madrid – nouvel’s reina sophia/espacio minimo/churros y chocolate/color red

the atrium of jean nouvel’s new reina sophia… and a view of the outside from the street…

we checked out espacio minimo — the gallery that shows liliana porter in spain — a first-rate gallery and a beautiful space. liliana’s work has always seemed a bit of an anomaly in their program, which can be pretty aggressive and even grotesque. admittedly, liliana’s work is not with out its perversity… but as i looked at the goya of saturn devouring his young at the prado, the aesthetic of the gallery and it’s place in the history of spain and spanish art made sense to me… (doctor fourquet, 17, madrid – http://www.espaciominimo.com)

we had an excellent lunch with jose and luis at “samar kanda” in the estacion de atocha. the food was continentally-influenced and was fantastic. the room is slightly colonial and overlooks the beautiful “winter garden” of the train station. this is one of the very few restaurants in spain that isn’t over-lit. the central train station of madrid, where the the restaurant is located, was overhauled in 1992 by pritzker prize winner rafael moneo. the original glass and steel building was designed in the 1880’s by a spanish architect who allegedly had design advice from gustave eiffel.

luis and jose recommended a couple of restaurants and based on our experience at samar kandar, i trust their advice. make reservations. we tried to walk in and couldn’t get a table. “come prima” at calle echegara 7. “zerain” on pais vasco.

also, have churros y chocolate at “chocolatería san gines,” pasadizo de san gines, hours: 6p-7a m-sun.

& when you’re dying for something other than jamon – excellent indian food at “guru,” calle echegaray 21 @ c. del prado.

at one point tessa said, “wow, it’s so nice to be somewhere where the men wear real shoes.” they also wear red/orange trousers and can pull it off.

shop for beautiful shoes (men and women) at “carmina shoemakers” – gran via 58, men’s clothes at “gallery” on calle jorge juan in barrio de salamanca, and women’s clothes at “ekseption” on calle velasquez.

herzog & de meuron — caixa forum

the best thing about contemporary architecture outside of the u.s. is the way it gets integrated into the fabric of the historical city. the new herzog and de meuron designed caixa forum (http://obrasocial.lacaixa.es/centros/caixaforummadridedificio_es.html) in madrid is shoe-horned into a narrow site bordered by tiny streets and looks like the junky space craft from ‘alien’ landed on top.

an old pink brick warehouse-style building was cut off at the knees and seems to float off the ground. in itself, that would look startling, but add an enormous, rusting, perforated steel-clad hulk to the roof and you get crowds of curious viewers.

the texture of the old pink brick and the tracery of the rusty steel are beautiful against the planted wall of the building that fronts paseo del prado. we didn’t get inside (and i hate it when buildings look good from the outside but don’t function well inside) but as a sculptural form in the context of the city, this gets 5 stars from me…

paseo del prado, 36 madrid

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ARCO (madrid)

ARCO is supposed to be the oldest art fair – this is the 27th year – and by far the most heavily attended – more than 2oo,ooo people over six days – of the big international art “trade shows”. there are 25o-ish galleries in 3 pavilions. the range of work is enormous and the quality of the fair and work displayed is really high. the most expensive piece was a 23,ooo,ooo (that’s euros – not dollars) francis bacon painting, but there are two entire sections of the fair that are dedicated to emerging artists. this is the second year we participated. this year we were invited to do a project with jim campbell in the “expanded box” (new media) section of the fair. we took two pieces and installed them in a completely black space. sorry, my photos don’t look like anything, so i’m not including them. i was really happy with the booth, and like this fair a lot, but the location of the “expanded box” section sucked.

the fair is a beating to work. it runs wednesday to monday from 12 a.m. to 9 p.m. a long time on your feet on concrete.

this gallery – paris 1900-2000 – has great material. mostly work on paper – collage, drawing, photography – but also painting. highlights included several hans bellmer pieces.

of course, a lot of the art there is

(like this painting)

and for god’s sake, what’s with julian opie?

ARCO has a series of educational programs and each year has a “guest country” (this year was brazil) ensuring you’ll see galleries and artists that you don’t see at every other fair. when you consider that it’s in madrid, it beats the hell out of art basel miami and all of its satellites…

a really nice fabric piece by louise bourgeois at carolina nitsch:

‘ode a la nieve’ – a bound fabric book – 25 ‘pages’, with embroideredy and appliqués, from an edition of 14. 250,000 – forgot to ask if that was dollars or euros… i would like to live with this (if i had an extra 250k) but am not sure i’d live with it on the wall. you lose the physicality of the piece and the pleasure of having it revealed to you one panel at a time…

truth of the matter is, the art world right now is one international event after another, where insiders meet and schmooze… madrid is a perfect venue.

italica

founded in 206 b.c. about 9 km from the present-day sevilla, italica is the remarkably well-preserved ruin of a roman city that had about 8,000 residents. most of what you’ll see was was laid out under the patronage of hadrian a couple of centuries later. it takes about 30 minutes on a bus from the station in sevilla to the end of the santiponce line. it was a drizzly day mid-week and we were the only ones there.

the amphitheater seated 25,ooo and was the 3rd largest in the roman empire. the restoration is really successful — enough for you to understand what was there — without disney-fying it.

standing in the arena or walking though the passages beneath the structure, it’s pretty easy to imagine what it was like with gladiators there…

and they had little feet…

helen took this one…

a beautiful stone drain:

there are amazingly intact mosaic floors at the site.

