precisely as a vast color field. While acknowledging the importunacy of material things, Cherkas uses objects and figures primarily as bearers of emphatic colors, undisturbed by local shade and shadow. Consequently reshaping our world according to his own dictates, Cherkas reminds us of its physical substance, of its aerial spectrum and spectral air, of its sensuous origin and tactile beauty.” In 1952, Constantine moved to Santa Monica, California where he began painting with the Great Russian Master, Nikolai Fechin. He also made yearly trips to Taos, New Mexico, to paint and stay with the greatest Russian Modernist living in America at that time, Leon Gaspard. With Fechin, Gaspard, and later with professor Sergi Bongart, Cherkas brought in technique and style that has become core to the figurative and modern schools of Southwestern landscape painting and portraiture during the 20th century. In 1954, Fechin urged Constantine to enter the Los Angeles County Museum juried exhibition of California artists. He was awarded first place for portraiture. Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, Constantine continued to win many important competitions and received first place awards for portraits, landscapes, and still lifes at virtually every major artists society in California, including several first place awards from the Painters and Sculptor’s Club of Los Angeles, the Artists of the Southwest at the prestigious Friday Morning Club, and the American Institute of Fine Art in Los Angeles.
Kira Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 17
Nebraska Harvest
Constantine Cherkas was one of the artists who was included in an exhibition in 1983 by the Newman Saunders Gallery titled the Russian-American Eight. Included in this exhibit were Constantine’s contemporaries: Sergi Bongart, George Bobritsky, Serge Hollerbach, Michael Lasuchin, Vladimir Odinokov and Vladimir Shatalow. Constantine also became known as one of the West Coast’s top experts in the field of Old Masters restoration. He served as consultant and conservator to many important private and public collections such as those of Howard Ahmanson and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty and the Getty Museum, the Pasadena/Norton Simon Art Museums among many others, including Dorothy Chandler, Max Factor, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford — all avid collectors of Cherkas originals. Over the last 70 years Constantine painted, he explored varied techniques in Impressionism, but his strongest suit was his Modernism. Portraits, landscapes and still lifes continued to be his primary oeuvre. Included in these works were his responses to the events on September 11, 2001, of 18 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
which he painted his narratives of that day. The New York Port Authority currently owns one.
Our age is one of synthesis, symbiosis of the scientific and the natural, the modern and the traditional. The art of Constantine
St. Petersburg Ice Crossing
Whispering Trees
Boats and Beach
Cherkas, with his own intricate fusion of modern and traditional ideals, is a metaphor of the complex, often divine duality of nature and technology. Constantine attributes this harmony and spiritual manner to his intensive study of Russian Iconography. “Icons have a spirit in them. A spirit that puts you into perspective with the universe,
Song of Malevich
but it happens gently like a caress.” As a sculptor vested in constructivism he was a sculptors’ painter. Constantine Cherkas was a friend and seemed a fateful connection to a history in which there are still worthy ideals to champion. The works of Constantine Cherkas represent the ultimate incarnation of Kasmir Malevich’s
prophesy. Constantine’s gem-faceted landscapes and figurative compositions are veritable symphonies of pure color and abstract forms. Constantine died in April, 2011. Contributions by Peter Cherkas & John Bowlt http:www.cherkasart.com
Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 19
The Purposeful Passion of Gilda Oliver “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”
Photo KENDRA MILLER Strata Fine Art Services
— George Bernard Shaw.
Mosaic mural Rainbows Of Love Under The Ocean 2012 6’ x 15’ designed & directed by Gilda Oliver - assisted by students, staff, families, community volunteers of BCPSS. George WF McMechen Sr. High School 177. Installed permanently at Baltimore Port Discovery Museum
By VICTOR FORBES Painting with passion and purpose, Gilda Oliver has been in the trenches of creativity for as long as she can remember. Her work is a dynamic, social force that inspires individuals by attracting the public’s attention and participation and serves to drive the progress of culture from Manhattan to Moscow and points betwixt and between. In her exhibitions from the New York City Contemporary Art Fair to the 25KADR Gallery in Moscow (which will be featuring her work at the RED DOT Fair in Miami, Dec. 2013), the renown ceramicist, sculptor and painter incorporates elements of diverse styles, techniques and eras to come up with something truly her own in a variety of media. As director and facilitator of large scale social art projects integrating children and adults in artistic expression and community-building, her recent solo show at 25KADR GALLERY continues thematically the shared visions of gallerists Alise Bulchak and Tatiana Golubeva who like to weave international influences with Russian themes in which social practice meets Malevich, and Zlotnikov channels conceptual art. The young directors are dedicated to this tradition as well as to participating financially in projects of benefit to children’s charities (as is Ms. Oliver). Ms. Bulchak has become world famous for her art collection and was named #1 of the “Top 50 Young Collectors In The World” in the June 2013 issue of Modern Painters magazine. Ms. Golubeva curates the $165 million Faberge egg collection as it moves from venue to venue around Russia and the world. 20 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Martinez Owl Baby Pink, 8’ x 7’, Acrylic on Linen 2013, baby owl was rescued by Pres. of Veterinarians Without Borders after being hit by a car and is now OK. Thanks to Kathy Murphy for the source photo of the Martinez baby owl taken at the Veterinarians Without Borders clinic
PHOTO HEATHER CARROLL
By incorporating Ms. Oliver into their cross-cultural and cutting edge (yet classically-inspired) group of artists, they maintain the cultural continuum of intellectual and philosophical sophistication by mixing artistic traditions and styles that allow each to resonate across geopolitical boundaries delving into and revealing elements of mysticism, nature and the spiritual life of animals, among other things. “My personal work also tries to connect to this spiritual beauty,” maintains the artist. “I am influenced by the religious art of the Renaissance and other traditions of spiritual art, particularly depictions of angels and saints. My personal work and community artwork tries to connect people to an interior beauty which often goes unrecognized and unappreciated.” The artist’s mind and skill sets translate these lofty ideals into community mosaics, projects that she designs to be executed in tandem with community volunteers contributing to the design. Her stated goal is to do something very positive by focusing on places that no longer are funded for art programs. “I go in there and make a museum piece which I then give to the community.” Some of the larger ones have values north of $100,000. “Everything is movable,” she continues. “I build them in 3 x 5 foot panels so they slide into big frames like decks in a card. My goal is to continue the community projects. One mosaic helped attract sponsors who donated generously to fix and staff an Olympic-sized swimming pool, so challenged children could enjoy it. We also built special tables to more easily reach over their chairs
Photo DIRK BAKKER
Rainbows Of Love Over The Rain Forest, mosaic. Installed Permanently at Olean General Hospital, Olean, New York January 2013 Created at the Cattauragus County Arts Council. Alleghany, New York
Dream Fossil, Sculpture of the Rescue Angel, 2’ wide x 2’ high. Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 21
Turning Heads In Moscow
Viewing Gilda Oliver’s work at 25KADR satellite exhibit in Moscow, Fall 2013
25KADR GALLERY promotes cultural exchange through contemporary art exhibitions in non-standard spaces through the careful curation of venue and concept. 25KADR GALLERY is implementing art projects and promoting emerging talented contemporary artists. The gallery is encouraging artistic innovation as well as the exchange of cultural experiences from different countries.
and work on the mosaic.” Ms. Oliver regularly holds events with “partners” and potential financial supporters for her projects, often bringing them in to work with the children. “So many people are part of everything and yet they might not understand the other person’s role The idea here is to have these challenged kids and their families be recognized for their merits as opposed to difficulties. I look at it as if we are redefining art, in a sense. One doesn’t often hear of a group of community volunteers and/or families putting on a Broadway show or making a mural that could be placed on a very important museum wall. I believe with the right director, both can be done. Art can be used to benefit a community and there are many reasons to give the community a work of art: they can display it, which brings an audience; or sell it at auction for funds. Such 22 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
a project also does something great for the city or little city — bonding the people together in an interactive community project and potentially bringing in tourists. “Rainbows of Love Over The Rainforest, shows that we are all part of this big bonded work of art and the work of art represents how humanity fits together like a puzzle to help each other, in spite of very strong forces challenging us in nature. “Nature also has beautiful patterns and the same way the mural fits together via the pieces of the mosaics—these are like the patterns of nature, patterns of life and patterns of mathematics. Rigorous art projects in schools can be used to cross over into the teaching of other subjects as well, for example along with my student/ family community mosaic projects I could introduce student’s to a new Children’s book that uses a sophisticated selection
Often an artist’s natural gift is not enough to make the project successful. Contemporary art objects require the most unique presentation consisting of a lot of factors such as venue, format and concept of show. It is an effect of working with media partners and core audience that is the gallery’s mission.
