In today’s New York Times, Roberta Smith makes an impassioned plea for the Folk Art Museum. She says New York needs to have access to its vast and unusual collection of objects and that it creates a counterpoint to the kinds of exhibitions shown at other institutions around town.  She criticizes the board of trustees for mismanagement and worse, but praises the exhibition program and curatorial bravery of the museum.  The current plan seems to be to sell off the collection to the Smithsonian or another institution, or even give the collection to one of them so that the trustees can just close the whole operation and get out of the business of folk art all together.

When a museum fails to pay its bills, fails to attract an audience, fails in every way but the art, what is the answer? One might ask the same questions about the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, another time-honored institution with a timid and unsophisiticated board of trustees who would rather sell off the collection than pony up the funds to keep the institution alive and whole.

Allora and Calzadilla's upturned tank/treadmill

After a week of racing through both the official and collateral events in Venice, it is hard not to notice the proliferation of  events organized by galleries, corporations or other commercial entities. There are palaces, storefronts and warehouses all over town devoted to one artist or group shows, some of which are pretty good, others are simply designed as commercial ventures and could easily be skipped. The main pavilions and the Arsenale are their usual mixture of memorable and not so memorable installations. The overall title of the Biennale this time is IllumiNATIONS, which the organizers say has to do with artists searching for light. However, to me the Pavilions and collateral exhibitions have more to do with degradation, desperation, dissolution and despair. We are everywhere confronted with uncomfortable truths we don’t really want to see, and sometimes that makes for pretty good art.  It is impossible to write about everything that I saw and liked, so here are a few highlights.

Church Organ ATM in the American Pavilion

I especially liked the American Pavilion. Even though their messages were completely unsubtle, Allora and Calzadilla did a masterful job of summing up the shallow and hypocritical state of politics, war, luxury, and society in the USA (if not the rest of the world). I love how the upturned tank/treadmill acts as a magnet to the pavilion with its ear-piercing clatter. It is an obvious statement, but a nice piece of work. The best is the ATM church organ. It is not only beautiful, it is hilarious, and it expresses one of the main leitmotifs of the Biennale–the worship of money. In the main rooms there are two wooden sculptures of first class airline seats that serve as platforms for acrobatic performances.

Acrobat at the American Pavilion

When they are activated by the gymnasts, who wear US Olympic team uniforms,  the sculptures make sense, but without them the space feels rather dead. For this reason I am glad that the IMA raised enough money to continue regular performances through the run of the Biennale.

 

Film still from the Japanese Pavilion

Another worthy effort is the Japanese pavilion. The young artist Tabaimo has created an entire animated world with a beautifully crafted video installation. It starts out with a cityscape that is gradually invaded by enormous mushrooms, flowers, fingertips and other organic materials that move in and out of the drawings. The entire effect is dramatized by mirrored walls and an opening in the center that shows us the sky, providing us with the realization that we are trapped in an upside down well. The experience is hallucinogenic and hypnotic. I don’t really understand what she is trying to say, but her mixture of anime, video, drawing and architecture is quite compelling.

Inside the British Pavilion

Mike Nelson’s British Pavilion takes us into another dystopia. This one is full of dusty, abandoned spaces, warrens of cast-off machinery, darkrooms hung with fading photographs, staircases leading to tiny rooms with ceilings so low one has to bend to walk through them into another similar space. It is no surprise that the lines to get in are blocks long—but what does one come away with? I am not sure.

And in this same vein,  Thomas Hirschhorn has transformed Switzerland’s pavilion into a terrifying maze of tin foil, PVC pipes, plastic-wrapped objects and low walls topped with broken bottles. Not my favorite of the offerings, but my discomfort with the installation must have been something the artist intended. He certainly lets us know that our commercialism is doomed and dangerous.

Christoph Schlingensief died before he could organize an exhibition for the German pavilion, but the curators decided to go ahead and make something using documentation and parts of earlier installations. The result won the Goldon Lion, and is a retrospective of his fluxus-inspired work within a church environment that Schlingensief created for another piece. The audience sits on pews surrounded by films of a rabbit being consumed by maggots, several clips showing the advance of a patient’s (the artist’s) lung cancer, and various other objects and projects from different stages of his life. The result is a moving pastiche of sound, film and setting that requires one to consider life, death, and decay. It is too bad we will never know what he would have done himself.

