our next show in san francisco

will be chris ballantyne, opening the 30th of january.   using simple, graphic imagery, he describes the edges of american landscape.    places between suburbia and wilderness.   scenes that are almost possible.

he’ll make a painting on the walls of the gallery, as well as having india ink on paper works like these — “yard” (above) and “untitled house (mobile)” (below),

and acrylic paintings on panel, like “plateau”

or the diptych, “waterfall.”

at the same time, we’ll show stephanie metz’s needle-felted wool sculptures.  they too are paradoxical.   formalist sculpture or house pet you don’t have to feed or clean up after?   attractive or kind of icky?

i stumbled onto a blog

that i like quite a lot – vulgare.net – a collection of landscape, architecture and art images.  mostly, the images aren’t original.    there’s very little text and what’s there isn’t really critical.   but the images are well-curated.    some of my favorite things are illustrated – carlo scarpa’s brion-vega cemetary, derek jarman’s prospect cottage, the high line in chelsea (http://toddhosfelt.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/the-first-phase-of-the-highline/), piet oudolf’s work.

and there were some delightful discoveries -

helmut smits’ “street fountain” 2002 (an intervention in an existing pot hole):

http://www.helmutsmits.nl/

and vesting bourtange:

http://www.bourtange.nl/site/index.php (wish i read dutch)

mineo mizuno’s beautiful ceramic and moss sculptures:

http://www.mineomizuno.com/new08/galleries/g2_moss_/1Moss_onceramic/index.html

helmut dick’s “lettuce field as big as a sky-scraper building” 2001

http://www.helmutdick.de/

this is a blog that’s worth getting sucked into.   check it out.

site

can really influence the way you look at an artwork.    two examples.

gerhard mayer makes drawings, both on paper –  we showed some a couple of months ago in san francisco http://toddhosfelt.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/were-about-to-open-a-show/ — and directly on walls –

he recently completed a commission for the ceiling of  a church – markgrafenkirche -  in seibelsdorf, germany.    built in 1743, the original patron ran out of funds before an artist could be hired to paint the ceiling,  so the medallion in the ornate interior was empty for 266 years…

emil lukas has an installation at sperone switzerland through the end of march called “accumulate and dissolve.”   a triptych of “thread paintings”  –

four drawings made with maggots dipped in ink and allowed to trail across a surface  –

and a cast plaster and watercolor work — all hung in a space that was stables…

happy new year!

we’re wishing you good health, happiness and the love of good friends…

william blake & samuel palmer at the morgan library

the morgan library is probably my favorite museum in new york.    i recently went for the show of william blake — whose work always startles me with its eccentricity and freshness.   genius, really.     though the exhibition design is uninspired and not all of  blake’s work is wonderful (when not up to snuff his watercolors are muddy and his imagery the ravings of a crackpot), this is an excellent show.

in addition to the mogan’s enormous blake holdings, the show included a few pieces by some of his contemporaries.    for me, the best part of the show was the re-discovery of samuel palmer.  i’d written a paper about 4 jewel-like paintings at the ashmolean as an undergraduate (years ago), and hadn’t thought about palmer since.    but then i saw his “pear tree in a walled garden.”

can you believe this was painted in 1829!?    how lovely and pre-van gough…      then, when i went upstairs to see the “acquisitions since 2004 show,” i found this:

“oak tree and beech, lullingstone park” (about 1828)  pencil, pen and brown ink, watercolor and gouache on gray paper, 11 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches.     wow!    this is one of the most beautiful drawings i’ve ever seen.    as i walked through the rest of the show i kept coming back to this.   that glorious oak, expressed with a few lines in brown and a little bit of transparent pigment,  is the source of gravity that anchors you to the convex earth.   while the horizon, defined by crackling yellowy-orange tongues of flame, tilts off dizzyingly, the tree is solidly grounded.    a source of comfort in an uncertain world…

william blake’s world: “a new heaven is begun” is up at the morgan library until 3 january 2010.

mary shelley’s frankenstein –

read for my book group -  couldn’t possibly be more different from the popular culture it spawned.   the monster is not victor frankenstein’s creation, but victor frankenstein himself.   a creator who withholds love from his creation, refuses to accept responsibility for his actions and is too self-absorbed to step forward and save those he professes to love from the events he has set in motion.

miami

it’s the first week in december, so  i must be back in miami for the art fairs.  boy, what a difference a year makes.   this time last year looked like the end of the world.   the galleries accustomed to selling their booths out opening night found they’d sold little or nothing by the end of the week.    speculative buyers who’d been elbowing each other out of the way to be first to get at the touted darling of the moment were conspicuously absent.   there were few museum curators.   there were incredulous reports of the most self-important gallerists in the world behaving, well, politely.    the gestalt:   shell-shocked.