Gilda Oliver- Special Angel painting 10’ x 8’, 2012
Purple Butterfly Angel and Sweet Forest Angel, Clay sculpture by Gilda Oliver; Photo by Navid Yavari
of words and text. That cross over to other subjects other than just art itself helps students to learn skills of complex critical problem solving. I see humans as a positive force. There’s plenty of focus on the negativity out there so I am showing the positive aspects of families and humans making something worthy of being on a museum wall. They are never looked at as if they are working on an amateurish project, rather I’m taking it a whole level higher than that. People come in and make their tiles and it comes out looking like a giant mandala. The combined forces of us all working together radiates positive energy and color. They’re very vibrant and beautiful, these many pieces of mosaic, and there is such a different art and energy in each of them.” Ms. Oliver leaves open spaces on the big murals — hundreds of areas where people can create their “family emblem” on a mosaic noting that people will come to see their family’s works and people who work on these projects bond and form friendships. “Everything relates back to the same theme in my paintings, part of who we are is that we have the ability to work together for a greater cause, and that’s exactly what we’re all about.” For her, art is something that touches people’s spirit. “At one point everything
that you used, wore or gave as a gift was made by hand or selected from nature. Art, dance medicine and storytelling — culture was a tangible expression of personality and your connection with nature and other people. This is why community murals have such a powerful effect on those participating and those viewing. Children and adults who have impediments to participating in a society reliant on surface connections can realize their beautiful interiors and be recognized for their spiritual gifts made manifest.” In addition to Tibetan Angel 4’ x 4’, 2012, Clay and Mixed media her interest in and work with children, Ms. Oliver is devoted hatchfund.org http://bit.ly/1h4ARwL to to animal rescue and has started a drive on raise money for her project dealing with Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 23
Rainbow Sherbert Angel, 8’ x 7’ Acrylic on canvas 2013
Rescued Reptile, 10’x 8’, 2013
the theme of injured or homeless animals that were rescued and the bonds that form between these animals and their rescuers. “I hope,” she writes on the website, “that my show will bring attention to these causes and promote the work that animal shelters and rescue workers do each day to save the lives of these animals. Although it seems that all we
do is read about negative things in the news every day, I feel that this loving bond between rescued animals and their rescuers will create a positive change that can influence our lives with a light that overshadows any darkness that may be out there.” If you are in Miami during art week, make it a point to visit the 25KADR gallery
at Red Dot (booth E110) and meet Ms. Oliver and her gallerists and absorb and return some of this wonderful art and energy. A special thanks to the sponsors: Courage Lion Unlimited and Champions For The Challenged for their unending support. Pierce Steel who donated past and present project steel frames for murals. Dahl Tile who gives the tiles, Cattauragus County Arts Council. Alleghany, New York and Hatchfund.org.
Reincarnation Butterfly, 8’ x 10’, Oil Painting, 2013 with Gold Leaf highlights
“I hope that my show will bring
attention to issues of animal rescue endeavors well as promote the work that shelters and rescue workers do each day to save the lives of these animals.” – GILDA OLIVER 24 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Gilda Oliver with Commissioned Portrait, Painting on tiles, 2013 Hat & scarf by Wilder
25KADR - MOSCOW
Gallery With A Heart To Match Its Vision
F
BY VICTOR BENNETT FORBES
ounded in March 2010 by Alise Bulchak and Tatiana Golubeva in Moscow, the primary mission of 25KADR Gallery is to promote the works of talented contemporary artists and to provide recognition for the innovative artistic methods utilized by individual artists, collectives and organizations in creative fields. “Art is a representation of a dynamic, social force that inspires people and defines our culture,” says Ms. Bulchak. “At the same time it has an extraordinary ability to shift our attention to many pressing social issues. It is due to this power of the art that we are dedicated to creating a non-for-profit movement to support the growing generation of Russians, evermore requiring extraordinary social recognition and protection.” The projects and exhibitions of 25KADR Gallery are first and foremost designed to entice awareness through contemporary art from young as well as older patrons to critical issues of modern life. “We strongly believe,” maintains Ms. Golubeva, “that art is capable of accurately reflecting the problems facing societies throughout history, and has been proven successful at inspiring means to their resolution.” The ideology that 25KADR GALLERY fosters is based on the principles of the creative association, “The World of Art”, and early 20th century activities of Sergei Diaghilev — art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many important dancers and choreographers would arise. This was the time of the formation and incipience of the “new” art in Russia, a period known as “The Silver Age” during which Diaghilev started holding exhibitions of foreign art in St. Petersburg and in which the culture thrived. A per-eminent proponent of this era was Romain Tirtoff — known to the art world as Erté — who grew up in this era and was influenced by every element of it as he created what came to be known as Art Deco. During this time, Faberge came to be a favorite of the Tsar and his work is still internationally collected. In fact, Ms. Golubeva was Curator of a major collection of Faberge eggs when the Russian billionaire Victor Vekselberg bought them from Malcolm Forbes’ estate. Fast-for ward to today and we find Ms. Bulchak and Ms. Golubeva constantly searching for unconventional solutions, looking for a unique venue especially for each exhibition project. The space can be a factory loft or a historic building. Their search for a venue for Gilda Oliver was a challenge. “The first thing that impressed us was her amazing palette, choice of subjects, and of course the size. On the one hand we wanted to do an exhibition in a historic 19th century manor, but on the other hand, the ceiling of the structure was too low and the pictures would be cramped. So we found a great place — a 19th centur y Vsevolozhskys House with very high ceilings and lots of space. Getting in that
Alise Bulchak and Tatiana Golubeva
was impossible to imagine because it is part of a historic building. The first floor, with classic interiors of the 19th century, was decorated with flowers and a jazz orchestra played and people just descended on the ground floor. I think that was one of the best shows of the gallery. Besides, working with Gilda is a pleasure!” The gallery also runs a charity to support orphans. “There is a monstrous situation that occurs in our country with street children and orphans. We try to help as best we can which is another reason we held the Gilda Oliver exhibition. Her compassion for both children and animals — and those who rescue them — inspires us continually.” Her solo show follows a tradition of 25KADR weaving international influences with Russian themes in which social practice meets Malevich and Zlotnikov channels conceptual art. Mixing artistic traditions and styles allows each to resonate across geopolitical boundaries revealing mystics, nature and the spiritual life of animals. The Gilda Olicer show further establishes 25KADR as a force majeure in contemporar y culture as it continues to host groundbreaking exhibits in exciting new venues. Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 25
Beautiful and Eminent Whimsicalities
BY MOVSES ZIRANI Whimsical characters are not only Picasso’s privilege. If the prehistoric plastic arts whimsicalities were of subconscious nature, or may even be of accidental nature, then the distortions found in the crete-mycenal or pharaonic (ancient Egypt) art were pictured consciously and were related to beliefs. Also, related to beliefs are the iconography of the Middle Ages and the whimsicalities of miniature art. However, these are limited and have kept their traditional sources. African popular art, too, has relations with beliefs and keeps its traditional sources. Nevertheless it goes on from there and whimsically reaches the extraordinary. Inspired by all these, Pablo Picasso first destroyed the traditional taboos of whimsicalness and then created such concepts and ways of expression. He not only brought new notions of art but also paved the way to a creative break in fine arts. It is true that he had many followers, but not all of them adopted the pinciples of Picasso’s style. For example, expressionists—such as James Ensor, Edvard 26 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Gevorg Yeghyazarian, Duality, 97 x 116cm, oil on canvas, 2013