Still from Mary Koszymary

And then there is the puzzle of Poland.  Called “…and Europe will be stunned” Israeli artist Yael Bartana has created three interrelated videos about a movement calling for the return of Jews to Poland. On the surface, all seems reasonable. We see a political organizer addressing a stadium of supporters giving an impassioned speech. His purpose is to repatriate the 3 million Jews lost from the country during and after WWII. He tells us Poland needs them to have a vibrant, diverse, living culture.  The speaker has all the trappings of a charismatic leader, he pleads for sanity, he tells us that Poland misses the Jews, and that forty million Poles need Jews to enrich their culture. The video is straight propaganda and right out of the 700 Club or even Nazi Germany. One is moved by the idea of a newly diverse Poland, the idea of Poland perhaps welcoming Jews back in order to heal wounds from the past, even if the whole idea seems rather preposterous and creepy. And, one wonders, what is the message about Israeli culture embedded in this little film? How diverse is Israel these days? And, as expected, the second video unveils sinister underpinnings of the plan. In this video, Polish youth are building a settlement for the newly repatriated Jews. The settlement is tiny, its walls are high with no windows. The tops of the walls are ringed with barbed wire, and a watchtower is erected to guard the occupants, who wear armbands with the movement logo. A sign on the gate says Kibbutz. One is not certain whether the Jews are being protected or threatened.  Another snippet shows settlers being re-educated to Polish language and culture. What has happened, we wonder, to the idea of diversity?  We also wonder whether this is a comment on Israeli settlements in the occupied lands and its re-education of those who make “alia” as much as it is about Poland’s anti-Semitism. 

Film still from Zamach (Assasination)

In the third video the movement’s leader has been assassinated and we are at his funeral. An enormous (and horribly ugly, glasses and all) statue has been erected in his honor. Important speakers are invited to talk about his vision and life.  Several are Israelis who dismiss the movement out of hand, and movement youth praise him and vow to carry on the mission without him.  As we leave, visitors to the pavilion are invited to join the movement and are given numbered cards that carry its logo.  What are we joining? What does it mean? All in all it is one of the most powerful works of art in the Biennale. It is complicated, layered, international, political and well-crafted. And in addition to that, I am still thinking about it, puzzling it out, mulling it over, and I find that the more I learn about it the better I like it.

Venice Pavilion

There is a lot of water in this Biennale. In the Greek pavilion, we walk over a pond across a wooden platform. In the Venice pavilion Fabrizio Plessi has created a line of upright boats in a dark semi circular room, each with a waterfall video. The Israeli pavilion is a water purification plant by artist Sigalit Landou. The machinery winds through the space with pipes vibrating and groaning from the pressure. In addition to the

Video from Israeli Pavilion

pipes, there is a video of three naked women moving in and out of the ocean, scratching lines in the sand before they jump back into the waves. This is playful but also a bit ominous, reminding us that the economy of the entire country rests on its ability to de-salinate water and control whatever fresh water it can for the use of its population.  

Nathaniel Mellors's Sculpture

The International pavilion, curated by Bice Curiger, includes 83 artists and groups. There is a lot to see but it doesn’t all work together.  Highlights for me were the Cindy Sherman room, the Nathaniel Mellors videos and sculptures, the David Goldblatt photography, the Omar Fast video and of course, the Tintorettos at the entrance.

 

Adel Abdin, Consumption of War

Off site, pavilions that were particularly striking to me were the Bangladesh pavilion, the Luxembourg pavilion and the Zimbabwe pavilion. The Iraqi pavilion is called Wounded Water and features 6 artist’s interpretations of water, with haunting images of families and villages destroyed by war along with a hilarious, yet strangely moving video by Adel Abdin called “Consumption of War” that shows two men dressed in business suits battling with florescent lights, making jeddi warrior sounds as they swing their weapons.

