ArtChicago: the “Artropolis” has shrunk!

The good news: small is beautiful.

I am among those who remember when ArtChicago was held on Navy Pier and had a well-deserved reputation as one of the premier showcases for fine art galleries anywhere. It took me many years to return to it after it left there. Last year when I finally saw the show again, it was disappointing. Although it sprawled throughout two floors of the mammoth Merchandise Mart, with some exceptions the work was tepid, timid, commercially slick, or conceptual vacuous.

This year the scaled-down show took up a single floor and, although nothing like its former Navy Pier incarnation, I found it much more stimulating than last year. In fact, I enjoyed it very much. As with any large art show, there were galleries to slip past with a quick glance. But I found myself lingering in them more often than not. The mood also was upbeat with gallery owners saying that they were making sales.

I would have loved to bring home a beautiful 20”x16” Wayne Thiebaud painting for my wife, who is fond of his work. The card said, “price upon request,” so I did. “Just under a million,” was the reply. Nuts. Over my budget. Then I came across a slightly off-sized print of Ansel Adams’s iconic “Moonrise over Hernandez,” measuring a curious 19½”x23¼” also labeled “price upon request.” I had to wonder how large the 20”x24” edition was and the price on the last one of it. This one was “almost a quarter million.” For a print! Later I came across a similarly sized Nevelson sculpture for $125,000, which seemed a great deal by comparison.

It was nice to see good work by a few big names like those and others, but the contemporary art was especially engaging. As I chatted with the dealers about one artist or another, I was asked numerous times if I was a collector. Ever hopeful, I’m sure. I would love to be. Of all the work I saw there my first pick would have been a photographer named Soi Park who had a series called “Buscar Trabajo” (looking for work.) Park photographed Latinos in situations that appeared dangerous, as if they were running or hiding from immigration officers.

What follows is a selection of things that caught my eye – and held it for more than a moment or two. There were many more.

 

The show began on the sidewalk outside the Merchandise Mart. This is a detail of "Vertical Vegetation" by Jason Verbeek, Cor-ten steel and sedum.

 A giant print by Shepard Fairey hung like a banner across the entrance to the elevator lobby. (Detail)

"Unblinking," Shin Young An, oil on newspaper.

"All you need is Love," Joshua Hagler, oil on canvas.

Two photographic works by Michal Macku.

Sadly topical the day of the fair, "Offenes Gelande" (open terrain), Ulf Puder, oil on linen.

"Eternal Eye," Lucy Slivinski, found objects, steel wire, electric light (detail).

I didn't see individual titles on these translations of urban graffiti into precious Huichol-style pieces made by gluing together colored threads with natural wax. Laura Ortiz Vega.

"Meditative Mermaid," Cecelia Paredes, photograph

"Quaver," Rachel Nee, smoke and aquacryl on board

"The mess of emotion, no. 12," Rim Lee, oil on canvas (detail)

"Billboards, NY: Houston and Lafayette Streets," Wouter Deruytter, gelatin silver on dibond

As usual, the "Next" portion of the fair included edgier work and some off-beat installations like these ironing boards set up to resemble fair-goers ambling down the aisles.

Despite its diminished size, I still didn’t make it to all the galleries. But I did make a point to visit the three who came down from Milwaukee.

Debra Brehmer, Portrait Society Gallery

Tory and Christine Anderson, Tory Folliard Gallery

Claudia Mooney, The Green Gallery

And one former Milwaukeean, Russell Bowman at his eponymous Chicago gallery

Being Arts Without Borders, I loved that the Chicago Poetry Center had a booth at the fair. They had a series of broadsides that combine artworks with poems. A collaboration between Lawrence Ferlingetti and Ed Paschke was quite stunning, but my favorite was this piece. The text of the marvelous poem by Ana Castillo follows.

I Ask the Impossible

I ask the impossible: love me forever.
Love me when all desire is gone.
Love me with the single-mindedness of a monk.
When the world in its entirety,
and all that you hold sacred, advise you
against it: love me still more.
When rage fills you and has no name: love me.
When each step from your door to your job tires you—
love me; and from job to home again.

Love me when you’re bored—
when every woman you see is more beautiful than the last,
or more pathetic, love me as you always have:
not as admirer or judge, but with
the compassion you save for yourself
in your solitude.

Love me as you relish your loneliness,
the anticipation of your death,
mysteries of the flesh, as it tears and mends.
Love me as your most treasured childhood memory—
and if there is none to recall—
imagine one, place me there with you.
Love me withered as you loved me new.