Munch, Ernst Kirchner and Egon Schiel– deformed the human body, especially the face, through free and forceful brush strokes in order to express human’s inner suffering and crises. Later on many of the representatives of the new generations began to picture whimsical characters more freely and sometimes even fanciful. However, very few of them could find and define their own creative path and be accepted by the international art-loving community as unique and established artist. Of those few is Gevorg Yeghyazarian. He was born in Gumri, Armenia, in 1963. He studied at Yerevan Fine Arts Institute. Then he was accepted at St. Petersburg Repin Academy of Arts. In 1994 he became a member of the “Union of Artists of Armenia.” In 1998 he joined the International Association of Arts. His artworks are exhibited in many cities – such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Paris, Geneva, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Amsterdam and Beirut. As a creative style Gevorg’s whimsical characters, spring from his inner drives and are
part of the artist’s very being. Thus, he is faithful to his being and, to analyse his creations in a proper way, he navigates through the crucial phases of his life. First we must consider the fact that he is a descendent of parents who are Genocide survivors and he also is a native of Gumri who has lived the horrors of the 1988 Armenia earthquake. Plus, Gevorg’s personality was formed during the fall of the Soviet Union, when Armenia was in war and was living a period of unstability and uncertainty. In spite of all these, this crisis-sticken and horrified young artist did not picture childeating monsters –like Francisco Goya– nor whimsical and bloodied body parts –like Francis Bacon. However, he reassembles and reharmonizes distorting human bodies with an artistic care and tenderness, thus constructing insightful and attractive art works. Having a spotless, good and very humane character, he instinctively and subconsciously is opposed to the evil and the ugly, always looking for and expressing the positive and the beautiful. But
Gevorg Yeghyazarian, Mysterious Gossip, 69 x 97cm, oil on canvas, 2013
when he presents the themes of the Genocide or the Holocust, his creations become effective and shocking. Irrespective of all these, the artist is filled with a sensitive personality and his artworks are hued with sadness and crisis-stricken poetry, at the same time being luminous and colorful. It seems that light comes out of his colors and is spread in the space. This is not accidental, because Gevorg’s ancestors have been worshippers of light before being worshippers of sun or fire. It is true that sadness and inner crisis often accompany Gevorg’s artistic life, but he is not a miserablist. In order to bring humans face to face with his conscience, Gevorg does not picture miserables, nor disparaged and forsaken children; he pictures characters who love, sing
Gevorg Yeghyazarian, Sacrifice, 60 x 80cm, oil on canvas, 1994
Gevorg Yeghyazarian, Sonnet to Silence, 73 x 92cm, oil on canvas, 2013
and play, who rest and meditate, who depart and wait… They just live their daily lives without disturbing or interfering with others’ lives, but also without being able to get rid of the inner, deep sad moodiness… Gevorg is an extremely hard worker and traveler. During his wanderings, he comes into contact with different cultures and studies their life and art in parallel as complimentary and entwined chain rings. During the whole time of his creative work, he does not hesitate to plunge into the depths of the unknown and the enigmatic mysteries in order to explain and express the new, the beautiful, and the noble. Aesthetically speaking he is an adventurer. He constantly enriches and deepens his knowledge, remaining on the whimsical track, where he continually develops his creative evolution and progress. The author holds a Doctorate in Fine Art Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 27
Elizabeth Barraclough The Most Interesting Woman In The World From Albuquerque, New Mexico. Father shot pictures and movies for the Army Air Corps in WWII as a B-17 pilot and co-pilot over Nazi Germany. He continued taking photographs throughout his life. First use a darkroom at the age of 8 as they were provided free at nearby Kirtland Air Force Base. Develop and print pictures of my cat, Pretty Girl, sniffing flowers. Mother entrusts me with her camera at school in first grade. Shoot pictures of classmates and Sister Elnora. Buy my own camera for $3.99 at Montgomery Ward to take to Mexico on a month-long car trip. Tremble in front of Diego Rivera’s dark, massive murals and shoot 12 rolls of black-and-white Kodak film, mostly pictures of flea-bitten Mexican cats. Regional winner of the Ted Mack Talent Show at age 11 singing and playing “House of the Rising Sun.” First airplane flight to Atlanta to see Peter, Paul & Mary. Crouch 2 hours in front of stage with an Instamatic. Invited backstage to meet them. Birthday present of a white Polaroid “Swinger.” Photography student and yearbook photographer at St Pius X High School with full access to a darkroom. Rod, my boss at the “A” Pool where I am a lifeguard, loans me a 35mm Exakta. Propose writing a Tuesday Youth Column for the Albuquerque Journal by reviewing concerts. They agree and I interview artists and bands when they come to town and take pics. Work Shakey’s Pizza ‘Bunch-a-Lunch’ to earn 28 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
money to drive to NYC with my friend Bob in his Pontiac Trans Am. Ticketed outside Wilkes-Barre for going over 100 MPH. Go to the Bitter End two nights in a row. Buy a tan suede trench coat on Bleecker Street. Perform several times with Peter Yarrow in Salt Lake City. Close the 1973 and 1974 Kerrville Folk Festivals with him. Hitch-hike back and forth across America with my guitar slung over my shoulder. Muse on an island at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Rebuff efforts by a US Army recruiter near Wounded Knee. Ride in a silver tanker trunk full of rice hulls. Gamble in Reno. Play the Motherlode in Park City, Utah five nights a week for $75. Rent my first apartment at the Lindy Apts in Santa Cruz, CA in the shadow of the roller coaster on the Boardwalk for $99. Relocate to Eddy Street in the Tenderloin in San Francisco and walk the street tough wearing a San Francisco Giants cap. Black ice and a Ford Bronco headed to Austin, TX, my 10-speed bike strapped to the top. Stay with photographer David Adams Pond-Smith, a protégé of Ansel Adams. An extensive library of photography holds my attention throughout a cold, rainy winter. David shoots and prints a photo book with me in it. Drop out of college after seeing God while singing “I Shall be Released” at the Troubadour in LA with Peter Yarrow. Show up on Peter Yarrow’s doorstep in Malibu at 6:00 AM two mos later and tell him I want to make records. Introduces me to photographer Barry Feinstein. Become live-in nanny to him and his five-year-old son, Alex. Meet
Albert Grossman. Drive from Malibu to Woodstock in 1975 in my 1967 blue VW Bug to a cabin with holes in the roof and the floor and a ferocious raccoon and $200 bucks in my pocket and one phone number east of the Mississippi River and get signed by Albert Grossman to Bearsville Recs. Albert gives me a Nikon F with “a special slow lens” he got when PP&M first went to Japan in 1966 and wants me to take pics of his restaurant, The Big Bear, for insurance purposes. When he sees the pictures I take he asks exasperatedly, “Elizabeth, can’t you take a picture that is not artistic?” He lets me keep the camera. Albert sends me to London. “Why am I going?” “You’ll find out when you get there.” Tour Europe with my own band in a rented Dutch van opening for Roy Harper. Ride the subway to East Berlin. Get jackbooted. A crowded mess hall falls silent. A male photographer in Paris turns groupie. My band humps a female mannequin with a top hat backstage and I take pics. First LP, self-titled 1978, features timeexposure cover of me askance in front of the World Trade Center towers. Back cover photo I took shows a barren tree still laden with fruit. Photographer Kate Simon becomes lifelong friend. She gets her neighbor Stephen Sprouse to print my Ektachrome slide on one of the first color copy machines of Sally Grossman’s hands scarlet with cochineal and a white bathrobe. We fly down to the ONE LOVE PEACE CONCERT in Kingston, Jamaica and she introduces me to Bob Marley at his
home. We stay with cult movie star Countryman and director Dickie Jobson at filmmaker Perry Henzell’s. I become consultant and contributor to her Genesis Publications book, REBEL MUSIC: BOB MARLEY & ROOTS REGGAE. Second Bearsville LP recorded at Royal Hi Studios in Memphis, Tennessee produced by Willie Mitchell. Three white people on it. Conduct the Memphis Horns. Eat barbecue, greens and jump rope before each take. Warner Bros pulls all promotion money. Six months on the road with Paul Butterfield and Rick Danko, snap camera in my purse. Three-month residency grant Summer 1983 to the FONDATION MICHAEL KAROLYI in Vence, France, painting capital of the world. I serenade “Madame” and make pictures of all the artists including Superman’s father. Shoot the last-known photographs of 94-year-old Countess Catherine Karolyi, scion of an Hungarian royal dynasty. Teach Christmas carols in August at the Boys and Girls Club of Astoria, NY. Personal secretary to Bert Schneider, Los Angeles producer of EASY RIDER, FIVE EASY PIECES, LAST PICTURE SHOW, HEARTS & MINDS. Executive assistant to Bill Bernstein, President of Orion Pictures. Orion sweeps the Oscars two years in a row with DANCES WITH WOLVES and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Mother dies. Move back to NM and begin doing oil pastels daily en plein air of the Rio Grande Bosque. Art student at Colorado Mountain College outside of Glenwood Springs, CO. 3.5 years. Paint, draw and hike. Paint, draw and hike. Recover.