Venice in Venice was a lot of fun, especially the light works of Laddie John Dill installed in the rough brick basement spaces. Artist Chiharu Shiota, represented by Haunch of Venison has an installation called “Memory of Books”on Via Garabaldi which is beautifully installed and the Tim Davies exhibition is too large but worth a quick visit if you are in the neighborhood to see Iraq and Bangladesh.

by Jan Rothschild

Next installment will cover the Arsenale and other off site exhibitions of note.

Maastricht-City-Center-at-Night

For a few days in March, not far from the cobble stone streets of the City Center of Maastricht designers have created a charming world all of its own to host TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair), one of the most respected and elite art fairs in the world. The Fair is housed in a large convention center, almost warehouse like in construction; however, one immediately forgets the humble origins of the structure upon entering the grand hall. One of the great pleasures of the Sotheby’s Institute Art Business program’s recent trip to Maastricht was learning about how designers created an environment in which collectors can lose themselves in the experience.

While in Maastricht, we had the privilege of meeting Tom Postma, the lead designer for TEFAF (as well as other fairs such as Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach). Mr. Postma stressed the necessity of transforming the “hideous warehouse” into a luxurious and spacious selling environment akin to a small city. Mr. Postma was extremely successful in this endeavor. During my time at the fair, I felt as if I were wandering the streets of a dream world – completely oblivious to time and the worries of everyday life.

Entering-the-Grand-Hall-at-TEFAF

TEFAF with its well-established layout offers distinct pathways which lead to nodes similar to the open spaces of piazzas found in European cities. These open spaces help guide visitors through the fair while providing a respite for social gathering in the midst of natural elements representative of Holland – tulips, tulips, and more tulips. Throughout the fair, one can also find café spaces, gathering areas, vendors, and sponsor booths carefully designed and thoughtfully placed within the “city”. The various gallery and dealer booths represented at the fair are meticulously monitored and quite a few are even designed by Mr. Postma himself.

View-of-a-Traditional-Booth-Inside-TEFAF

Every element of the fair, down to the design of the frieze, color choice of the gallery walls, and lighting style is chosen to enhance the visitor’s journey and the art. Planning for the design of fair begins a year in advance, however, it is all constructed three-weeks before the actual opening. Interestingly, all of the materials are pre-fabricated yet for the green-minded an emphasis is placed on choosing materials that can be repurposed year to year. Despite reusing the various materials, each year of the fair is designed to be significantly different depending on the design concept and participants. Next year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of TEFAF and Mr. Postma promises it to be spectacular and a year not to be missed.

By Johanna B. Barger, MA Art Business, 2011, Sotheby’s Institute of Art

Amalia Dayan and Daniella Luxembourg

Daniella Luxembourg and Amalia Dayan claim they never intended to open their new gallery to the public. According to Dorothy Spears, writing for the Huffington Post, the two young gallerists were sick of spending all of their time talking with the public and wanted to spend more time with art. Eventually, according to the article, they were forced to maintain public hours by sheer audience demand when they mounted an exhibition of Jeff Koons’s infamous porn paintings, Made In Heaven. But, they held their ground by not staying open on the most popular gallery going day, Saturday. Now, however, they do open on Saturdays in New York. What a shame.  They tell Spears that they are planning a London venue now and will try the closed- to-the-public strategy again. Good luck ladies.

Students in the Art Business program in New York traveled to the Netherlands last week to attend TEFAF and check out the burgeoning arts scene there. But huge changes are taking place that will mean reduced funding and fiscal pain for museums and other state funded arts organizations. We have this report from Artworld Salon.

The fair was a success, although the New York Times reported that crowds seemed thinner at the beginning of the fair. Carol Vogel spotted many museum directors, curators and international star art collectors among those attending in the early days. According to her report there was no mad rush to the door, and many dealers reported that sales, though brisk, were happening over the week and some sales would not conclude until after the fair closed.  We’ll have some guest bloggers impressions later this week.

And students from the SIA New York Contemporary Art program spent the week in the Middle East, attending the Sharjah Biennial as well as Art Dubai. The New York Times gave the biennial a rave review, and biennial curator Suzanne Cotter told the paper that she believes that the standing of the event has improved over the years.  We hope to have some of our own reviews from students when they return this week.

Winners of the Sharjah Biennial Art Prizes were announced today in a press release.

