PHOTOS HERE of today's THE ARMORY SHOW and VOLTA vernissages.
Things seemed a wee bit more 'jolly' this year. Why is that? Certainly someone had put their 'thinking cap' on and thought about using space more user friendly-ly. The Armory Show VIP lounge has moved and is now rather more worthy of name. Loads more space. A proper reservation dining area. Whether everyone really wants a view of New Jersey through the loading dock 'window' is debatable? But, hey. we all like to look at water. (Perhaps not when it is lapping at our artwork...Andrew ! please-s.u.!) they remember...no they don't. Everyone is blissfully happy and making money. And Volta had live jazz in their rear 'area' , comfy seating that didn't incur a hernia arising from;) ! Adjacent to where the salon talks will occur. Seems like there's little not to like this year....And those arty 'things' are regressing back to a little less 'market driven' it would appears. But what do I know. I am only a Gnome.
I saw NO celebs at the vernissage today. I never have! I think it's a 'moon landing conspiracy';) Either they are all hiding from me (well: I don't blame you- I hide from myself;) or it is all just cleverly photoshopped. Well: what isn't nowadays? Certainly not the art in these fairs to say in all fairness. It is easy to be cynical. It is much harder to use your eyes as to whatever creator you credit gave you them and experience. Even harder (maybe...maybe not) to experience the street outside and the ever-present Hustler neon across the street from the Piers as you wend one's way home.
there is a lot more to come folks...rollup...roll up..
Fidelio...
What is so very soul/brain enriching at these art fair weeks is seeing, if only a couple of galleries, that speak to you. I’ll work backwards-forewords on this ‘cause it would be nice to share before it is all over. Next week is another day! …I think ‘share’ is my second loathed betty noire word to awesome. ! A song comin' on: 'Whatever happened to eclectic and vibrant, fascinating and gorgeously flawed, asynchronous monotony. Everyone now is a sphincter pain even with wolf blast! Whatever happened to Klaus?'....
Many may think. Just justifiably, that the so-called independent art fairs are selling out. Spring Break agrees to two floors in a 42nd St scraper (akimbo Conde Nast;) that is being refurbished. Dare I say- the developers would get great artistic value for money if they paid some of those artists to make their building grow instead of sit and fester into conformity. ! Independent went ‘clean’ with Spring Studios. It isn’t the Independent we once knew. But….swings and roundabouts….the revelation was Disko Girls at Delmes & Zander. They are a well-established Berlin/Koln gallery for 30 years. A normal Berlin guy came to them with a portfolio he had found in his attic. 50-unsigned, credited Anonymous. It was a world premier for them at Independent. One buyer bought 40 of the 50 drawings instantly. I don’t blame him/her/it. Hoping that collector holds for the long haul- which I sense they will, not selling off works individually, though they were/are up for sale that way. You want great outsider art her it is. They are dated to the 1970/early 80’s for various cultural references in the art. A fascinating trope is smallpox vaccination marks on the arms of every second female figure. Why? The reason art should exist. Posing questions, even perhaps inadvertently. Does someone want to leave me some more 'something' so that I can create and truly pursue my passion for a collection that isn't an instant/fragmented sale to the A list auction houses. BORING!
gewöhnlichauß
Garth Greenan Gallery presents Howardena Pindell: Video Drawing, 1974-1976. More fascinatin' outsider art that could easily be 'inside' and sell for loads more if the gallery market/'whatever' forces prevailed.
Having said all that: I totally respect the opinion of one panelist today at the Armory Show talks who said 'I buy something, with my money, then it is my legal right to do what I want with it! ' (2:30PM-Conversations on Collecting | Hypotheses on the Future of the Art Market-Presented by Athena Art Finance)
Yet agin: there is a 'European sensibility' that trumps everything. Even before a realtor was ever born. ! Was that ever so...( I am a bit of a dreamer at heart...my Achilles HeLL but I am over it now :) ! Thanks to Xanadu-Annexx...an extra...PLUS...that only horses and smart canines fear....You were just sold it by the pixel meta data of ....
And then there is the Richard Prince dis-ownership of a work arising 'cause of Trump ownership. Yet agin: if any/the/an artist makes a statement then THAT in and of itself is an artwork! The art-world THUS becomes neh: enthralling. Enriching. And one of my other betty noire words humbling. Oft used pathetically. Unknowingly.
used . hangs .then the truth will be yjerer for the next i....... I guess they willl never4 be....
A show in town that has hit after hit is The Art Show (ADAA)-nobody could leave without a wow of many sorts or other. After only a random aisle of a half dozen galleries it was just WOW. Arrived at around 4pm and then suddenly it was 7pm and closing time. Impossible to single out any one artist or gallery. Maybe I'll throw out a few names because to write about everything would just take way too long. And you don't want to read a Gnome writing on water now do you;) !
柒 貳 參 玖 陸 壹 肆 捌 伍 拾參 拾柒 拾肆 拾玖 拾伍 千
انعكاس
Olafur Eliasson (Tanya Bonakdar Gallery)
Love you Mia....
Then lovers hastily are drawn
To one another, vague and dreaming,
And in the heat, upon a tree
The sweating nesting-box is steaming.
And sleepy clock-hands laze away
The clock-face wearily ascending.
Eternal, endless is the day,
And the embrace is never-ending
Boris Pasternak
She has no coquetry.. she does not wish to please or look beautiful. She despises all that side of a woman’s life. It’s as though she were punishing herself for being lovely. But this proud hostility to herself makes her more attractive than ever.
I Don't Want To Know (Dear World)
..........my guilty pleasure...my website;) Gene K. may not have been the greatest dancer but he was a great great great great dancer...
Would Gene K. approved of this? !
Sometimes—there's God—so quickly!
Wasser stürzt, uns zu verschlingen,
Rollt der Fels, uns zu erschlagen,
Kommen schon auf starken Schwingen
Vögel her, uns fortzutragen.
Aber unten liegt ein Land,
Früchte spiegelnd ohne Ende
In den alterslosen Seen.
Marmorstirn und Brunnenrand
Steigt aus blumigem Gelände,
Und die leichten Winde wehn.
Reiselied (1898)-Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874 - 1929)
Evenings, when I go to sleep,
Fourteen angels with me keep,
Two stand at my head,
Two at the foot of my bed,
Two are at my right hand,
Two are at my left hand,
Two in covers tuck me,
Two at morning wake me,
Two that point the way to rise
To heaven's paradise.
Engelbert Humperdinck Hänsel und Gretel
Once upon a time
there was a lonely wolf
lonelier than the angels.
He happened to come to a village.
He fell in love with the first house he saw.
Already he loved its walls
the caresses of its bricklayers.
But the windows stopped him.
In the room sat people.
Apart from God nobody ever
found them so beautiful
as this child-like beast.
So at night he went into the house.
He stopped in the middle of the room
and never moved from there any more.
He stood all through the night, with wide eyes
and on into the morning when he was beaten to death.
Fable - Janos Pilinszky