University of New Mexico devotee of Russian History, particularly Soviet. Master of Science degree in speech and hearing science 2003. Licensed speech-language pathologist. Fly into Kingston, Jamaica armed with a Yashica T4 for photographic odyssey of Aston “Family Man” Barrett — Bob Marley & the Wailers bass player, bandleader, co-arranger and producer — tracing his childhood and family history back to St Aloysius Primary School, Oliver Cromwell and 1652. A languid 30 hours plus shot on a Sony VX2100 video cam of the birds of the swamp in Myakka, Florida. Hit the road with the 10-piece Wailers band. Shoot, direct and write a video documentary entitled ASTON ‘FAMILY MAN’ BARRETT: ARCHITECT OF REGGAE. Buy first digital still Nikon camera circa 2008. Begin shooting the open space in the Rio Grande Bosque near my home in ABQ every evening at the same time — the magic hour. 100,000 photos. Want to show Albuquerque is every bit as beautiful as Taos and Santa Fe. Want to preserve the open space. Want to create an historical record of what my hometown once was. Digital technology has allowed me to combine my painting and photographic skills. I feel like a pioneer in the luscious midst of an entirely new medium.
For further information and to see many more of Ms. Barraclough’s images, follow her on Facebook where a new photograph appears daily. You can also find her music on the net, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=7ZTJkHqDtQU
Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 29
PAMELA DES BARRES’ GROUPIE COUTURE: By MARIA ANGEL SCHAEFER The world’s most famous muse, Miss Pamela Des Barres, is transforming the fashion industry with GROUPIE COUTURE! Pamela, Miss P as we call her, (those of us lucky enough to live in LA and take her writing classes, those of us who have been her groupies ever since she twinkle-belled onto the scene in the early days of classic rock) describes her iconic vintage style and the genesis of her new company, GROUPIE COUTURE, as we photograph the line at her dreamy pad near the beach. “I’ve always wanted a clothing line, I just didn’t know how to pursue it. Then Roni and I met at a writing class, actually my first retreat! It was really great, this raven haired beauty kept asking me ‘ What do you really want?’ Well, I guess she could tell I was ready to be seen in a new way. The fact that I had dated these famous musicians is more than wonderful but I wanted something rockstar brilliant of my own. I told her that I wanted a line of clothing and accessories named GROUPIE COUTURE and her mouth dropped open. She said that it was the same name of an idea she had for me!” Awe graces my face. I am constantly in awe when I am around this delicious auburn beauty who hasn’t lost an ounce of her magic. As a matter of fact, she invented magic! You would understand if you read one of her books or saw her dance or, better yet, had those beautiful blues sparkle at you! “It was very magical, so we just kept discussing the idea and finally I said, ‘Ok, let’s do it!’” Two years behind velvet curtains and wow — a line of breathtakingly fabulous pieces that reflect Pamela’s love for vintage and ooze hipness from every stitch…you can see that every thread was tended to as if it was another chapter in one of her best-sellers. Pamela and her partner, Roni Viloria Ryan-Stroud, have somehow captured the same sexy innocence with the GROUPIE COUTURE line that Miss P brought to the scene all those years ago. In every stitch, color combo and detail we are transported back to the days when the golden goddess first gave the world a glimpse of the girl with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair, the girl we first met in her runaway best selling book I’m with the Band. For those of us who missed out on the days when Rock Gods
ruled the land here’s your chance to experience those heady days in outfits that emulate the far out frocks that Pamela rocked. “I was one of the very first in LA to wear vintage clothes, even before there were any vintage clothing stores or anything. I remember when the first Vintage store opened. Before that, I got all my stuff in thrift shops. I was just drawn to the silks, the velvets and femininity of it all. The mod things were cute in the 60s and I wore some of that, but I was so much more drawn to vintage and GROUPIE COUTURE is classic vintage in its most timehonored form.” Viewing the collection up close, I swooned over the lush fabrics, the vibrant velvet tunics, the dreamy divine dresses, the most fabulous fringed coat! Don’t even get me started about the tee shir ts with the logo (created by Pamela’s uber talented son Nick) in dazzling crystals that spell out the company name. Um. Want. One. Available in long and short sleeves, you have never seen such a yummy fabric in a tee shirt......till now. Impressed is an understatement! “My mother took me to thrift stores to buy my clothes in grade school. We didn’t have a whole lot of money. We shopped at Salvation Army on Sherman Way and I had clothes no one else had. I had a very unique look even in elementary school. I was making my own clothes in school. It was during high school, actually, when I really started getting creative. The first thing that happened was Linda, one of my girlfriends, one of my Beatle friends, one of my John friends, was best friends with her grandma — her “Gammy” — an amazing woman! She let us go through her cedar chest one day and we found all of her old velvets and silk. All these wonderful 30s clothes…it was like treasure. “Gammy” just let me have them. The blue velvet, the Jimi Hendrix dress, that was one of them. A long black velvet skirt, a beautiful red velvet wrap top, all great stuff from that era so I just started wearing them.” I can see the nostalgia in her eyes, I feel as if she has just taken me by the hand to traipse down memory lane and I am so grateful. “I grew up in Reseda, California, and as an only child I was allowed the freedom of creativity by my lovely parents. Still, I always went way more extreme. For instance, I copied clowns; clown eyes,
“I just wanted to be beautiful like a flower.”
30 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Bobbie Beeman - photographer as model. It works…
sequin designs on my face, flowers growing up the sides of my cheeks. I just wanted to be beautiful like a flower. A nature tribute, to live a life filled with fresh daisies by the car load. And, I always wanted to stand out. I always wanted to make a difference in the way people saw things. I wanted people to turn their heads and wake up for a second when they saw me. “There was a place called The Glass Farm House that opened in Hollywood in Silver Lake on Sunset Boulevard. It was the first vintage clothing store, so I got everything there. All of it, for a dollar fifty, two fifty…you know, turn of the century wedding gowns and stuff. It was all a brand new thing, no one was doing this. The clothes we’re making for GROUPIE COUTURE are copies of a lot of those thirties dresses and accessories. We’ve made some beautiful chokers, amazing pieces! And it has all come full circle, just like I loved to do, I’m making my own stuff. Wait till you see these chokers!”
Pamela Des Barres - designer as model. It works also!
Pamela and Roni are involved in every aspect of this exciting company, from stitching labels to picking up mannequins in Bakersfield and hauling them back to Los Angeles. In addition to GROUPIE COUTURE, you can find Pamela sharing her writing skills during weekly writing classes, workshops and retreats. When you are in the LA area, Pamela’s Rock Tour is a must. Reliving the glory days of Sunset, Laurel Canyon, The Byrds. Morrison, The W hiskey. And, of course, Pamela is still very involved in Los Angeles music scene. http:// pameladesbarres.com/
Thank you my gorgeous soul-sister, Miss Bobbie Beeman, for providing the stunning photos and title for this article. We also did Pamela’s hair and make-up for this shoot
The author and the muse Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 31
Whitney, Smithsonian NASA and Frankfurt Museum Add Michael Knigin Works To Permanent Collections
Win The Peace, lithograph
By VICTOR FORBES
S
ome w h e re b e tween mad scientist and unbridled genius, Michael Knigin’s accomplishments in the art area are more than significant. An early Photoshop devotee, he helped start the digital age of computer generated graphics while never losing an artist’s sensitivity to the subject matter and to the work of those who came before him. His voluminous output conMichael Knigin, old school Selfie sisted of many series — from social commentary to the environment, birds, flowers, fish, vintage nudes, carnival animals, fireworks, waves, and outer space scenes. He has been in over 30 one-man shows, and his work has been included in over 150 group shows around the world. His contributions to Israel and The United States are well respected by artists, educators, and collectors alike. To keep body and soul together, Michael was a college professor, carving new territory in printmaking and also took on freelance work as a Creative Director or Art Director. His clientele ranged from a soft drink company in the Adirondacks to the Hamptons Classical Music Festival. He walked into our printing plant one day 34 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Ace the Test, lithograph
In 1988, following the Challenger accident, NASA drafted printmaker Michael Knigin and other artists to create works of art inspired by the Space Shuttle’s return to space. with a very tricky project, over which we bonded, and remained friends until his death in 2011. We exhibited and wrote about his work whenever possible and have fond memories of Michael, artist and friend. We often stopped in at his home studio, which he shared with his lovely wife, the artist Joan Kraisky, when we were in the Hamptons. His set-up was a slew of computers and printers, with ink lines running across tables from bottles to keep a fresh supply going at all times. Between his commissioned work and his personal river of creativity, the printers were running day and night. His bold paintings, non-digitized, filled the house and there was always an aura of fun, creativity and happiness around Michael no matter the circumstances. He isn’t quite recognized in the upper echelons of the collecting art world, but museums and discerning individuals have recognized the greatness of the man and his talent. Three recent posthumous exhibitions attest to the importance and lasting value of Knigin’s work, which is as much a philosophical statement as a painting or graphic. Michael was loved and respected as an artist, educator, curator, author and elder statesman of the Hamptons and New York City art scene.
Joan Kraisky with Philip Mohr (left) and the Director of the Anne Frank Center, Frankfurt Germany
On June 12, 2013, the 84th anniversary of Anne Frank’s birth, Joan was in Germany to be on hand when Michael’s The Touch, a photographic montage, was presented to the permanent collection of the Frankfurt Museum by collector Philip Mohr. The first time I saw The Touch,” commented Mr. Mohr, “I was incredibly moved. When the Anne Frank Begegnungsstaette in Frankfurt, Germany, Anne’s birthplace, indicated to me that they would be delighted to permanently exhibit it in their library, I was delighted to help. It now is in a terrific spot to move anyone coming to visit a place devoted to her memory.” www.jbs-annefrank.de Knigin’s prints Ace the Test and Win the Peace are included among the 50 works selected for a new exhibit at the Air and Space Museum explores a side of space-age technology that is not usually touted—space art. High Art: A Decade of Collecting showcases 50 works of art that the museum has acquired since 2003, all inspired by space exploration and flight. The exhibit is organized by theme: Visions of Flight, Faces of Flight and Looking Back. With paintings inspired from the vantage point of aerobatic fliers to portraits of such luminaries as John Glenn and Carl Sagan to early drawings by Chesley Bonestell, the artworks not only document significant moments in the history of space exploration and technology, but also provide a unique perspective.
The Touch
Sinister Pop, the fourth in a two-year series of exhibitions which reassess the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in anticipation of the Museum’s move downtown, explores overlooked developments in American art and reconsiders iconic figures and works within new contexts and presented an inventive take on the Museum’s rich and diverse holdings of Pop art from the movement’s inception in the early 1960s through its aftershocks a decade later focusing on Pop’s darker side, as it distorts and critiques the American dream. Themes of exaggerated consumption, film noir and the depiction of women in art, the dystopic American landscape, and the intersection of popular culture and politics, are explored through works by acknowledged masters such as Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol, along with a lithograph by Michael Knigin. Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 35
2 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
RUSSIAN PAVILION OPENS IN MIAMI
Russian Pavilion is a juried exhibition showcasing emerging, mid-career and established artists from Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Baltic regions during leading international fairs of contemporary and modern art. The Russian Pavilion is a forum for critics, collectors and connoisseurs to view the works and to have a unique possibility to meet some of the artists in person at KAVACHNINA CONTEMPORARY, 46 NW 36th St.m Miami. Several cultural institutions in the United State supported the idea of Russian Pavilion and became its cultural partners, including the Museum of Russian Art (New Jersey), the Kolodzei Art Foundation, Kavachnina Contemporary, Northern Cross and the Russian American Cultural Center. Such presentations of Russian culture abroad are certainly not new. Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929) was one of the first advocates for Russian art and culture abroad. The 1907 Russian Seasons Abroad tour was a sensation for European audiences and a triumph for Russian art. The Russian Pavilion continues the tradition of Russian Seasons into the 21st century by presenting contemporary living artists from different locations. The inaugural Russian Pavilion NY also coincided with the centennial of the famous 1913 New York Armory Show which introduced the American public to European avant-garde painting and sculpture, including works by such European modernists as Paul Cezanne, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and others. Initiator of the Russian Pavilion Artem Mirolevich and Valery Yershov – two artists of contrasting styles and personalities – contribute to the spirit of the Armory Show centennial in New York by continuing the introduction of international artists to the American public. The artists range widely in age and country of origin. They cover several generations, from Ernst Neizvestny (1925) to Sasha Meret (1955), Igor Vishnyakov (1968), Igor Molochevsky (1976), Blue Noses Group (founded in 1999 by Viacheslav Mizin and Alexander Shaburov) and others. Coming from different backgrounds and now residing in the United States, Europe and Russia emerging and well-known artists experiment with traditional and new media in search for self-expression and a unique creative vision. Russian Pavilion features paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, photography, video installations and performances and strives for highest quality and originality. Russian Pavilion embraces Russian culture in the United States plus cultural and historical memory and intercultural interpretations. Some of the artworks presented in the show strike and amaze the viewer’s imagination, emphasizing their unique-subjective human essence, with meaning shifting just beneath the surface. The juxtaposition and collision of different artistic individualities, styles and media make the Russian Pavilion of great interest to today’s public. Russian Pavilion is brought to you by artists, cultural partners, and sponsors is proud to report its overwhelming success during its Armory Arts Week opening in March 2013. Russian Pavilion NY was recognized as an official part of Armory Arts Week and was praised as one of the most exciting exhibits. The next step for Russian Pavilion is participation in Miami Art Basel Week, December 2013. This is the major art event in the United States and one of the most important and art weeks worldwide. The best galleries, museums and art institutions from around the world bring their projects and artists. Miami becomes a Mecca for the arts. Our goal is to make Russian Pavilion the most exciting and talked about project during the Miami Art Basel Week. Besides an obvious desire to attract critics, curators, collectors and art lovers we also wish to engage local communities. Curatorial Committee: Natalia Kolodzei (Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of Arts, Executive Director of the Kolodzei Art Foundation); Gala Kavachnina (Director, Kavachnina Contemporary Gallery); Boris Belenky (Director, Museum of Russian Art). http://www.russianartpavilion.com/ 42 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