The Sharjah Art Foundation announces recipients of the 2011 Sharjah Biennial Prize as the 10th edition of the Sharjah Biennial, Plot for a Biennial, continues with eight weeks of cutting-edge exhibitions, film, performance, music and publications, March 16–May 16, 2011. Honorees of this year’s award totaling 30,000 USD include Trisha Donnelly, Imran Qureshi, Rania Stephan, Rayyane Tabet, and Jalal Toufic as selected by a jury of distinguished members. The 2011 selection committee included Director of MoMA PS1 Klaus Biesenbach, Director of Lebanon’s Ashkal Alwan, Christine Tohme, and art critic, media theorist, and Andrew Mellon Professor at the Courtauld Art Institute in London Boris Groys. The awards were presented over a celebratory gala dinner hosted by H.H. Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Member of the UAE Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah on Wednesday, March 16. The 2011 Sharjah Biennial is curated by Suzanne Cotter (Curator, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project) and Rasha Salti (Creative Director ArteEast), in association with Haig Aivazian (Chicago-based independent curator, artist and writer).

For a site-specific work conversing with the culture, history, and political realities of the region, the Sharjah Biennial Prize was awarded to Imran Qureshi for Blessings Upon the Land of my Love (2011), a powerful site-specific installation in the courtyard of Bait Al Serkal. The second primary prize was awarded to filmmaker Rania Stephan for the subjective and compassionate reading of one of the leading figures of Egyptian cinema, Souad Husni. The evening’s final primary prize was awarded to Trisha Donnelly for her new work. Additional prizes were awarded to artists Jalal Toufic and Rayanne Tabet. Jalal Toufic received special mention as “a philosopher, artist, and thinker” of note, while Rayyane Tabet received special mention as best “Emerging Artist,” for his 3-part installation Home on Neutral Ground (2011).

The Sharjah Biennial Prize was established by the Sharjah Biennial in 1993 and is now awarded by the Sharjah Art Foundation. The honored recipients are selected by a jury of distinguished members appointed by the Foundation. The Sharjah Biennial Prize is given in amounts totaling 30,000 USD upon the jury’s sole discretion and can be granted to any number of artists.

The reviews are starting to come in on Armory Week in New York. Roberta Smith weighed in today with a long piece in the New York Times. Or there’s this little item at Gothamist. Or check out this short video from Vernissage TV. (I’ve posted a link through SLAMHYPE so you don’t have to log in anywhere to watch it).

My two cents–the best show in town right now is at the Park Avenue Armory. It just gets better every year.

It’s Spring Break now for our students, then the New York group starts traveling. Art Business students are going to TEFAF in Maastricht, and the Contemporary Art students are headed for the middle east to Doha, Sharjah and Art Dubai. We’ll be featuring posts, photos and full reports in a few weeks with guest blogs from students.  Stay tuned.

The BIG ART FAIR WEEK in New York kicked off last night with the ADAA Park Avenue Armory event, a lovely gala to benefit the Henry Street Settlement. As always, the event was chock full of art world muckety mucks, including museum directors Richard Armstrong (Guggenheim),  Dorothy Kosinski (Phillips Collection) and Adam Weinberg (Whitney) and those are just three I spotted. Art star curators included Harry Cooper (National Gallery of Art), John Ravenall (Virginia Museum of Fine Art), Isabel Derveaux (Morgan Library), Ann Temkin (MoMA), Stephanie Baron (LACMA), Helen Varola (Pacific Design Center). Of course the real stars of the evening were the collectors, who, rumor has it, bought out several booths within hours of the opening.

Zhang Huan ash painting

Mark Glimscher (Pace)was overheard saying, “it was like candy, we sold out in a half hour and have nothing left to sell until tomorrow.” The Pace booth featured highly collectible, and apparently highly desireable small scale ash paintings by Chinese artist Zhang Huan.

For a roundup of other Armory Week events, Artnet has a useful post this week. See the listings HERE.

And of course, if you want to get inside the New York art world, it’s always useful to take one of our online or on the ground classes. Visit our website at www.sothebysinstitute.com and check out all of our offerings. Lots of classes start in March.

