Art Fairs International Newspaper 2012
ART FAIRS INTERNATIONAL
NEWSPAPER
A BRIDGE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
©2012 ART FAIRS INTERNATIONAL NEWSPAPER
NEW YORK, Issue #17 Winter 2012
Miami Basel: A Year in Review Art Basel has set up shop in South Florida every year since 2002. And every year it's grown in size to promote contemporary art on a global scale. The eleventh edition will kick off this December in Miami, bringing together works from more than 2,000 artists. This year, more than ten satellite fairs will run in conjunction with Miami Basel, pumping up the exhibits and attracting art enthusiasts from around the world. Fairs such as Context and Miami Project offer an avant-garde approach to showcasing progressive artists, while Scope Art Fair, and Verge Miami garner exposure for up-andcoming talents. Offshoot fair, Design Miami is an international forum for industrial design, and objets d’art and five-year-old Art Asia serves as the premier fair for exceptional Asian artists and galleries. In the following pages, we've presented a compilation of these talents the BEST artists that have shown at Art Basels throughout the years. The group includes a wide range of artists such as photographers Sam Samore, Joachim Koester, and performance artist Ryan McNamara who spoke at last year’s “Art Attack” hosted by Art Basel [CONTINUES ON PAGE 2] Miami,
Beverly Fishman, Dividose M.P.N.E., 2011. Enamel on polished stainless steel, 62 x 84 in. Courtesy of Galerie Richard, NY.
Art Palm Beach: The Gold Coast Fair ArtPalmBeach celebrates its 16th Anniversary at the Palm Beach County Convention Center from January 25th-28th, 2013 with a Preview evening January 24th. ArtPalmBeach is considered one of the most influential contemporary art fairs on Florida's Gold Coast by both critics and art enthusiasts since its opening in 1997. This year fair will debut the most extensive program in its history by encompassing premiere events, special exhibitions, topical lectures, special museum tours, site specific art installations, art performances and exclusive VIP programs. *
dOCUMENTA 13 was extensive and manifold in its vision. The emphasis was not on "art" per se but on the act of creation in its myriad forms. dOCUMENTA is held every four or five years in the out-of-the-way German city of Kassel. dOCUMENTA 13 was ambitious in its scope both in content and geographical spread. There were simultaneous dOCUMENTAs happening in Kabul, Cairo and Banff, Canada.
Overall, it featured work by 300 participants including artists, artist collectives, writers, political theorists, natural science researchers and other scholars. In Kassel, work could be seen in 30 venues including museums, local store windows, bars, hospitals, movie theaters, bakeries, youth libraries, a mosque, parking garages, the train station, a decaying hotel, a wartime bunker. The 100 day festival closed on September 16 and had a total number of visitors in Kassel of 860,000. My approach was not to try to see it all; I figured that would be impossible. Instead, I focused on performance and artivist activity. On the ground floor at the back of the decaying Grand City Hotel Hessenland, just down the road from the
Featured Stories Miami Basel: A Year in Review, P. 2 Gregoire Devin, P. 3 Inger Dillan Antonsen, P. 4 Michael Rossiter, P. 5 Margaretha Gubernale's, P. 7 Alessandro Di Cola P. 8 Jean-Marc Schwaller, P. 10 Brother's Game, P. 12 Maria Rosina Jaakkola, P. 14 Arts Into Life: PSPS In Chelsea, P.13 Documenting Documenta, P.13 Key To Art Moscow 2012, P.3
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Frieze London 2012: How Many Fairs in One
Premiere galleries from across the globe, collectors and curators gather in exciting Miami January 18-21, 2013 for the 4th edition of Miami International Art Fair, one of America's most exciting mid-winter contemporary art fairs. Relocated to Miami's premiere downtown Art & Entertainment District, MIA will bring together international and emerging artists to the waterfront scene for a five day extravaganza of art [CONTINUES ON PAGE 12] and culture.
Crowded. This is maybe the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of an art fair. For sure, that “crowded” became a more real, tangible sensation during Frieze London 2012, whose historical tent in Reagent’s Park, London, became one of many to visit this year. For the first time, the attendees had to visit another fair within the fair, located at the north of the park, called Frieze Masters, a new-born sister event which featured art made before 2000. Such a double-fairs effect seemed to produce more confusion than to effectively challenge the notion of Master, as Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, directors of the fair, intended to do. And this confusion came not only from the visitors, but also from dealers and collectors themselves, [CONTINUES ON PAGE 12]
Art Basel Miami Beach Convention Center 1901 Convention Center Drive, December 6-9
NADA Deauville Beach Resort, 6701 Collins Ave. Dec 6-9 110 N.E. 36th St. at Midtown Blvd. December 4-9
Verge 1001 Collins Ave. December 6-9
Red Dot 3011 NE 1st Avenue at NE 31st St. December 4-9
Pulse The Ice Palace, 1400 North Miami Ave. December 6-9
Aqua 12 Aqua Hotel, 1530 Collins Ave. December 6-9
Fountain 2505 N. Miami Ave. December 6-9
[CONTINUES ON PAGE 13]
Miami Basel 2012: Heating Up Winter (P. 12)
Presented by
Miami International Art Fair, The Next Wave
Scope
Documenting Documenta
Great Britain £ 4 Japan ¥ 750 Canada $7.00 USA $10.00
NY ARTS MEDIA SPONSOR
FEATURED ARTISTS Giovanni Gasparro Vittorio Polidori Claudio Magrassi Chelsea Rose Julia Swartz Angela Fraleigh Amy Hautman Lok Kerk Hwang Dianna Ponting Sharon Irla Wendy Ding Francesco Vaglica Carol Carter Damian King Adam Adach Maya Kulenovic Charmagne Coe Kim Blair Carlos Luna Daniela Nasoni Olga Kost Heidi Hirvonen Francesco Lai Danilo Riccardi Cymthia Kulp Tesfaye Negusse Panni Malekzadeh Sue Vesely Coplu Graham McKean A. Francesca Gutris Peko Anita Colin Harbut Andrew Gonzalez Moreno Bondi Daniella Bonachella Margaret Donald Martine Johanna Francesco Federighi Oliver Ray Stephanie Farago Jennifer Janesko June Leeloo Nikki Lam Lauren Berkowitz Dane Beesley Jarek Wojcik Kallie Turner Penelope Cain Ben Taranto Dorit Dornier Angus Fisher
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Lilly McElroy John Pusateri Irene Wellm Jeremy Blincoe Stefanie Carnevale Tarryn Gill Yandell Walton Matthew Kneale Vincent Fantauzzo Steve Chua Len Breen Andrea Higgins Cynthia Ellis Luke Roberts Mark Williams Emma Coulter Jessie Ngaio Debbie Symons Angela Fama Karla Kracht Tanya Chaly Sam Jinks Andrew Cambell Pierre Proske Sean Fennessy Sarah Hickey Noe Fujimoto Rhonda Goodall-Kirk Veronica Patelin Carlos L Romero Maximilian Toth Owen Leong Robert Boynes Jens Waldenmaier Kate Bernauer Lynn Miller Anna Glynn Charles Alexander Moffat Carolyn O'Neill Annette Larkin Adamo Macri Andy Cook Rebecca Lewis Alessa Esteban Xing Danwen Tony Garifalakis Sarah Gabriel Linzie Ellis Joanna Wolthuizen Tim Andrew Lizzie Hall
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Scoping Out Scope
SCOPE Art Show returned to Miami in 2012 with a new location on the most highly-trafficked gateway to the Midtown Arts District. Located at N.E. 36th St and Midtown Blvd., SCOPE Miami’s monumental 100,000 sq. ft. pavilion housed its most ambitious fair to date, featuring a selection of 20 innovative Breeder Program galleries presented alongside 85 established international exhibitors. Long-established as the original incubator for emerging work, SCOPE’s Breeder Program celebrates its 12th year of introducing new galleries to the contemporary market. This year was no different, as it was a remarkable opportunity for unprecedented exposure, Breeder Program alumni include: Peres Projects, John Connelly Presents, Galeria Enrique Guerrero, Daniel Reich Gallery, Bischoff/ Weiss, INVISIBLEEXPORTS, SEVENTEEN, ROKEBY, Taxter Spengemann, Magical Artroom and Spinello Projects, among others. SCOPE
Miami was bustling with 30,000 international collectors, press and art professionals, all of whom drive the contemporary art market and are vital contributors to global culture. SCOPE Miami opened to Press and VIPs on Tuesday, December 4 with the First View benefit and will run December 4 – December 9, 2012. Alongside their featured galleries, SCOPE Miami will presented cuttingedge special programming, collector tours and special events that featured the best and brightest across multiple creative industries, including fashion, film, music and performance. With over a decade of critically acclaimed art shows and non-profit initiatives that extend beyond the ordinary in Contemporary art, design, music and fashion, SCOPE Art Shows have garnered critical acclaim with sales exceeding $300 million and attendance of over 500,000 visitors.*
Miami Basel: A Year in Review
to poke through. This one gives me an unfinished feeling. In the center of the boat's two sails lies a marriage of pink, yellow, black, and red outlining a diamond of white. The sky, water, and boat all become connected in the center of the painting in a collection of color. New to Art Basel Miami Beach this year was the announcement of Plane Text, a project of aerial art that was set to fly every morning over the not-so-sleepy only slightly-hungover beachside town. Though farther removed from the goings-on at Miami’s ground level, Plane Text—organized by Morgans Hotel Group in partnership with Van Wagner Communications and ABMB—delivered no less of a show, involving three different planes Eleanor Antin, Judgement of Paris (after Rubens), Eleanor Antin, 2007. Chromogenic print, 38 x 73 in. Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York. flying from 9am to 1pm each day of the Miami Art weekend. The work on view included pieces from such high[CONT FROM PAGE 1 ] with Dan year’s Art Basel Art Video—and Xie ly revered text-base artists as RichCameron, Raphael Castoriano, and Rich- Lei—who presented work in last year’s ard Prince, John Baldessari, Lawrence ard Tuttle. In a still from McNamara's Art Asia— are among the crème de la Weiner, Alan Ruppersberg, Gary Simvaudeville performance, "The Latest in crème of the near-decade-long stretch mons, Mel Bochner, Alexis Smith and Blood and Guts," he stands in a suit and of Miami art week. This year’s edition Martin Creed. tie. The focal point of this still is McNa- of Art Basel Miami boasts work from All of this talent is featured in our mara's face. His mouth open, his eyes Sommer Contemporary art in Tel Aviv, extensive compilation of more than 70 rolled back in his head. Only the whites which represents artists like Yael Bar- leading artists that have showcased in of his eyes show. His pupils looking at the tana, Tom Bur, and Tal R. Tal R's paint- Miami over the years. Each artist and inside of his skull. He looks almost uncon- ing titled Pink Yellow Sail, a black and representative work brings something scious. Uncontrolled. white ship floats on black and red water. monumental to the proverbial art-ta Artists like Cory Arcangel, Marilyn The colors seem to be smudged on the ble. Be sure to check them out and see Minter—both of whom showed at last canvas, allowing the white background what all the hype is about. *
Opposite Coast, Enticing Showcase. Art Los Angeles Contemporary, now in its fourth year, is the International Contemporary Art fair of the West Coast, held January 24–27, 2013. ALAC returns to the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, a known arts venue with 40,000 square feet of exhibition space and soaring 40 foot ceilings. The fair presents 70 top international blue chip and emerging galleries from around the world, with a strong focus on Los Angeles galleries. Participants
present some of the most dynamic recent works from their roster of represented artists, offering an informed cross section of what is happening now in contemporary art making. The fair provides a sophisticated yet accessible environment for art collectors, curators, and patrons of the arts alike to enjoy. In addition, the fair hosts a comprehensive programming series, including world class artist talks, muse-
um curator led panel discussions, and film screening and performance series. Special events are staged on site at the art fair as well as throughout the city in satellite locations. Home to internationally renowned museums, leading art schools, hundreds of contemporary galleries, and a prodigious number of practicing artists, Los Angeles serves as the perfect landscape for a progressive, international contemporary art fair.*
-Issue No. 17, Summer 2012Publisher Abraham Lubelski Executive Editor Rose Hobart the 22nd international los angeles photographic art exposition santa monica civic auditorium
Editorial Dept Jill Smith Jordan Hoston Curtis Jackson
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Art Fairs International Newspaper 2012
Grégoire Devin: Street To Canvas Grégoire Devin, an up and coming 34 year old French artist, brilliantly evokes mental, urban ideas through his paintings. While using street art as a base, Devin integrates concepts and styles that draw from the early facets of childhood art, his travels, and his interactions with street culture and graffiti. Growing up in Nantes, France, Grégoire Devin was raised in an environment that encouraged artistic development. His innovative experimentation with art, drawing and playing music, began at a very young age. Today, Devin is a prolific artist with two group shows coming up, one in Montserrat Gallery in New York City from November 28 December 12 and at Red Dot Art Fair in Miami from December 5 - 9 during Miami Basel. His work emulates the ideas and concepts of youthful art, as his collagelike canvases read almost as a vehicle for his stream of conscience. His paintings are filled with doodles of figuration and abstraction. In this regard, Grégoire Devin’s work is reminiscent of the late Jean-Michel Basquiat. Like Devin, Basquiat’s work focused on making social commentaries through this intersection of graffiti and street art with other styles of more formal painting. I recently spoke with Grégoire Devin to discuss the personal reflection that can be seen in his works, and where his inspiration stems from as each canvas unravels into something new. NY Arts: These paintings seem to represent facets of a personal narrative, is there something diaristic about them? Have the phrases you employ been ripped from pages of your own journal? Grégoire Devin: That’s exactly it. My work is both a personal journal
and my reflection of society that I observe each day through family, friends and media. In a way, I am revealing my secrets while at the same time giving my own interpretation of what I see around me by using words, symbols, humor, and provocation. Each painting is like a page of a newspaper, and it can be turned one after another. That’s why I can’t seem to work on several paintings at the same time. I need to finish one before starting another. Even if each painting has a specific theme, there is a connection between every one of them, as if a story is being told. This connecting theme of individual revelation is highly visible in Devin’s painting titled “Back II the Source," where text boxes are scratched into the canvas alongside cut and pasted illustrations. Pops of red, blue, and orange are scrawled along the canvas among more subtle browns and blacks. Shapes and lines are scribbled against the words and drawings. The work is playful and funny, as headless bodies are woven in and out of edited text with marked up and crossed out statements in childlike handwriting. While using a style similar to Basquiat, Grégoire Devin updates his own work to a contemporary level, as he relays ideas about the reworkings of urban space through his paintings. Even as a child, Devin felt an extreme pull to urban street culture and street art. As he grew older, he became fascinated with the contrasting charm and allure of the dark alleys of Brooklyn and Harlem, and by the lively atmosphere of poetry in the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Grégoire Devin’s travels and insights on the distinctive street culture in these different locations across the
globe, are conveyed in his works. In this sense, his works speak to real life, and what it feels like to live right now. Gaining much influence from his own personal life and narrative, Devin draws on this reflection of society in his painting "Go Play a Video Game." This work largely consists of bold white text on a black background. In the center of the canvas, a Christ figure stands among the words. Each white letter stems off as an extension of this looming figure in the middle. The artist's personal thoughts and playfulness connect in this work, with sayings such as "You win" and "Welcome to the World" scribbled in the darkness. The painting seems to reflect fleeting thoughts that emerged in his mind. As his paintings are almost a maze of his thoughts inspired by his travels, Devin’s compositions are busy and dense with collage and imagery, but not in an overwhelming way. At first glance, you may seem lost, as it's hard to decipher Grégoire Devin’s code of what these images and words or phrases are doing placed together on the same canvas. But being lost in Devin’s work is not a bad thing. It’s while lost in the labyrinth of ideas and depictions of urban life Devin displays for us, the viewer is able to become fully engulfed by his ideas, as his works ask us to rethink our relationship to the vast urban space around us. *
All images courtesy of the artist.
Portrait of the artist. Photo Credit: Fabien Bosdedore
All images courtesy of the artist.
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Inger Dillan Antonsen: Tonal Range
All images courtesy of the artist.
Inger Dillan Antonsen’s works are abstract impressionist pieces, with a focus on lyrical abstraction and unique color composition. In her works, paint moves on the canvas as if it were dancing to music and its luminescence creates a sort of spatial, cosmic universe that is both magical and otherworldly. Antonsen utilizes various geometric shapes that play with each other and that reach beyond relational associations when put together. There is much freedom in her brushstrokes, allowing the paint to roam, as if it has a mind of its own. The end result is liberating and full of candor. Inger Dillan Antonsen is a prolific artist working at the height of her career. Her paintings are rich in sentiment and conjure up intense, sublime feelings in the viewer. Antonsen works in the vein of Arshille Gorky. In the 1940s, Gorky’s seminal work laid a foundation for abstraction, where intuition was highly regarded and color was applied in thin washes to create gleaming transparencies. A contemporary predecessor, her images are mystical and the composition and colors create a non-objective work that allows the viewers to determine their own interpretations. Antonsen employs a significant tonal range to create an image that is highly imaginative and dream-like. Works 4
like In The Blue captures Antonsen’s unique ability to create mesmerizing patterns that seem to be submerged in rich colors. Set against a deep, blue background, soft geometric shapes of yellow, red, green and purple weave in and out of each other like a tapestry. The blue background frames these shapes, which seem to fade around the edges, yet are illuminated from within. The effect is one where the overall image glows with a refulgent light. Other works like Reaching Out are imbued with a kaleidoscopic nature where the full spectrum of light seems to swirl around the canvas in a radial manner. Coalescing in the center are splotches of yellow and blue. The image feels intergalactic and organic all at once, harnessing the power of the microscopic and macroscopic. One is reminded of the internal organs of a flower or the cosmic dance of a supernova. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months. During this short interval a supernova can radiate as much energy as the Sun is expected to emit over its entire life span. Shining just as brightly, Reaching Out offers the viewer an intense wave of stimulation.
Art Fairs International Newspaper 2012
I recently had the chance to interview Inger Dillan Antonsen to find out more about her work. Jill Smith: What is your background? And when did you start painting? Inger Dillan Antonsen: I have always been interested in art, music and above all, dance. My father as a musician wanted me to play piano and viola. Dance class was out of the question as there was no such thing at that time in the little city of Bodø ( north of the polar circle). I started art school at the National College of fine Arts and Design, Oslo in 1954. I began courses in a fashion designer class and continued there until 1958. That was my mother’s wish, not mine. After several years dancing and playing classical guitar, I finally was brave enough to start painting. I took some art classes in a private art school. I so wanted to paint abstract, but I could not make it to “live”. Landscapes were safe, but I always worked and worked without telling anyone about my abstract color compositions. It took me years to make a breakthrough. JS: Your abstractions are full of rich color and subtle nuances, how did you arrive at painting this way? And what is your process in the studio? IDA: Movement is important to me, beauty and balance as well, but above all colors. It has become so much a part of me that it is impossible to explain in words. One thing is for sure, without meditation everyday, I would not be able to paint this way. When I start painting, I often go through a period of intellectual processes until intuition takes over. Then, and only then, do things start to come alive. JS: What neww directions can we expect from you in the near future? IDA: I always try to follow the direction the painting takes, and it is always exciting to see what the result will be. *
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Michael Rossiter’s Surreal Vision By Rose Hobart
Michael Rossiter's painting style is wholly original and unique. Painting landscapes, portraits and objects, his work is neo-surreal containing elements that are strange, quirky, surreal, dreamlike and whimsical. His work can be likened to historical masters such as Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. Updating these revolutionary techniques, Rossiter's works are rendered in exquisite detail conjuring up associations to contemporary life and otherworldly visions. When viewing works like "What's On the Box?”, his surreal juxtaposition is apparent. A turtle sits in a field, his hollowed contours filled with unnatural objects, including an oddly angled ice cream cone that juts out uncomfortably from the turtle’s bowels. Higher up on the turtle’s back looms a television-shaped box crafted of wood, yet presumably technological, topped by a party hat from which bare branches eerily extend. From the animal visibly overburdened by the staggering weight of consumer culture, to the grim human profile carved into a nearby stump, a manmade presence pervades the apparent naturalness of the entire scene. The bright, cheerful colors of the piece initially belie this unsettling tone, but through the purposeful juxtaposition of natural and man-made objects, the artist reveals a nature essentially transformed into mankind’s unfortunate playground. A second piece, "Pathways 2," portrays a different tone. Here, two threedimensional boxes stacked on top of one another are undercut by flat planes intersecting at various angles. The faces of their clearly defined and colorful edges contrast with the peacefully clouded horizon. Against this pale visage, two predominant colors – the striking cut of a red pyramid intersecting the bottom left, and a sky-blue box carved into a door to nowhere perched on top, provide central focal points. Yet what immediately draws the eye is a single, light-reflecting orb hovering above the interspersed complexity below. Its circularity is echoed in a spiraled red scroll that floats serenely beneath the lower box. The interplay of shadow and light both within the floating objects and among the various boxes and planes creates an abstract vision of calming balance, complexity and simplicity, lightness and heaviness, shadow and color. Ultimately, the sensation that we are peering into someone's dream world or personal subjectivity is evidenced in Rossiter's work. In this sense, his work has a lot to do with major thinkers like Sigmund Freud. In the 1920's Sigmund Freud revolutionized the study of dreams with his work The Interpretation Of Dreams. Freud began to analyze dreams in order to understand aspects of human behavior. He believed that in civilized society, we have a tendency to hold back our 6
natural urges and repress our impulses. Yet, these urges and impulses must be released in some way; so they often have a way of coming to the surface in disguised forms. Freud felt that our dreams were the locus of unconscious desires be them sexual, dangerous or suspenseful. Eventually, Freud came to the conclusion that the unconscious expresses itself in a symbolic language. Symbolic meaning is at the heart of Michael’s work - his symbols are visual puns, cues and witty juxtapositions that create images that are personal and universal. Michael states “a lot of the symbols are just my imagination running wild as I sketch out ideas for my paint-
I've had buyers of my work contact me months later to tell me that they have just found something in the painting that they never noticed before! ings, some symbols and characters have stuck and I've used them across a number of my works as a thread. My aim throughout most of my work is to provide a dreamlike escape to the viewer, taking them away for a moment from the seriousness in the real world and hopefully getting a smile out of them! I love to hear what other people see in my work - everyone has a different take on it. I often try to put in things that will not be noticed at first glance and I've had buyers of my work contact me months later to tell me that they have just found something in the painting that they never noticed before!” Michael Rossiter is a contemporary neo-surrealist whose work is at the forefront of a new avant-garde. Surrealism originated as a literary movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing, or automatism, both of which sought to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious. The movement originated in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic André Breton. And Rossiter's paintings have much in common with the master Belgian surrealist painter, Rene Magritte. Like Magritte, Rossiter uses witty and thought-provoking imagery to encourage viewers to question their perceptions of reality, and become hypersensitive to the world around them. By paying close attention to delineated space and common images placed in extreme settings, Rossiter creates a new symbolic language of intimate relationships. *
[Top] Michael Rossiter, Pathways, 2012. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist. [Bottom] Michael Rossiter, What's On The Box?, 2012. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.
Art Fairs International Newspaper 2012
Margaretha Gubernale’s Narrative By Abraham Lubelski
Margaretha Gubernale, Phoenix. Courtesy of the artist.
Phoenix Margaretha Gubernale, The Life Cycle. Courtesy of the artist.
When looking at a painting, it is often difficult to discern the narrative that lies beneath. With Margaretha Gubernale’s paintings, however, this is not the case; it is easy to stand before her canvases and watch a story unfold before your eyes. Margaretha’s world is consumed with the romantic and the mystical, imbued with vivacious colors and wrought with emotion. Whilst discussing her painting style, Gubernale explained that she “pursues four elements [in all of her paintings]; the intellect as air, fire as self-confidence and will, water as feeling, and earth as material execution.” In looking at Gubernale’s painting, Phoenix, one is reminded of the character of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Though she is only revealed in small bursts throughout the play, it is her untimely and tragic demise that serves to portray her as not only the most memorable character, but also one with whom every audience member desires to sympathize. The deep maroon coloring that Gubernale uses as her foundation for Phoenix communicates a rich feeling of warmth and comfort but it is the female figure, at the edge of a cliff, reaching for the moon, that evokes an unyielding sensation of desperation and unrequited desire reminiscent of Ophelia. The unattainable moon acts as a spotlight, highlighting the curves of her body and contours of her longing, and yet it keeps its distance. The woman presented in this work epitomizes the feeling of impossible yearning; a sensation inseparable from the history of the human experience. Yet, what this mystical female form longs for is not the love of another person but of a celestial object, something—by definition, unearthly—so unattainable that it is impossible to even conceive of being fulfilled. Through this work Gubernale conveys the depths of human despair as a result of unfeasible love. Margaretha Gubernale's work comes out of a long tradition of Ro-
mantic painting in the Western world. One of her antecedents is the great American painter, Albert Pinkham Ryder, whose work captures the same remarkable qualities in both the treatment of paint and the emotion that is evoked through romantic and hermetic renderings of the surrounding world. Like Ryder, Gubernale exposes her light sources in her works—most often as sun or moon—as radiating with luminescence. Though Gubernale’s palate is often more varied and vibrant than Ryder’s solemn hues, the overwhelming sense of nature-worship is present. The Siren, another work by Gubernale, depicts two people, looking in different directions, atop a body of water in the middle of the night. The work, permeated by a dark royal blue, evokes an uneasy serenity; like the way one might feel in an empty field or expanse of water in the middle of the night. It is soothing, peaceful and yet it is the darkness that hides the very things that have to propensity to cause harm. The two figures, lit by the moon and painted in all white, seem to be imploring both the sea and sky for help and love, in what appears to be a midnight journey. This painting, much like The Phoenix, seem to express a feeling of longing and searching for something beyond reach. It is this sensation—that of unfulfilled desire—that seems to infiltrate the entirety of Gubernale’s body of work. Margaretha Gubernale’s paintings transport the viewer into an alternate universe due to her love of fantasy, story-telling, and poetry. Her especially beautiful use of mythical creatures takes the viewer to places one hears tales of but never before dared to visit in their imagination. All of the paintings are set in a vibrant and mysterious fantastical world and depict mystical figures in a way where the painting tells a story on its own, a story so well rendered and communicated through her airy brushstrokes, that it doesn’t need to be vocalized to be understood.*
I let char my dreary soul of raven and put on a peacock feather. This I stripped off, because without the light their colours died . So I borrowed a pen of swan and to the light I fly with her
Margaretha Gubernale, The Siren. Courtesy of the artist.
The Siren Together with my sister I played on a rock surrounded by water. We sang a song of feelings. Than people with dark and selfish sense passed with their ships and imitated our childlike singing. Soon they died by this sound corrupt of them.
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Alessandro Di Cola: Sutured Images By Paul Gost
Alessandro di Cola, Prato Verde, Courtesy of the artist.
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Art Fairs International Newspaper 2012
Alessandro di Cola is an artist whose work captures memory, color and imagination and stitches it into a sublime moment for all eternity. Since his graduation from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, the Italian painter and sculptor has shown his work at festivals and galleries around Italy, including the GlobArt Gallery and the Crocetti Museum. His work first appeared in the U.S. at New York’s Broadway Gallery in their September 2012 chapter of the Artists at Home and Abroad series, which features collections from up-and-coming artists. Most significant is that his work explores issues of materiality and the horizon with a deeply felt emotional undercurrent. Di Cola’s work includes both paintings and sculptures that, despite their apparent lack of complete or distinct images, still seem to burst with life; di Cola attributes this effect to the idea that his pieces are “imbued with the nuances of the infinite.” He compares his works to old pictures that have “passed through the wallets of several generations” but still retain their “essence,” a reminder of what they once were along with the changes they’ve undergone with time. Works like Papaveri are rich in texture. Split between a pale whitish grey and a deep forest green this work is reminiscent of Mark Rothko’s “multiform” paintings. This one is stitched or sutured with red fleck in the center that fade out over the right bottom half of the painting. It is a near literal sense of sky and earth. Like his other works, this piece focusses on emotional and spiritual expression and seeks to achieve a representation of the sublime rather than a realistic portrayal of nature. Di Cola’s works share an affinity with past color field painters but are wholly contemporary with his use of washed-out color on a stitched, jute canvas. The vast differences among these choices in landscape depicted in di Cola’s paintings highlight the artist’s cyclical and everlasting representation of life regardless of setting. His abstract representations of these various scenes indicate a higher beauty than the mind can firmly pin down and one that is granted equally to many different aspects of life. To find out more about his work and themes, I sat down with Alessandro for an interview:
PG: Your work is rich in texture and minimal in color, there is also a deeply emotive quality to them. What is the message behind these works? ADC: At the base of my pictorial works there is a focus on "image retrieval", “stitching” together the pieces as in old photographs that are torn, peeled or faded. I want to create a meeting point between sky and earth both real and reflected; to stitch together a memory made up of colors that have almost completely vanished but are still discernible in their transparency. The message is definitely that we need to “mend” what was worthy, important, underlining the idea of “rebuilding.” PG: There is a earthy quality to your works. What relationship to nature does your work have? ADC: I believe the relationship of my works to nature is in their likenesses, with nature in the foreground, a nature which must continue to exist through time and that needs, at times, to be rescued. We are part of this world and are aware of its importance. Di Cola’s enthusiasm rather than hesitance in showing the backbone of his canvas, as seen in his emphasizing the stitching rather than hiding it, brings to mind artists such as Alberto Burri and Robert Rauschenberg, whose
revolutionary use of unexpected materials and similar eagerness in showing them off in their work indicated a preference for using common, everyday materials to depict larger themes and deeper meanings. Similar to the bare bones style found in his paintings, di Cola‘s sculptures are forms stripped down to their own essence, thereby eliminating visual distractions that take away from the true focal point of the image. The careful elimination of heads, legs and arms from individual works allows viewers to focus on the still movement of the body parts remaining. Sculptures of faces with only aluminum wiring to outline the back of the head that was once there draw our attention to the passage of time as the faces begin to appear more like death masks that remind us again of the cycle of life. The themes and forms found in di Cola’s work are shared by several of his contemporaries: di Cola’s face sculptures are not dissimilar from artist Suzanne Fortin’s similarly grim Africaninspired works on canvas. The world, as depicwted by di Cola and his contemporaries, is one of reflective sensitivity that places its focus on the everlasting wheel of life and its moments of beauty. * Alessandro Di Cola, Citta Blu, Courtesy of the artist.
Paul Gost: How long have you been painting? Did you always know you would be an artist? Alessandro di Cola: "I’d say since I was very small!’ My attention has always verged towards drawing, - shapes, imagining, perceiving things differently from how they actually looked. Did I know I would be an artist? Well! I’ve never really stopped to think about it. I can only say, now that I have, I realize that that one is an artist in thought and intuition … everything else is pure being. PG: Tell me about your process, do you create a painting in one sitting or over time? ADC: My pictures, like most of my sculptures, are born from and are expressions of the sensations and mood of the moment since tomorrow might be different or be perceived, felt differently. I don’t like long processes. Metabolization times might be long, becoming one with the feeling, making the sensation ‘mine’, before beginning a work.
Alessandro Di Cola, Papaveri, Courtesy of the artist
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Jean-Marc Schwaller: Evoking The Nature Around And Within By Allison A. Van Spankeren While not a figurative painter in the a bit more playful, as he lets his colors traditional sense, Swiss artist Jean- interact and blend at some points. Marc Schwaller gives attention and We see this focus on the potential emphasis to the tangible world, as his of color in the harmonic blending of work often focuses on the abstraction pigment in Schwaller’s recent work. In of nature. Schwaller brilliantly trans- his first piece here, each shade of blue forms realistic subjects, such as wa- seems to fade into another, easily tranter gardens and landscapes, into vis- sitioning from one hue to the next, truceral compilations of light and color. ly conjuring the sensation of flowing Schwaller is a master at giving a sense water. In this rendering of a water garof emotion, movement, and life to his den, soft brushstrokes of yellow and often conceptual pieces. orange pigment are fluidly interwoven Born in 1949, Schwaller grew up in within the deep blues and blacks of the small town of Ponthaux, Switzer- the piece. This medley of colors, leads land. He attended College St-Michel your eye inwards, to a patch of negain Fribourg, and later graduated from tive space in the center of the canvas. the University of Bern in Switzerland, The juxtaposition of this harsh white with the intent to teach visual arts. center, with the bursts of dark, almost Schwaller taught for ten years, before violent, color emerging from it’s cenleaving to focus on his own work. ter, gives the piece a sense of intense Truly a man of the world, Schwaller’s emotion, truly evoking elements of the work has been exhibited across the spectacle of nature. globe. Schwaller has a passion for travel In this second piece, another one and often looked to other cultures and of Schwaller’s large scale watercolors, landscapes for inspiration. For instance, he continues to show a remarkable in 1998, he was a part of the exhibition for the centenary of the SPSAS “Beware of the Journey,” where he painted eight watercolors representing the Taklimakan Desert in China. In 2003, he exhibited two paintings from his series Lords of War at the First International Art Biennale in Beijing. Shortly after, he exhibited Landscape of Earth-Water Landscapes at the Museum of Singinois Tavel. In addition to painting, Schwaller recently completed a sculpture based on the theme of divers in the port of Gletterens. Schwaller constructed glass walls, in which his rendering of five human bodies live. These bodies seem to have been frozen in a moment of intense movement: contorted and thrashing in a dance-like way, as if they were captured in the perfect storm. Most recently, Schwaller has exhibited his work at the Armani Hotel in Dubai and at Emirate Palace in Abu Dhabi. Opening just this past June, Schwaller’s exhibit entitled “The Rhythm of Earth-Passage” is a collection of his monumental oil paintings, which were previously displayed in Broadway Gallery, New York. Like much of Schwaller’s work, the paintings in “The Rhythm of the Earth-Passage” translate the natural world into a medley of color and light. Schwaller draws inspiration for much of his work from the world around him, as he is particularly interested in landscapes, mountains, windows, interior vs. exterior, and the male and female body. Schwaller also draws much inspiration and influence from the Color Field period of the 1950s and 1960s. In this period, artists shied away from the realistic representation of objects or subjects, and instead, abstracted their subjects with an emphasis on large, flat, solid planes of color. Schwaller takes these elements of the Color Field period and elevates, updates, and applies them to the level of his contemporary work. Schwaller is often likened to Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, two highly regarded masters of the Color Field period. Like Rothko, Schwaller still places much emphasis on color blocking, however Schwaller is 10
concentration and emphasis on light and fluidity. Again, numerous hues of blue flawlessly run into each other, giving the piece of an active and gestural quality. While still displaying this fluidity, Schwaller makes strong use of lines in this piece. Large vertical areas of color run up the two sides of this painting, while simultaneously, light, smooth, horizontal lines run across the painting. Schwaller is able turn these lines and colors into something more, something that transmits emotion and relates Schwaller’s interpretation of a water garden. In contrast to the last two of Schwaller’s pieces, here, Schwaller’s third canvas deviates from the strong blues, and utilizes on wider palette of colors. The brushstrokes of these earth tones transition from deep blues, moss greens, and blacks, to colors of copper, rust, and orange. The paint appears to be applied thickly to the canvas, creating texture, and giving the painting a
sense of density. However, the painting never seems to be heavy or weighty, due to the translucent and luminous presence of light in the piece. The light and visceral component of this piece streams from the right hand corner of the piece and downward, with the smooth, soft use of the hazy light orange. The paint looks almost featherlike, as the airy orange fades slowly to lighter shades as the paint floats down the canvas, until this delicate color is interrupted by earth tones in a set of undulating horizontal lines. While these three pieces, and much of Schwaller’s work, draw from the Color Field period, Schwaller gives texture, energy and excitement to the usual flat planes of color that are integral to Color Field work. The dynamic and dramatic nature of his pieces are produced by this feeling of movement. Schwaller creates with his brushstrokes. His is a fluid stroke, yet highly visible and dramatic, creating a unique sense of texture and vitality in these pieces, that actively and effectively conjure notions of the natural world. When Jean-Marc Schwaller paints a water garden, he is not just painting a water garden, he is painting the essence of a water garden, he is painting our interaction with a water garden, and how it feels, smells, tastes, and sounds, to stand amidst the softly rippling waters. *
Art Fairs International Newspaper 2012
All images courtesy of the artist.
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Miami International Art Fair: The Next Wave
[CONT FROM PAGE 1] In addition MIA will present Sculpture Miami, a waterside installation and sculpture exhibition in Bayfront Park. Over thirty large scale sculptures by major international sculptors will be on public display beginning Dec. 4 through March 12. The Fair will commence with a private preview, January 17th from 6:308:30pm. The preview evening will continue with a Collectors' Invitational from 8:30-10pm for additional distinguished collectors and VIP guests. The contemporary fair will gather a carefully selected array of 30 international dealers presenting both estab-
lished contemporary and emerging artists. Works will be composed of contemporary, cutting-edge art of all media including photography, painting, mixed-media, sculpture, installation and video. The mission of the fair is to showcase galleries representing the most talented and visionary artists of the 21st century. MIA 2013 will commence aboard the luxurious SeaFair. Docked at the Intercontinental Hotel Dock, this visionary vessel is where business and pleasure converge. It is the ultimate venue for distinguished international dealers to meet new collectors. *
Miami Basel 2012: Heating Up Winter
Every year artists, collectors and everyone in between turn out in December for Miami Basel. This time it's getting a run for its money from Pulse, Verge, Nada, Fountain, Scope, Context, Miami Project, Red Dot, Miami River Art, Miami Photo Fair and Select Art Fair. The success of Miami Basel has sparked out fairs in droves. The new art hub also recently started the Miami Rail, the city's version of the Brooklyn Rail. And with gallery spaces along both sides of the Las Cienega corridor in LA and the new super-sized galleries in Hollywood, CA, and the explosion of galleries in New York, indicates the market is expanding farther still. So far there are two new satellite fairs for Art Basel Miami Beach 2012: Miami Project (part of a large expansion into the art fair world by a company based 12
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn), and Context, a new fair from Art Miami, which itself has expanded its fair base into new markets. Brand new are the Select Art Fair and Miami Photo Fair that have been announced for 2012 Art Basel Miami Beach as a satellite fair on Miami Beach. Miami River Art fair will be held at the Miami Convention Center. And fresh out of the box this summer is Untitled Art Fair. Art people love music too. So, VH1 will sponsor Scope Miami 2012. The first UR1 music festival is announced – on Biscayne boulevard in Miami during the festival. And Red Dot Art Fair Miami announces that it will have 75 Solo artists booths along with 70 galleries in a 60,000 sq. ft. showcase! Check out our highlights and the preview of what's to come in January. *
Brother's Game By Maria Anderson
Fraternal twins Alan and Michael Fleming have been living together since childhood, and collaborating in their shared space since 2005. That is, until Alan moved from Chicago to New York. With time apart, their dynamic evolved. “This exhibition marks a temporary hiatus in our collaboration. Not that we stopped making work, but that after many years of collaborating, we were suddenly forced to make our work in a new way since we were now living in two different cities,” says Michael. For “GAME ON,” the Fleming brothers created two distinct bodies of work: one from the year they were separate, and the other from after they reunited. Their collaborations take various forms, including performance, video, drawing, and sculpture. “We are both interested in the shift toward sculpture in our practice, but we wanted to maintain the physicality of our prior performance and video work. I think we achieved that through pieces like Rock Paper Scissors,” says Alan. No matter the form, play and physicality are deeply involved, and their surroundings are treated as locations for experimentation, escape, and play. While separated, the two attempted to continue their collaborative artmaking through objects such as postcards and Polaroids, calendars and clairvoyance games. These served as records of communication, and provided fodder for “GAME ON.” They even mailed an empty box back and forth, titled A Sea Shanty, which accumulated an array of barnacle-like postage over the year. Rock Paper Scissors (2011) took form as hand sculptures embodying three games Alan and Michael played in which neither knew the result until they installed the Chicago iteration of “GAME ON.” In an interview for Threewalls Gallery, Michael explains why they chose to portray the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” “We were really interested in this idea of a really ephemeral game that we had played when we were younger that was kind of a low-stakes game. But, that if we stretch it out over time and distance, and we embody it in this classical medium, it becomes something larger than itself, or something larger than a game between us. It becomes this metaphorical, conceptual object.” For Psychic Color Calendars (2011), they focused on the same color every day for thirty days, and recorded the results on the calendars. These exercises and games were a way to stay connected despite the separate stu-
dios and thinking environments, and reflect an effort at examining each side of communication, its antecedents, pauses, and erasures. French sociologist Roger Caillois believed games must contain the following traits: fun, separate, uncertain, non-productive, governed by rules, and accompanied by the awareness of a different reality. Though the Flemings’ play does not adhere to all of these, it is interesting to note that many of these qualities are key elements in their games as well as in their collaborations. In the second body of work, the Flemings examined the mechanics of a mental reunion and resumed play. One of the pieces, Who’s Bad? (2012), is a singlechannel video of Alan teaching Michael to dance. The backdrop is the Brooklyn subway stop Hoyt-Schermerhorn, where Martin Scorsese filmed Michael Jackson’s music video, “Bad.” According to critics, the video helped Jackson’s image become edgier, and the video has over 53 million views on Youtube. Alan describes how they decided to create a rawer, unrehearsed video. “After I had been teaching Mike the moves, we were becoming precise, performing the whole combination. But when we started to look at the footage, we were struck by the moment of learning. So, I told Mike, 'Don’t learn any choreography before you get to the subway.' The only times he would learn were in front of the camera. So, I would introduce new material to him, explain it, and he would have to learn it on the spot, on site, with people looking.” As a result, the unedited video shows a learning experience rather than a final product. The Fleming brothers received their MFA from the Performance Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which they attended as a collaborative. This is the second iteration of GAME ON—the first took place in Chicago—and the brothers' first solo exhibition in New York. The two are currently based out of Brooklyn. Alan and Michael Fleming have shown their collaborative works throughout the US as well as abroad. Their videos have been screened in Copenhagen, Lviv, Ukraine, Rio de Janeiro, and Berlin. They are current fellows in the AIM (Artist in the Marketplace) Program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts and International Artists in Residence at the NARS (New York Art Residency & Studio) Foundation. They have performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, and the Factory for Art and Design in Copenhagen. *
Frieze London 2012: How Many Fairs in One [CONT FROM PAGE 1 ]
whose reactions to the big news of the year are quite ambivalent. Belgian collector Mimi Dusseldorf said about Frieze Masters: “It was like looking at museum pieces. It’s better for me here as I am looking for contemporary art. But it was worth seeing than buying.” Alongside, British collector David Roberts admitted: “There are great things at Frieze Master, but I am not so sure the crossover buying concept will work. I can see that someone who buys contemporary art would buy a 1960 Yves Klein, but I am not so sure they will buy a 16th century work”. In addition, visitors had extra subsections in each fair to wrap their heads around. Frieze Master contained Spotlight, a section of solo shows of artists from the 20th century. Frieze London included Frame, solo-artists projects at galleries under six-years old, and Focus, an export from Frieze New York’s first edition dedicated to galleries that have been around since 2001. The distinctiveness of the sections, one located at the north of the main structure and the other at the south, was also the result of a different curatorial advise- the other big news of this tenth edition. While Slotover and Sharp co-directed the glorious whole of the main fair, which counts 175 participating galleries, Jo Stella Sawicka had been called to organize the 20 galleries at Focus and the 21 galleries at Frame separately. To tell the truth, architectural accuracy enjoyed in New York last May was missed, where the snake-shaped tent designed by the Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (SO-IL)- ensured a proper space for so many galleries and such an attendance, with much more breath for the art itself. The temporary structure designed by architects Carmody Groarke was maybe too basic to house with the monumentality of the new apparatus the fair had this year, with this monumentality being not only in the numbers of the galleries and projects, but in the artworks themselves. Galleries report strong sales and high levels of energy in the contemporary market. Even with doubling the fair size, Frieze Master has made London an international melting point for the widest of art audiences. Hauser and Wirth sold Paul McCarthy’s White Snow Haed (2012) for $1.3 million, whereas its booth at Frieze Master was placing works on paper by Eva Hesse priced from $320,000 to $2 million. Not as expected for White Cube, the sale of Damien Hirst’s Destruction Dreamscape (2012) sold for $500,000, while Victoria Miro had similar success with Yayoi Kusama’s Universe RYKP (2012) for the same amount. 2012 was a very good year for New York-based galleries such as Andrew Kreps, who sold a multipaneled installation by Ricci Albenda for $200,000, Lehamann Maupin, who sold five editions of Teresita Fernandez’s Golden (2012) for $75,000 each, and Tracey Emin’s Legs moving (2012) that sold for $120,000. This year proved staggering figures, especially in the time of a worldwide economic crisis- a fact similarly confusing to this year's Frieze London itself. *
Art Fairs International Newspaper 2012
Art Into Life: PSPS in Chelsea By Paul Seftel
I opened PSPS in Chelsea in July 2011 on the northern edge of the gallery hub—a changing block rapidly rezoning from a scrap metal and nightclub wasteland into a city developer’s dream. Art has paved the way—as it always does—but for the next year or two the area will remain somewhat of a ‘free zone’ as they dig and build out of the dirt. Establishing PS Project Space in Chelsea has been about balancing my worlds of interest as a nature-inspired cityboy. I’ve lived and traveled across the US extensively. The extremes of living in remote mountain, desert, and island landscapes and the inspiration of my cultural and family heritage,
which is rooted in London and NYC, mingle in my process and work. Exploring nature, consciousness, and metaphysics, long periods of travel and exploration have deeply inspired me; the wilds of nature and outdoor living having been my preferred classroom. Textural and raw, ancient and modern, I’m interested in the fabric of time and how these distant spaces and worlds come together. Being in Chelsea, New York involves embracing my antithesis to some degree, allowing the greatest number of visitors anywhere in the international art world, so the opportunity to educate, inspire, and influence a growing audience is very alive. Since my inaugural show, which explored lost messages, mediums, time and the notion of Post Art, I’ve been intent on bringing elements of process and transformation into the creative space. Being located in a creative building and neighborhood helps immensely with outreach while creating work, producing projects and shows, and using the space as a platform for other artists and curators. PS Project Space becomes a fresh canvas every time a new project is created and I enjoy the challenge and momentum of each opportunity. As market models change, having a physical space far from guarantees sales, but the project space is my soup-to-nuts art studio, office, and exhibition space: a living blog and place to develop and go beyond my own practice and thinking. Building an audience and collaborating with other artists can be a rewarding learning process. In collaborative projects, from a large scale painting (i.e. the Four Elements project in Feb/ March 2012) to a pneumatic sound and light installation and performance (i.e. Space Within), to more static exhibitions, there are always interpersonal politics, negotiation and shared motivations as artists come together to produce successful projects. Wandering through opening receptions and gallery shows in Chelsea for many years, I felt like something was absent. Not just my work, as most artists' feel, but a way of thinking and approach that inspired me. Many very talented would-be artists remove themselves from the “art world” as it is often far from connected to the essence and energy of real life practice. The oft quoted “It's art 'cause I am an artist" has never flown with me. I’ve always asked myself big impossible questions like ‘What is Art?’ I question it and test it for myself constantly when considering creative concepts as form. To me art is a higher philosophical ground, a metaphysi-
cal reality. Art and philosophy are inextricably linked. Religion, science, mathematics, and law all play a part and where natural laws abide, art offers answers within the big metaphysical equations. The journey is the great adventure and only one’s thinking defines what is the end. Many museums have imported artists' studios into their galleries in the last few years, responding to the growing interest in project spaces and process driven art forms with shoestring budgets. I've encountered many artists—from Bushwick to Berlin—who derive their work from ephemera, found objects and 'ready-mades'. In this sense they embrace something of a recycled Dada zeitgeist, capturing the urban wasteland, but what seems missing in the focus of the art world at large is something more transformative. I'm interested in how art can transform life as one experiences it in the moment. This is very different from mutation, mimicry, and reflection, which I recognize as the real challenge. I am fascinated by the open-ended thinking that maps this personal and collective territory. Most industries craft illusions and spin propaganda as part of a larger conceptual con game, critical thinking has been mimicked and replaced by reality TV, while the illusion of art pedigree and academic credentials have been sold throughout the US. The art world is always ready to serve up the Kool Aid, but I wonder who has their eyes on the real prize. I still believe the market has room at the top. We know that art is constantly reborn. Collective consciousness reveals the timeless seeds of revolution and art may still stand up to the onslaught of social, political and environmental conditioning. The artist has to fight to keep their mind independent and freethinking. It’s important to keep pushing buttons and questioning reality, checking personal authenticity and following one’s own way. As an outsider, one can see a bigger picture and notice the details. Climbing ‘inside’ requires a whole other footing; as the shifting tectonics of creative introspection encounter art market self-reflection. Thankfully, more and more people are beginning to recognize what art is for themselves, perhaps through the whisper of spaces like PSPS. I meet the most interesting people with experience of all layers of life, and the opportunity to surprise, inspire and influence people with a love of art never grows old. There is real measure of success in that alone. PSPS will hopefully keep expanding beyond its physical presence in NYC to encompass my interest in working on larger scale, earth art and performance related projects and productions. Its pretty boundless, the idea and reality of a Project Space is as endless as one’s imagination. *
Documenting Documenta [CONT FROM PAGE 1 ]
Brothers Grimm Museum was a hidden dark room. On entering, it was too dark to see, and this was unnerving. I stepped cautiously through the entranceway, guided somehow towards the sound of voices singing and hands clapping. All around were sounds of scraping shoes and soft murmurs. As my eyes adjusted, I saw outlines of many people shuffling about in the darkness. The voices increased in volume and then suddenly, right next to me, a man began beat-boxing with great gusto, and then on the other side a woman began sweetly singing. Then, rhythmic hand clapping began. All at once there was an intense confrontation of many bodies dancing and making noise in the dark. I felt compelled to join in. These Tino Sehgal performers have been dancing in the dark every day, all day since the festival began and what a performance! Further down the street at the Neue Galerie, I through through the gallery aimlessly until I was stopped, visually accosted by the work of Zanele Muholi, South African photographer, performance artist, and visual activist. Her forceful photographs