there are fewer fairs this year and in most of them, far fewer exhibitors.   consequently, the whole mess is lots easier to navigate.   the mood is upbeat — “cautiously optimistic” — the catch-phrase.    attendance is high.   though i’m not sure any of them are buying, there are lots of museum curators here.   the speculators and those buying with their ears, rather than eyes have yet to re-surface.  collectors are buying.

we did the PULSE fair this year and i’m very happy with the organizers, the space and the other exhibitors.      we have two booths – a project booth with russell crotty’s new “surf” work and a big booth with new work by a dozen of our gallery artists.     sorry that the photos aren’t up to my usual standards, but my camera’s battery is dead and i’ve had to rely on the kindness of strangers with iphones.

our crotty IMPULSE booth:

and a view of our main booth and works by (left to right) jutta haeckel, marco maggi and driss ouadahi:

design miami

i’d like to go on record as saying that by comparison, contemporary design makes contemporary art seem completely reasonable.    coinciding with the art fairs in miami is design miami – “the global forum for collecting, exhibiting, discussing and creating design.”   we went to the opening and i found it, well, unnerving.   first of all, everyone was TOUCHING the work.   as someone who deals with fine (as opposed, i guess, to functional) art, this makes me break out in a cold sweat.   never touch art you don’t own.   there were some interesting and beautiful objects — creepily amusing video clocks by maarten baas  and the elegant “fractal table” by oberfell/wertel/bar at moss ($42,000).

a couple of examples of the kind of stuff exhibited that i hated:  tom dixon’s steel chair that’s been corroding in biscayne bay ever since it didn’t sell at last year’s fair and more of maarten baas’s burned up iconic modern furniture (this year a cabinet designed by ettore sottsass).

but the worst thing i saw was a “walking table.”     ?!     a perfect example of a horrible idea, poorly executed.    the clunky monstrosity doesn’t so much walk as shudder and lurch.  i just finished reading “frankenstein” and i couldn’t help thinking this would make mary shelley spin in her grave.

another table — points scored for the craftsmanship of the inlay…

but who really wants to look at this kind of iconography while they eat?    maybe it’d be amusing the first time, but imagine sitting at it dinner party after dinner party?    and just try to find dinnerware that would look decent on it.

jury out on these ceiling fans…    made of fabric, they spin out and undulate “like the skirt of a flamenco dancer.”     admittedly,  kind of fun…    but as louis would say, do you really want your interior to have more personality than you have?

which is pretty much the fatal flaw with about everything at design miami…

i did see one fan i loved — the new dyson design (not at the actual fair, but in a showroom across the street) is amazing.     it’s a table fan without blades.    i don’t know about you, but i have a sick fear of fan blades.   you know,  afraid you might not be able to help sticking your finger in?    problem solved.     and even if you aren’t afraid of cutting off the end of your finger, you do know how grotesquely filthy fan blades get.     second problem solved.    how can this possibly work?   it was explained to me, and i thought i understood it, but i really can’t explain it to you now.  sorry.   so maybe i can’t define it, but i do know it when i see it.   this is what design should be  –  elegant,  intelligent, functional.

we’re about to open a show

of gerhard mayer’s drawings.     i love them.   they’re the perfect example of  infinite variation.  these are hand-made drawings of ink on paper.     they’re made tracing an ellipse and following 7 rules:

1.  the paper is always the same size – 34.3 x 43.4 cm

2.  each drawing is made by tracing one ellipse

3.  the ellipse always lies in the horizontal

4.  ellipses may not transect the edge of the paper

5.  a complete ellipse may not be drawn

6.  in each position of the stencil, at least three lines must be generated to define the ellipse

7.  only lines may be generated, not points

the first and fourth images are details, the rest are full drawings.    the photographs were taken by david stroud.   the exhibition opens saturday the 24th and runs through the 5th of december.

parikrama humanity foundation

a friend of mine works with an organization that is attempting to alleviate the cycle of poverty in india by giving the very poorest children access to first-rate education.    parikrma humanity foundation currently educates 1,100 Indian children between the ages of 5 and 15 who are orphaned, have been abandoned, or are from households with incomes of less than $20 per month.  In addition to the very highest-quality education, the children receive three meals a day, medical care and clothing.   the education is in english, giving the children access to higher education and preparing them to compete for skilled employment.  special emphasis is made to provide access to parikrma’s educational opportunities to girls.

parikrma humanity foundation is a non-profit organization based in bangalore, india.   parikrma usa inc. is registered as a 501 (c) (3) tax exempt entity in the united states.

i’m hosting events in the galleries in support of the program.    there’ll be a silent auction of the kids’ artworks and shukla bose, founder of the organization will tell the story of the organization.  please join us!

NEW YORK: Tuesday 20 October, 6 pm

SAN FRANCISCO: Wednesday 28 October, 6 pm

for more information, or to make a donation, please visit:     http://www.parikrmafoundation.org/home.htm