Love me as if I were forever—
and I will make the impossible
a simple act,
by loving you, loving you as I do.

 

Starving Artists smile at Mount Mary College

To misquote one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite old movies, Little Big Man—“It’s a good day to starve.” Today was one of those perfect, crisp, almost-autumn, apple-picking days when the sun melts over everyone like hot caramel. I did go apple-picking at Barthel’s farm in Mequon. Then, on my way home, I stopped at Mount Mary College to check out their Starving Artists Fair.

I’ve always worried over that name—“starving artists.” Doesn’t it sound just the teensiest bit patronizing? But it seems to work as a marketing ploy, not only for the art-buying public, but for the artists, too. I spoke with several who unanimously agreed it had been a great day. I arrived late, after the grass had been completely flattened and some of the booths stripped of their wares. Photographer Fred Fischer said I should have been here at 10 a.m. when they opened the gates. Apparently it was like opening the doors of the mall on Black Friday. Or, to outrageously mix my metaphors, like the start of the running of the bulls in a china shop!

Life imitates art?

With low booth fees and lots of sales, the artists did well. (They come from all over the state year after year; it has to be worth it.) With the maximum value set at $100, the price conscious art-buying public did well. (For the artists that’s a thankfully higher maximum than past fairs.) And with hordes of people paying $5 entry fees and buying refreshments, the college did well. Sounds like a win-win-win to me. Although, by design, this fair caters to lowest economic denominators of art (I overheard one potter confide that he brought only his ‘seconds’ along), it’s nothing to shake a rag at when art sells during a recession.

And, just as the old Indian in Little Big Man didn’t die that day, no one at Mt. Mary seems to have starved either.

Art reflects life?

If you missed this one and have a hankering to go to an art fair, you’re in luck! The Hidden River Art Festival in Brookfield is next weekend.

AIPAD vs. ArtChicago: Two very different art fairs!

Major museum surveys of contemporary art, like the current Whitney Biennial (through May 30), sit on the artistic landscape the way monumental sculpture sits in a public square, unavoidable and imposing. They aspire to be arbiters of taste, cataloguing contemporary trends and identifying cutting edge new work. (See my earlier blog.) By contrast, art fairs are transient, ephemeral. They show up on a regular schedule, but more like traveling salesmen who are here today, gone tomorrow. However, because the sole purpose of an art fair is to sell art, they may reflect the culture in ways that a museum survey doesn’t.

I managed to see two such art fairs recently and I was struck by their distinctly different personalities: the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) show in New York (March 18-21) and ArtChicago (April 30-May 3). Leaving aside the obvious surface difference—the AIPAD galleries specialize in photography, while the galleries at ArtChicago include a wide range of art media—I found the types of artists represented in each to be nearly the inverse of the other. Blue chip was the name of the game at AIPAD—and the name of the artists generally those I learned as a freshman in an introduction to photography. Small, vintage black and white silver prints ruled the day, vastly outnumbered the large, color work by contemporary photographers. I could have bought this same famous image by Cartier-Bresson at three different galleries (if I didn’t need to pay the mortgage for about a year!)

Most odd, considering the familiarity of the vintage work, was the unfamiliarity of many of the contemporary photographers. If the top names in vintage photography were abundant, why weren’t the top names in contemporary photography? (I suppose if I’d asked that question of one of the dealers, they might have insisted that I simply haven’t kept up with that shifting territory.)

At ArtChicago the opposite prevailed. With a few exceptions, the blue chips and famous names were missing while the vast majority of work was by artists unknown not only to me but to the group of art aficionados with whom I went. Not sure whether it was Chicago vs. New York, painting and sculpture vs. photography, or some less tangible cultural phenomenon. But here’s the monkey wrench: the photography at ArtChicago was more likely to be both contemporary and familiar, like Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, Alec Soth.

The work at AIPAD was remarkably good, and the prices seemed to be defying the gravity of today’s economy. Most of the big names, Kertész, Weston, et. al., went for $30,000 to over $100,000 for 8”x10” prints. The highest price I noticed was for a jewel-like 2¼” square print of this famous Arbus image: $275,000.

The few big names at ArtChicago commanded similar prices. Albers’s 9”x12” Homage to the Square can still be had for a mere $70,000. But since these were the exception, the prices were generally much lower. So, what about the art? I enjoyed both shows very much, but…. Further reflections on this to come. A random sample from the NEXT portion of ArtChicago is below. I hope you’ll check back.