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It was imperative that I visited the Philadelphia galleries present at Red Dot on East 28th Street since I have been talking fairs up as the way to go. Have you heard the tales of galleries making 50% of their annual income at fairs? I have. Wow, though I’m not all that surprised. Based on the “Scope” model, Red Dot sets the galleries up in hotel rooms. It can’t help but be intimate and has good points and bad. It means you almost are required to say hello. It is also a challenge to gauge the caliber of art which is never displayed to best advantage even if extra lighting is used. However, most fair goers develop the ability to overlook this after a while. In fact, one has to focus exclusively on the work itself and leave the context behind. This is not always easy. Some galleries used the room as-is while others intervened with the decor mildly or used the bathtubs. There were three Philadelphia galleries at Red Dot so it was like home away from home. Pentimenti had chosen Jackie Tileston and Margaret Murphy and others to bedeck the tiny walls and the presentation looked good. The Ashley Gallery was showing David Mann’s atmospheric densely colored biomorphic painting. They are wonderfully made and not the least bit trendy. I have known him since he was a teacher at Syracuse and it is great to see him getting an ever-widening audience. Projects Gallery seemed quite at home having been doing fairs for years. Small face sculptures of famous people were selling as I came in. I am a witness. My chat with Sarah Ruddell from Dillon Gallery was illuminating. When asked why a large Chelsea space felt the need to show at a small satellite fair she had a good answer. Basically, you meet a whole different level of the art audience and there is a unique range of collectors and curators at small fairs. Plus, the PR comes with the package. I must say that everything at Dillon stood out, especially the artist Alexander Kaletski who had made an installation that cleverly enclosed the bed. This suited his paintings which were all on flattened card board boxes. I had never run across Kaletski before and here I am writing about him. He uses some subtle modernist tropes within a care-free graffiti aesthetic thrown in. Mostly singular portraits, one was channeling Miro. They were all simply charming, to use an old fashioned word. At Bucheon Gallery of San Francisco, I was drawn to the work of Timothy Marvel Hull. I liked his cut-out antique maps with little Jim Lambie like-designs replacing the negative space. They mixed old and new and stood out, possibly, because they looked like they were from another earlier period when Picabia was alive That is a plus in my book Also showing at Red Dot was the Kenise Barnes Gallery from Larchmont, NY just outside the city It was interesting to see such small regional spaces competing with Chelsea galleries and showing quality work. She said she represented a few Philly artists as well! Although the caliber of artists at this level of fair can be patchy, it has a lot to offer over the glitz of the Pier. It is truly user friendly and the prices can turn everyone into a collector. This way both galleries and artists get a boost. Red Dot had a democratizing effect where all galleries share the buzz and all the visitors wanted to see what all the fuss is about. Did I mention that there was a handy map of the fairs which located clearly all nine in total? Too much for me on a day trip in February but seeing our fair city mixing it up with galleries from London, San Francisco, New York, and Boston is great. It seems our humble art businesses have joined the merry art boom and it cannot hurt our prestige at all. Next stop for Pentimenti and Seraphin: Affordable Art Fair, New York, June 2007! This is getting interesting. Back to InLiquid's Commentary section index © 2007 James Rosenthal and InLiquid.com; image copyright © David Mann and Ashley Gallery |