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AT SYRIAN BORDER, INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS PAINT FOR HOPE Continue mission of Artistic Humanitarian Aid in Poorest Israeli Communities
A daring group of international graffiti artists headed to the Golan Heights up into the dangerous demilitarized zone between Syria and Israel to help paint messages of hope and add color to an area made desolate by proximity to war. Along the dangerous demilitarized zone on the border of Syria, a team of famous international street artists are in the midst of an artistic humanitarian mission. A witness called it “Banksy without Borders.” The artists participating, famous and distinctive in their own right, are now continuing on to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to teach graffiti in some of the most poverty stricken communities within Israel. Near the abandoned town of Quneitra, groups of families live against an almost constant backdrop of explosions that can be heard coming across the narrow border with Syria. A psychological toll weighs on the civilians constantly hearing stray gunfire and living under the threat that the next rocket might land in their fields, groves, or even on their home. Many moved to the Golan Heights because they felt that the remote area would be idyllic and peaceful. The team of international artists from the US, Britain, Czech Republic, Israel, and Gaza painted messages of hope and did their best to add color to an area that looks has a stark emptiness — once comforting now forbidding. Among them were graffiti and urban arts superstars including CES, NORM, AROE, CHEMIS, COL WallNuts, and the tattoo and graffiti centerfold queen, GYPSY ONE. “Graffiti has always been the art of the people,” says Craig Dershowitz, founder of Artists 4 Israel (A4I), which has assembled this artistic task force to bear witness to the destruction along the Syrian border and do what they can to add color and vibrancy to combat bleakness. A4I originally became internationally known for transforming the bomb shelters of Sderot, near the Israeli border with Gaza into works of art. “We couldn’t end the fighting,” says Dershowitz, “but art brings its own measure of peace. Our mission is humanitarian, not political.” Seeing the suffering along the Syrian border, the artists came to help. Call it color therapy versus PTSD. In the end, the artists themselves expressed a feeling of being a bit shell shocked. Says graffiti legend CES from the famous TUFF CITY crew in New York, “I had my share of hard times growing up, but what people take as normal here is unbelievable. I was teaching kindergarten 36 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
On the tank: Craig Dershowitz, Artists 4 Israel Executive Director “Art Over War”
kids to paint and all of a sudden we could hear machine gun fire. I fought the urge to hit the deck, the kids seemed to not even notice.” Inspired by what they have come to regard as heroism on the part of ordinary people, the urban artists are now heading into the interior of Israel to do painting projects with poverty stricken children from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It is the kind of work that helped the artists themselves, as they grew up in inner cities. “They’ll be teaching Israeli kids how to make sense of the world and cope with adversity through graffiti,” explains Dershowitz. As soon as they return from Israel, the artists will be doing rounds of interviews in the United States and a gallery exhibition. “What should be really interesting,” says Dershowitz, “is to see how the artists’ experiences near Syria and in Israel affects their art. How do you make sense of a life where rocket attacks are normal, and machine gun fire doesn’t even make kindergarten kids nervous?” Continues Dershowitz: “After the Golan Heights, we went directly to Jerusalem where we painted in two locations: the Pais and a school. The school is an interesting place as it sits in between a low income and a high income neighborhood. The children of politicians and executives mixed comfortably with from families just on the poverty line. There were Jewish and Muslim children, black and white and a number of Asian students. From my perspective, there were absolutely no issues with such a diverse student body and all the kids seemed to travel in mixed groups with multi-ethnic friendships.
We started at the school in the late afternoon of the first day. When the students left school for the day, they were surprised (and very, very happy) to see us there. They immediately ran up to us and started interacting with the artists. Our artists returned their energy, giving out stickers, drawing pictures, painting their t-shirts for them and even engaging in some soccer and basketball as the sun set. Parents came over and asked if we would be around later or the next day as they tried to drag their kids home and away from the impromptu party. One artist in particular, who is covered with tattoos was a huge hit and all the students were looking at his body art and pretty soon they were asking all of our artists to give them “tattoos” with pen, markers and even spray paint. The tattooed artist painted a giant shark and the kids took turns posing with it, sometimes pretending to be scared and other times pretending to pet it. Another artist drew giant, intricate roses. Two of our team claimed a giant wall right across from the playground and created an image of Mickey Mouse spray painting the letters of the school and of their respective graffiti collective names, showing a unity and an original usage of the Mickey character. As night fell, the local community was invited to a cultural festival we hosted in conjunction with the Pais. There were over 300 young adults who participated in a giant breakdance performance, a drum circle and a self-expression mural that ran the length of the schoolyard where students drew names and messages of unity with the help of our artists and their teachers. With the music booming well into the evening and
GYPSY ONE
CHEMIS at work
students participating in art, it was the most fun place to be. The next day, we were prepared for the younger kids and created images representing the 12 tribes of Israel on two walls while also making flowers, hearts and other simple drawings for the students, with the help of our team, to color in and practice using a spray paint can. We had over 300 different kids helping us and asking our artists if they could paint the lion red and green or the tree purple and we encouraged them to flex their imagination and creativity. After leaving Jerusalem after those two days, we headed to Tel Aviv for some rest and relaxation. We spent a day at the beach and went back to work that night when we traveled to the Kfir Scout Base in South Tel Aviv. Located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Tel Aviv (and all of Israel) the Scout Base is the strongest alternative to a life in gangs or drugs. It is the strength of this positive contribution to the community which originally drew Rihanna to come and paint a mural on their wall. As time had faded the mural she did, we unofficially collaborated with her and created a few of our own. The proud mascot of the troop is the lion and, among other drawings, we made a life-like three dimensional lion popping from the wall facing the entrance. On our final day, we traveled to the Dead Sea where, along the way, sits an old restaurant that was destroyed in one of the wars (rumors abound as to which war and which battle) and found it a proper and fitting end to the trip to take this one last opportunity to turn a victim of war into a canvas for art.
AROE intrigues the children
CES with soldiers on Golan Heights - A Long Way From Tuff City, The Bronx Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 37
MATTHEW TROYAN
His Spirit and His Art Come to Light in New Book
KLINE, 1953, 30½ x 25½, Oil on canvas
SET, 1942, 20 x 11 inches, Enamel on cardboard January 1942, just before he was picked up by the Nazis, thrown in a truck and brought to Auschwitz.