the river shifted sometime in the 3rd century (probably silting up due to deforestation), leaving the city cut-off and abandoned. the town of santiponce was built on the oldest – pre-roman part of italica, but most of it remained uncovered by later buildings. excavations began in 1781 and continue. the entire site will never be uncovered.

chris ballantyne show

this is our first show with chris. we’ve been watching his work for several years and are really excited about it. it has the high level of craft that’s common to the work we show — refined and formal yet intuitive — personal and quirky but oddly universal. the show is two paintings on panel (the grain of the panel shows though the acrylic stain), several small paintings on paper, two large (60×80 inches) paintings on paper and a large painting made on the long wall of the biggest gallery space. chris painted on the wall over the weekend. we’d expected a couple of small areas painted on the wall, but came in to find that chris was more ambitious… i guess i’m mellowing. it looks great.

SFMoMA is getting this one.

galatea

by timothy horn (2008) nickel-plated bronze & blown and mirrored glass 47×28x9 inches

olafur eliasson

Alaina Says:
February 2, 2008 at 7:35 pm e
I want to know why you don’t like Olafur Eliasson.
I really liked his yellow room at the SFMOMA show.

ok, so it’s only my second page, or post or whatever it is, and i think i’m cheating already… i took alaina’s comment and instead of just writing a comment back, i had to start off on a tangent…

first, i actually really liked two of the pieces at the sfmoma show.

and when i said i don’t like olafur eliasson – i didn’t mean him personally – i’ve never met him (though i will admit now that when i personally don’t like an artist, it’s often difficult for me to like their art. and looking at an artist’s work, i often jump to some conclusions about their personality – more on that – if anyone wants to go there – on some future post).

my issue with o.e.’s work and the show at sfmoma is that people have latched on to the reputation of his work, and that is really what the show is about…

the work is supposed to be phenomenological. in fact, i’d say it’s more sensational… in my opinion the former is universal and fundamental. the latter is, (boy, now it’s getting ugly) candy.

what’s good phenomenological work? the best work by fred sandback, mark rothko or barnett newman.     or walter de maria’s “lightening field”  (http://www.lightningfield.org) –  the perfect foil to the eliasson show…     first, the lightening field isn’t about lightning (sorry, but you just have to take my word for that, unless you visit it yourself).    there is a sensuous aspect to the lightening field.   because you’re required to stay 24 hours if you visit, you watch the stainless steel rods change color with the light – from gray to blue to silver to blush to rosy pink and on and on, all against the bleak landscape.   the next level  to the piece  is fwhen you cross the line made by the outer-most poles, you immediately recognize that you are “inside”.   then and only then do you understand that up until that moment, you were “outside.”   what the piece does is make you feel the space you occupy in a way you have never understood it before.    more impressive to me is that as you move within the grid your sense of personal importance is reduced to something like the black fly clinging to your leg.

o.e.’s work is too tricky. smoke and mirrors. like a fun house.   i’d enter a piece, quickly flash on “oh, this is what i’m supposed to experience,” then start looking around to figure out how the piece was accomplished. then, i’d start spinning on what kind of resources it took to do it and how bloody much it must have cost sfmoma to put on this show…

if you don’t think along those lines, the show is probably really fun. carnivalesque undermines the level of craft and thought – but this show belongs at the exploratorium.

a piece like ned kahn’s at the airport is far more interesting to me… ned makes the invisible visible.   that piece is a catalyst for connecting you to your environment.

back to o.e.  –   in the yellow room, you walk in and everything/one in it seems  black and white. not the velvety black and white of cinema, but just icky black and white. louis (he liked the piece too) described it as being like moonlight, except that instead of there not being enough light to register color, in this case the light is bright and unforgiving and yet there’s still no color. it’s a sensation, but not much else. it’s a novelty – like a 3-d movie.

i do like the ironic take on museum gift shops that is the room of maquettes…

i also like the fan.   it feels dangerous.   sometimes art should be threatening…

hello

my friend phil convinced me that i should have a blog. or sort of convinced me. so i’m going to try…

i have contemporary international art galleries in san francisco and new york. website: hosfeltgallery.com. i show a range of painting, drawing, photography, technology and sculpture, but there’s definitely an aesthetic. i like work on paper because you feel like you’re close to the artist’s practice. i like paint. i’m less often convinced by sculpture, but when it’s good, it’s great. i like process. i’m interested in work that unfolds over time. maybe you’re immediately attracted, but there has to be something there that makes you keep wanting to look. i don’t generally like the kind of work that’s made for biennials. i don’t like olafur eliasson…

fso i thought i’d write about the art i’m seeing in exhibitions and studios. maybe about what i’m thinking about when i curate a show. conversations i have with artists and curators and such. what i like or don’t and why. the art market. the philosophy/business/ethics of art… i dunno, what do you want to know?

oh. i have a partner who’s an architect. and a smart guy. we have a 4 1/2-year-old daughter who’s the coolest and a circle of hyper-critical, expert-in-their field friends. no shortage of opinions… about everything.

so this will probably also devolve into a running commentary about aesthetics and film and food and relationships and design. and be a bit of a travel journal… dinner at an amazing korean vegetarian place in manhattan tonight, chinese new year at betty’s house in san francisco on wednesday, installing a show next week to open on saturday, leaving for madrid on sunday for ARCO, sevilla, granada, etc. stay tuned…

a view of my new york gallery, with an installation of sculpture by artist gay outlaw: