A look at VOLTA and Spring Break NY Fairs 2020


(Click on any image to enlarge)

     After VOLTA's mega-disaster last year (the pier was deemed structurally unsound) it's back w new owners, director, format and location. A smallish show, plenty of hits and misses, and it broke w solo booths. I didn't take too many photos and what I did was mostly representational paintings as you can see, but abstract was in full effect as well as the Op Art comeback. Plenty of smaller scale conceptual and abstract 2D and 3D works. Jan Maarten Voskuil's pieces at NL=US (Rotterdam) had connected curving canvas pieces, and the subtle colors of the piece below was gorgeous to look at from any angle, hues and values changing w the light and the slopes of the canvas.


     A playful collection of paintings by Rinus van Hall at Kyas Art Salon (Amsterdam) were several small self-portrait oils based on those silly face altering apps. Very much a "time-capsule" series. 



     These paintings by Yigal Ozeri at Rutger Brandt's Gallery (also in Amsterdam) captured aspects of New York city life in this day and age as well as any other 20th/21st century paintings of NY (and had the first red dot I saw). They are images that we see daily here - the old women, often Asian, collecting cans and bottles to cash in. The stylish guy walking down the street with headphones in his own world, carrying shopping bags and a work bag. The portrait of the pretty young woman in the fur coat is excellently rendered, and her expression and look invite interpretation.



     On the other end stylistically were paintings by Ashley Norwood Cooper, which I just saw at the 14-C Hotel show in Jersey City a few weeks ago (see earlier blog post). Zinc Contemporary (Seattle) featured a few of these brightly colored, loosely rendered paintings looking at men, women and children through her eyes as a mom and artist. Undeniably energetic and heartfelt in a way.


 "Equestrian Portrait in Gandiul" by Los Bravu and another piece by same at Lyle O. Reitzel




Can't find notes on this one. click on it to enlarge and see details:


Another piece at the NL=US (Rotterdam) booth, by Javier Murcia.




SPRING BREAK
     Time was getting sparse for The Gallery Guy but I'm so glad I hit the Spring Break show on Madison Ave! In the old Ralph Lauren offices, with every booth (office space) curated by a dealer, independent curator, by an artist or the artist. It had the feel of the studios back in art school at the end of year with seniors and grad student projects being assembled and sometimes competing for space with all the energy that's involved. Most artists made the room itself part of the exhibit, often spilling into the hall.
     I always look for themes or repetition of materials or styles at every art fair and try to tie into the mindset of the world at the time. I noticed a return to Op Art and if not the undulations and trippiness of Op, then there are several works that include many, many thin lines - tape or paint. Sometimes horizontal or vertical, sometimes starbursts, sometimes geo and non-linear. Maybe it represents digital static? or the constant sensory bombardment we live in, in particular from our little life-dominating cell phones? 

Lane Cooper at River House Arts, Toledo Ohio
            
 
Artist: Patrick Schmidt


Other "themes": thread and sewing are still in full effect (often sewing objects together), like:
 
Artist: Caron Tabb


Artist: Liu Kincheole

       Lots of recreating an object in another material like giant foam pancakes or these guns by 
Natalie Baxter curated by Lauren Wolchik. "Guns Guns Guns" recreates a gun show with soft sculpture guns. Their droopy barrels are an interesting comment on the Freudian phallic aspect of these weapons.




     Also presenting hard objects in soft sculpture are Faith Holland's Soft Computing:




      A large installation by Ali Shrago Spechler (who cleverly made her "card" out of cardboard scraps) was made almost entirely out of cardboard. It was a recreation of the type of house her grandparents lived in, a home in 1938 Germany before fleeing the Nazis. She found out her grandma taught at a university (I hope I'm remembering our conversation correctly) and Ms. Spechler contacted people in Germany who either knew her grandmother or were there at the same time, and thus was able to get photos etc to recreate this home.



     If you've ever had conversations with Holocaust survivors as I have (some of my father's partners were) there's always an underlying sense of impermanence, that fear that everything can be taken away from you. I thought her use of cardboard, a material that reflects transience and disposability, appropriately captures that sense of impermanence by its very essence.


      This is David Kramer's "10 Year Plan". Pretty sure I've reviewed this before, but worth re-showing!



     Again, the use of reusing materials - these pieces are made of melted crayons.



Artist: Chambliss Giobbi


Artist: Kaveri Raina
    Another large installation, kinetics, light, metal - so much going on in this piece "The Infinity Gyre" by Michael A. Robinson and Sizhu Li, curated by Tansy Xiao.


Artist: Kellessimone Waits


      One gripe about Spring Break (and a few other fairs), this to the planners: for fuck's sake, this is New York City in the winter! Set up a coat room! NY'ers and fair goers are usually out for the day and have to carry their gear let alone winter coats and hats. Nothing is worse than schlepping around a coat, my bag, a note pad, booth cards and trying to take notes and pictures while chatting. And sweltering at the same time. Find a room, make some money for coat checks, too, and make your visitors experience much happier! Rant over.

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