In MATTHEW: HIS SPIRIT AND HIS ART, (Fine Art Books, Center Moriches, NY ) Robert H. Baker takes us on a journey through not only art history, but the history of mankind in the tumultuous 20th century as well. His love, admiration and dedication to a relatively unknown footnote to the New York Abstract Expressionists — Matthew Troyan — comes to light in an over-sized 200 + page book of lovingly written text and well-curated imagery. Most assuredly, once art lovers and those who love a story of the triumph of the human spirit over the most dismal of odds read this book, they will join in the author’s admiration. As he writes, “When the heart of the observer meets the heart of the creator, a symphony of angels sings in the heavens.” Matthew Troyan was born in the city of Kielce, Poland on the morning of February 19, 1913 and lived through the most unbearable of circumstances leading up to his imprisonment at Ebensee in 1942,
a camp of no return. His native countryside was ravaged by war, Düsseldorf was in shambles along with the rest of the “theater” and just days before he was to be executed, Allied forces came in and Troyan and a remnant of survivors were freed. In the camp, Matthew’s artistic ability kept him alive, especially his portrait of the last Nazi commandant, who took his own life when the war ended. Troyan’s touching watercolors of his friends — some of whom would shortly be dead — in themselves are major works of art despite or because of their elegant simplicity and near elegiac expressionism. After the war, Matthew was able to continue his art studies with Joan Miro and had a visit with Picasso before heading over to America in 1950 and joining with the likes of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and all the others who made the Cedar Tavern in New York’s Greenwich Village their home away from home. Even with a language barrier, Troyan was readily accepted by these stalwarts, traveled with them to the East End of Long Island painting houses on the way for food money. In those years, Troyan kept a journal in which his correspondence in conversation and letters with the aforementioned giants of the era is well-documented. All considered him an equal member of their loosely affiliated group and Kline remarked, “Troyan you paint with such freedom, like you become the brush and the brush is you; me, I ponder and fret on one canvas after another. To only have your freedom, your energy, your truth in the seconds in which you create. I don’t, I can’t, I need to, though.” 21 years after Matthew left the group following Pollock’s demolition of the Cedar’s restroom door, de Kooning contacted Matthew iand asked him to paint a portrait of him with his daughter Lisa. Once Troyan’s story comes to the light, he will most assuredly be placed in the pantheon of these giants whose work sells for tens of millions at auction. “Above all,” concludes Baker, “Matthew believed in hope. His life is a permanent record of … one man’s vision of the strength inherent in the Human Spirit and its ability to transmute horror into beauty.” Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 43
changes the moment they walk in the grounds, from a new layout in the garden and a new floor plan inside the Ice Palace, to spectacular new PULSE Projects and dynamic new partners. We have overhauled the exhibition from top to bottom to engage our visitors with the best art experience in Miami - again making PULSE Miami a must-see event,” notes Fair Director Cornell DeWitt. “This year our PULSE Projects are more diverse than ever with socially-engaged performances, sound art, large-scale installations and sculptures, videos, and interactive works. As always, we give our galleries and their artists the opportunity to put on ambitious, noncommercial projects that enhance the unique atmosphere of PULSE,” continues DeWitt. Otto Zoo Sedimentazione, Venezia Maria Morganti - 2010
DECEMBER 5–8, 2013 THE ICE PALACE 1400 NORTH MIAMI AVENUE MIAMI
Danziger Gallery Kate Moss (x9) Corinne Day - 2006
Photographers, digital media artists, painters, sculptors, online DJs, and performance artists, presented by 90 U.S. and international galleries and partners, will be featured at the 9th edition of PULSE Miami, opening on December 5th at The Ice Palace Studios. “Our visitors will notice several big
For more information visit: http://pulse-art.com/miami/ Museo Siqueiros Area Delimitada Mateo Mate - 2012
estates like those of Larry Rivers and Robert Mapplethorpe will exhibit next to those showing today’s most exciting young artists. Work from the historic avant-garde will inform and contextualize the best examples of contemporary practice. Galleries are curated into Miami Project based on a serious commitment
Yossi Milo Gallery Mimi Afrika, Wheatland Farm, Graaff-Reinet Pieter Hugo - 2013
to important living artists; extensive involvement with remarkable estates; and the strength of their program generally.
Richard Heller Gallery Untitled Dustin Yellin - 2013
Miami Project will return to the destination location of the Wynwood Art District from December 3 to 8, 2013. It will again present a selection of historically important and cutting-edge contemporary work side by side, with a unique emphasis on the strength of individual exhibitors’ programs irrespective of their primary focus. Sixty galleries from across the United States will show at the fair. Galleries that represent prominent 38 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
artMRKT Productions 109 S. 5th Street, Suite 407 Brooklyn, NY 11249 For more information visit: http://www.miami-project.com/miami Quint Contemporary Sometimes Ryan McGinness - 2012
Waddington Custot Galleries Homage to the Square Josef Albers - 1957
Art Basel 2012 - Landau Fine Art Gallery Photo by Jamie Ellin Forbes
ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH Premier selection of galleries to participate in Art Basel’s 12th edition in Miami Beach.
The 2013 Miami Beach show asserts again its status as the premier destination for galleries from the United States and Latin America, with nearly half of this year’s exhibitors coming from those regions. Galleries with exhibition spaces in 31 countries across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa, including Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Monaco, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay are participating at this year’s show.
In 2013 the Art Basel show in Miami Beach will feature 258 leading international galleries, drawn from 31 countries across North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The show presents artwork ranging from Modern masters to the latest contemporary works and includes, for the first time in Miami Beach, a sector dedicated to editioned works. Art Basel in Miami Beach, whose Lead Partner is UBS, will take place at the Miami Beach Convention Center from December 5 to December 8, 2013.
For the full gallery list, please visit artbasel.com/miami-beach/exhibitors.
Victoria Miro Gallery Pumpkin Yayoi Kusama - 2011
Richard Gray Gallery Compass Circle David Smith - 1962
Mary Boone Gallery Art Fair #2 Eric Fischl - 2013
Helly Nahmad Gallery Soirée snob chez la princesse Joan Miró - 1944
Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects The Human Argument IV – Light Matrix, Agnes Denes - 1987/2012 Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 39
Welcoming 100 International Exhibitors and 15 Breeder Program galleries, SCOPE Miami Beach will also feature a wide range of curated projects, sponsor programs and Platinum VIP tours. With an emphasis on activating emerging galleries and artists, attendees to SCOPE are seasoned collectors, curators and tastemakers looking for new discovery. SCOPE MIAMI BEACH PAVILION 1000 Ocean Drive at 10th Street Miami Beach, FL 33139 For more information visit: http://scope-art.com
Since 2005, Aqua has established itself among the top fairs for emerging art during Miami Art Week, recognized for presenting vibrant and noteworthy international art programs with a particular interest in supporting young and established galleries with strong emerging and early-to-mid-career artists.
Blank Space Subspace 099 (detail) J.T. KIRKLAND - 2012
It is with tremendous enthusiasm that SCOPE announces its new location on the sands of Miami Beach. Situated on the most highly visible location in Miami, SCOPE Miami Beach’s 70,000 sq. ft. pavilion will feature an outdoor beach lounge and stunning views of the ocean, nestled amongst the iconic architecture of Ocean Drive at 10th Street. Working closely with the City of Miami Beach, SCOPE will contribute the cultural landscape of this vibrant neighborhood with an extraordinary presentation of emerging contemporary art.
Discover SPECTRUM Miami—a juried, contemporary art fair in the heart of Midtown Miami featuring an international slate of artists and galleries. It’s where contemporary meets extraordinary. Join us for a 5-day fine art experience, featuring music, entertainment and other special events. Spectrum Miami Tent 3011 NE 1st Avenue at NE 30th St Miami, FL 33137 40 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Shin Gallery Ningensama HYON GYON PARK - 2009
Studio 80 + Ball Beams & Curves IV/9 Violet Blue Gilbert V. Boro
For more information visit: htt p : / / s p e c t r u m-mi a mi . c om/ s h ow information/about/
Antonio Columbo Gallery The Dawn Of The Tree Nymph Gary Baseman - 2011
Antonio Colombo Gallery Even with my Eyes wide open, I can’t see anything Gary Baseman - 2010
AQUA at the AQUA HOTEL 1530 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139 For more information visit: http://www.aquaartmiami.com/
ART SAN DIEGO Contemporary Art Fair
David Malmuth and Ann Berchtold
“My interest in launching the first Contemporary Art Fair in San Diego came from attending an Art Fair in Miami Beach — Art Basel. What is now the largest art fair in the US and brings in over 500 million dollars over 6 days to the community of South Miami Beach. I was struck with how similar Miami (ten years back) and San Diego (today) were — coastal young cities that had not found a strong cultural identity. And now Miami — through this one event — has developed its identity as the home of the biggest art explosion in over 40 years.” — Ann Berchtold, Founder & Director, Art San Diego
Legendary photographer of iconic record album covers Henry Diltz addresses the crowd. Mr. Diltz is also a founder/co-owner of Morrison Hotel Galleries.