From Christian Marclay's "Clock" exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery, NY

If you are in New York this weekend, or if you can get to New York this weekend, be sure to see Christian Marclay’s “Clock”  at Paula Cooper Gallery. The 24 hour film is one of the most compelling works of art on view right now. Shown first in London, “Clock” is rumored to be on hold for MoMA’s collection, and as an edition of 6, it is sure to be in the holdings of other museums soon.  In his new role as art critic for Tina Brown’s Daily Beast/Newsweek, Blake Gopnik calls it a “masterpiece.” Click here to read his review. The exhibition closes Saturday at 6 pm. Don’t miss it.

a drawing from Marcel Dzama's "Behind Every Curtain" at David Zwirner Gallery, NY

Marcel Dzama’s new work on view at David Zwirner Gallery also involves film and performance, but is a work created from the artist’s imagination instead of from a collage of found material. Dzama has commissioned a ballet dedicated to the game of chess. He worked with dancers and craftsmen in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the influence of the setting and culture can be felt throughout the resulting film, which on opening night was accompanied by a live Mariachi band. The installation, called “Behind Every Curtain” includes rotating sculptures made from the original costumes, as well as dioramas of the action and story boards. The work comes out of a dada tradition, melding performance, magical realism and almost kitschy staging. Dzama has developed his own distinctive vocabulary of images that are charming and haunting at the same time. This new work is delightful and some of his strongest to date.

One of Tara Donovan's early pin drawings at Pace Gallery, NY

Chelsea’s galleries are full of good stuff right now. Just opened at Pace are Tara Donovan’s exquisite push pin paintings. Abstractions made from varying the density of the pins on the surface, these works are seductively beautiful and take Donovan’s work to a different place. She has, for many years, worked with everyday materials to make site specific sculptural objects, but these works are more painterly and depart from her usual explorations, while remaining true to her core practice. I find it interesting that she and Dan Steinhilber were working in Washington DC at the same time in the 1990′s and early 2000s and both using cups, rug remnants, pins, thread and other commonly found objects in transformative ways. ArtInfo made this show one of its top picks.

Works from "Soot and Shine" at Donald Sultan's studio

Donald Sultan has some fine new works on view at Mary Ryan. The show is called “Soot and Shine” and characteristically Sultan uses tar, wax, and floor tiles to create domestic-scale objects of desire. 

From Mika Rottenberg's "Squeeze"

Walking into Mary Boone has proved extraordinary in recent months. In December, her show of Mika Rottenberg blew me away and a planned ten minute visit turned into an hour or more in front of the screen. Now, she’s showing Terence Koh and a ten foot high conical mound of salt. Koh, on his knees in a white suit, eyes closed, circumnavigates the salt pile as if in prayer. Sounds rather tame, but in fact, the work is mystical and gorgeous.  Of course, because it is Koh, the work is meditations on shades of white, while at the same time, asking us to consider pain, suffering, need, want and shame.  The gallery assistant said he will be performing in the space for eight hours every day it is open. I liked this work much better than I ever expected.

Jennifer Rubell with her sculpture of Prince William at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

And, although I’m not there, if I were in London I’d be rushing over to the Stephen Friedman Gallery on Old Burlington Street to check out Jennifer Rubell’s “Engagement” exhibition. Rubell plays with our royals obsession by commissioning a wax sculpture of Prince William with THE RING attached to his arm, inviting all who wish to grab hold and slip our fingers into the conveniently vacant slot. The result? I’m on the arm of the prince, wearing that famous ring. Beyond funny and all the rage.

Gagosian Gallery’s new exhibition by Francesco Vezzoli is a valentine to our obsession with fame, fortune and fashion and a rather hilarious send up of commerce as our modern religion. But is the work worth the trip to chelsea? how much should we care about supermodels with needlepoint tears and Vezzoli’s mother dressed as the virgin mary singing pop tunes? Are we supposed to be outraged? Is the commentary anything new? This is certainly not new territory for Vezzoli, whose work has explored the themes of fame, sex, blasphemy and sin for many years. The New York Times blog calls it “irreverent” in this post from last week. What do you think?

Join the conversation about contemporary art in New York with our new online classes starting in March. The class on Contemporary Art is taught by Sotheby’s Institute’s own Stephen Pascher.