of black lesbians and transgendered people in South Africa brought to mind news stories of hate crimes that are daily acted out against transgendered and homosexual individuals in South African communities and tales of “corrective rape” preformed by men pretending to “cure” non-conforming individuals of their sexual orientation and gender expression. Muholi’s portraits show defiance, pride and beauty, and most of all—self possession. I was also inspired by Jerome Bel’s Disabled Theatre. 11 mentally disabled actors of the Theater HORA based in Zurich, performed various instructions of Jerome Bel’s given to them by an interpreter. The show lasted an hour and a half and was performed three times a day for five days at Kaskade Theatre. Each individual spoke separately, telling their name, their disability and looking directly at the audience. Each person then preformed a dance that they had choreographed. Their exuberance was infectious and the normally straight-laced art audience was driven to clapping and laughing along with them. In this piece, Jerome Bel gives the possibility of not only inclusion, but confronts the audience
with its bias against mental disability. The performance was transcendent and with it, Bel put a spotlight on the dynamics of exclusion that lead to the marginalization of those considered unable to produce. dOCUMENTA was the initiative, in 1955, by artist and teacher Arnold Bode. His own paintings had been banned by the Nazis, and dOCUMENTA was his idea to create something new that could restore Germany’s image as a hub of European culture. Kassel had been devastated in World War II. Included in the destruction was the main museum, Freidericianum, which was heavily bombed, and its extensive library—with manuscripts dating back to Medieval times—was burned to the ground. That first dOCUMENTA exhibition was held in the Freidericianum, then in ruins, and it was dedicated to art that had been rejected as "degenerate" by the Third Reich. The radical intent of that first exhibition has set the tone for each successive dOCUMENTA.. There was insight from Beirutbased artist, Rabih Mroue, into the extraordinary documentation of deaths in the Syrian Revolution, made
by the victims themselves when filming the act of shooting with their mobile phones. In his lecture performance, The Pixelated Revolution 2012, he discusses how the cell phone has become an extension of the body—a replacement of the eye facing the muzzle—thereby distancing the “film shooter” from the actual experience of being shot. Chicago-based artist, Claire Pentecost, in an exhibition/installation at the Ottoneum, Kassels’ Museum of Natural History, exhibited alternative currency called “soil-erg” —earth created from vegetable compost. This earth was dried in molds, the shape of nuggets, a form usually associated with gold bars. The message is clear. I was reminded of the human and non-human effort that it costs to maintain life and of the land-grab going on. In her installation, she included a quote from Warren Buffet “over the next 100years, farmland will beat gold”. Her project continued outside the museum in the form of vertical beams filled with soil and designed for the intensive production of vegetables in land-poor communities. In the aftermath of 2008, the fi-
nancial collapse revealed itself to be more than an economic crisis. It signaled the failure of a global economic paradigm, which subjects all considerations of sustainability—whether social, cultural, political, ecological or biological—to the laws of profit. AND AND AND explored alternative systems. They provided a kind of artist retreat where participants could involve themselves, creating community gardens, planting seeds, planning, discussing, making art, etc. I didn’t get a chance to take part, unfortunately, but an interview with Podrescu from The XLterrestrials filled me in: “They kind of subverted the dOCUMENTA exclusivity and non-transparency (of the artist selection process) by inviting a whole sub-show of guests all summer long. There were many symposiums with luminaries like Claire Pentecost (mentioned above), Brian Homes, Bifo, Fran Ilich, Vandana Shiva, Alan Toner and a host of emerging artists who brought fresh ideas which will continue to resonate strongly in the field of arts and praxis. It’s what’s needed in attacking the shitload of work that needs to be done to wake people up…”*
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Maria ROSINA JaAkkola: Captivating Watercolors By Jill Smith
Neo-Impressionistic art is something impression on me and I learned to apthat is very difficult to master; as op- preciate the art of painting. Even at that posed to painting something the way age, I remember thinking "I could do that you see it, the way it appears in that, I want to learn how.” nature. The artist, instead of simply However, I feel that I found my own rendering a representational image, "voice" as a painter ironically by preimbues personal feelings in relation to paring for another walk of life, that of a given subject. This becomes more a landscape architect. I had a thing complex as one attempts to adequate- for impressive landscapes from early ly portray these emotions to a given on and learned to fully appreciate and audience. One of the foremost con- deeply understand them through my temporary painters working today, Ma- studies at the university. I had a pasria Jakkola, uses her artistic prowess to sion for nature, for observing the beauconvey exactly the right emotions in an ty therein. incredibly powerful manner. Her work Along my course of studies to be a was recently on view at Broadway Gal- landscape architect, we had to sketch lery in Soho, NYC. Trained as both a and practice the art of drawing and landscape architect and visual artist, also watercolors. I soon I realized that her elegant watercolors take the viewer what seemed to be a bit of a struggle on a visual journey – one that is mov- for others was like breathing to me, so ing, contemplative and full of emotion. natural and easy. Her work Venice depicts a very familiar Fine art classes were also part of scene of the Venetian landscape with the studies, and soon I felt that my an interesting twist. Most notable, is original passion for making things with the high concentration of richly, beau- my hands, observing and expressing, tiful colors that immediately consume was too overwhelming to ignore, and the viewer; upon closer inspection one I spent a year in the Academy of Fine notices the sketched lines that outline Arts in Helsinki. There I experimented the composition. Her handling of the in graphic art, printmaking, oil paintwater is also unique. Therein you can ing, color photography and many other see the subtly vague orange and blue mediums, and thereafter had my first building reflections; each brushstroke solo exhibit in 1994. highlighting the color of the water in an illuminated manner. JS: Fascinating. What is the inspiration Pontso Tirrojarvi is another of her or message behind your paintings? impeccably painted works that depicts MJ: I feel that there is so much beauty in a majestic winter landscape. Here, her the world, from the little things to vast application appears effortlessly strewn expanses of space, the depth, the layers together. Her colors are those, which we of air, soil, culture stratifying on them, usually associate with winter; including that it would be a crime not to immorcold, frost bitten shades of blue, white, talize it. I feel the task of art–be it music, and forest green. Her blue sky is effer- theater, visual art–is to lift one up from vescent as it barely breaks out of the the everyday and unravel the secrets of huge white clouds in the sky. And her being, the magic of the ordinary. minimal amount of detailing allows the viewers’ imaginations to run completely Maria Jakkola is a captivating artist at wild. This incredibly delft understanding the height of her career. And her works of composition, color and image doesn’t capture the magic of the ordinary with come easy. I recently interviewed Maria ease. Her Neo-Impressionistic works to find out more about her. are a form of emotional realism. Viewers should anticipate her future projJill Smith: How did you become a painter ects including an upcoming group exand how long have you been painting? hibit in Helsinki, a solo show in 2013 Maria Jakkola: I have been painting and here in NYC and a group exhibit in June drawing as long as I can remember. 2013, in Galerie Monod in Paris.* In fact, my most cherished childhood memories smell of oil color–my very dear late grandmother was an academy-trained artist and let me paint stilllives with while she was baby-sitting. Until six years old, I lived in Helsinki and remember being taken to the National Museum of Art. This made a big 14
[Top] Maria Rosina Jaakkola, L'Isolotto, Boboli gardens, Florence. Courtesy of the artist. [Middle] Maria Rosina Jaakkola, The Heads, Knysna. Courtesy of the artist. [Bottom] Maria Rosina Jaakkola, Boulders Beach. Courtesy of the artist.
Art Fairs International Newspaper 2012
[Left] Maria Rosina Jaakkola, Pรถntsรถ, Lapland, Finland, Courtesy of the artist. [Right] Maria Rosina Jaakkola, Llanca Stones , Courtesy of the artist.
Maria Rosina Jaakkola, Impression Venice. Courtesy of the artist.
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