Wally Gilbert, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry)
Emmanuel Fremin of his namesake gallery, located in New York City
Noble Environmental Technologies and the New School of Architecture and Design
Ruth-Ann Thorn of Empress Galleries with Ingrid Croce, author, singer-songwriter and restaurateur. She is the widow of the immortal Jim Croce and the mother of singer-songwriter A.J. Croce at the Empress Gallery booth.
Delfina Mincarelli & Francesco Buttaro
At the Morrison Hotel Gallery booth
Artist Raul Guerreo with Fine Art Magazine publisher Jamie Ellin Forbes Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 41
JP AUDRA
ANGELIC VISIONS, HUMAN PRESENCE In this world you will have much tribulation, but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.
—John 16:33
By VICTOR BENNETT FORBES As founder of an intelligent and inspiring art movement called the Creativists — an international group of artists and good friends who believe that “our work of Creation creates Beauty” — Jean-Philippe Audra stands at the crossroads of NeoRomance and Post-Modernism with hopes that the “Beauty” created results in positive emotions to purify the world. Lofty ideals, no doubt, but, wonders the artist: “What is a life worth if I walk toward the light alone?” Read on to find the answer. In his new work, Mr. Audra is reaching for new heights. His paintings perceive angels as bodies of light not only as spirits in their own heavenly realms but in his personal vision as well. The brilliance of his colors and the charm of his imagery reflects his own path. “All my life I have been engaged in the search for light. Where is it hidden?” he asks. “In people, in books and in masterpiece works of art,” he answers. “Our souls,” he adds, “are constructed of light”and his paintings are all about that. He is not portraying angels in the traditional classic mode but in spots of light, almost dripping with energy and color, as if Pollock had a spiritual revelation after listening to Hank Williams and sought to construct works of art out of well-organized dots of energy moving…finding their way to the warmth of home as sparkles of divine spiritual energy. Making his way through the “ruling materialist modern world” and “the pop culture environment” has been a great challenge for this child of a man whose natural demeanor is one of wonder and awe as he traverses the world, following his life’s own “Guiding Light.” His sense of style transcends traditional forms of art with a delicate balance between what is real and imagined. To Audra, and to many, angels are viable creatures who are sitting in the heavens waiting to be called upon to do work on behalf of those who believe and need their services. In these new paintings, he goes beyond the realm of the earthly, to create paintings that are inspired by his hopes for love and peace based upon his deep, undying faith no matter what fiery darts come his way, and there have been a few. Despite diverse tribulations, the artist 44 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
PHOTOS BY STEVEN LLORCA
“I have been inspired since the beginning by Love, Faith, Peace.” tribulations, in the words of Stevie Ray Vaughn, has not “given up on love” and he directs his considerable energy and natural talent toward producing work that inspires and fosters love in all its forms from sensual to agape but with a primary interest in the classically Romantic vision of the ultimate perfectibility of man. This is the structure underlying compositions that offer a powerful message in a simple format. Mandala-like in their approach, the
energy and movement of splashes of color vibrate at a frequency we can comprehend on many levels. Structurally sound, child-like in their design, Audra’s work bridges the gap between real and unreal, light and ultimately death and immortality. We’re all headed there, he seems to be saying, but as we roll on to our ultimate destination, his paintings of innocence are accomplished works of art that point the way from here to eternity for those who have eyes to see.
With his “Knights of the Light” (Creativists) Audra is “fighting against the darkness and invites the artists of the entire world to join him in this travel toward the Light.”
Fine Art Magazine • December 2013 • 45
A PERFECT DAY In Memory of Lou Reed
Lou Reed and Dion
Bronx-born legends Lawrence Gartel, the “Father of Digital Art,” seen by millions in Apple and Absolut ads, with Dion Dimucci, fabled “King of the New York Streets” in front of Gartel’s “Love Car” in sunny south Florida.The image brings to mind Lou Reed’s song, “A Perfect Day.” Founder of the Velvet Underground and superstar in his own right, Lou went on to his greater reward very recently, leaving us with a tremendous body of work, including his speech inducting Dion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with these memorable words. “My idea of heaven: singing occasional backup for Dion.” Gartel will be featured prominently in SuperCar Week in West Palm Beach, January 2014 for which he just created the official poster to commemorate his forthcoming special night at the Norton Museum of Art. www.norton.org/artafterdark
A couple of relics — the guitars, that is. Fine Art magazine Editor-in-Chief Victor Forbes holds Jamie’s classic Hofner Violin bass with luthier Tony Maddi brandishing V’s vintage Guild Nighthawk. Maddi does all kinds of custom work on guitars at his studio deep in the northern Pennsylvania woods. If you have an axe or two in need of anything from a fret-job to a complete overhaul, Tony is the man for the job. Our perfect day continued as we… 48 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
…enjoyed a chance meeting at The Brass Rail in Hoboken with a couple of legendary cats — Julio Fernandez, guitarist extraordiaire of Spyro Gyra, and Bradford Sauro, a long time friend of the crew who used to play drums for a band Julio was in (Top Flite) and a good sound man. Tony, who grew up with these gents, in addition to his storied luthier work is also quite an accomplished guitarist. SunStorm/Fine Art was privileged to produce the masterful Mr. Fernandez in session at Cove City Studios with Libetrty Devitto and George Panos on Hylton B’s forthcoming CD that also features Richie Cannata and Joseph “Small Axe” Sinclair as well as a duet with Jessica Star. There are few funkier and as gifted than Julio Fernandez and this video will prove it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYR0Wjx_uYc
A MEMORABLE DINING AND MUSICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE BRONX
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DAVE McDONOUGH
THE GENTLE GIANT OF KEENE VALLEY
From Prelude (McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed”) to Recessional ( Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”) David McDonough’s funeral rocked. So did his life.
Lake Champlain
A cornerstone of Keene Valley, McDonough’s Valley Hardware was Dave’s dream come true. He started there as a young lad, sweeping, shovelling…doing any menial chore just to get his start. He ended up owning the place and with his wife Paula by his side, and a strong family to back him up, Dave built the store into a viable and competitive business in a Home Depot world. There wasn’t an empty seat in the house at Dave’s funeral and people were standing in the back. Years ago, Dave would have been on stage in such a building, singing a lead role in “Jesus Christ Superstar.” He was regaled for his beautiful voice and fronted many a neighborhood rock band in his youth. Dave was just an all-around cool guy. He loved photography and both his niece Jessica and nephew Jake tell the same story, how Uncle Dave resisted digital, primarily because he enjoyed the process of waiting for the prints to come back in the mail from the company that developed them. Two years ago, a hurricane dropped way too much rain on the northeast in a very short period of time and the Ausable River flooded. A couple of feet of water and mud flowed through McDonough’s store, a good portion of which remaimed until a horde of Dave’s neighbors, customers and total strangers banded together to mop up the floors and clean up what they could of damaged merchandise. The store recovered, but not Dave. Shortly thereafter he was diagnosed with a very rare cancer. After strenuous treatments, he made a nice recovery and had a few months where he was back at work. But the cancer retruned and after a very rough round of treatment, Dave succuumbed. The minister at the St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church in Lake Placid, NY, in speaking about Dave, made many memorable remarks as Dave was universally loved and respected. This is one that sticks: “In life, love is what matters most of all.” The photographs here were all taken by David in his hometown of Keene Valley, NY, in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains. Rock on, Dave. —VICTOR FORBES 32 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
David James McDonough: August 23, 1953 - June 10, 2013
Snowy Tree, Keene Valley
Ausable River
Cascade Lake, Adirondack Mountains