Edwin De LaRosa in Landscape Magazine

http://issuu.com/landscapemagazine/docs/issuu-13

VIP ART FAIR

Day 5 of the VIP art fair and I wanted to comment outside of the Facebook or Twitter forum. The much anticipated and first online art fair featuring some of the biggest galleries in the world, opened..or went LIVE on Saturday. Idyllic in their fantasy of collectors waking up with their coffee and logging on to preview and buy art online (with substantial price tags). The reality was that the opening was a total nightmare. Wrought with technical glitches and overwhelmed by users, the experience was far different from the fantasy!

My experience was not so easy, your supposed to be able to login and preview all the sections and have the memory log what you have seen and create favorites. After previewing a large portion I was totally bummed to see that they hadn't saved any of the works I had previewed. I get that I might not be really interested in buying works, but I wanted to support the galleries and artists I love and thought it would be cool to post a list of my fav picks. A day later I went back to and it seems like it was a lot better. I kept trying to see what the feedback was and went to their twitter site etc. but NO comments were revealed. I am usually not interested in the hater vibe but wanted to know what my peers were thinking.

SO it was great that JTD Neil posted about it on Artworld Salon this morning.
http://www.artworldsalon.com/blog/2011/01/zuckerberg-to-vip-art-fair-users-are-fickle/

Apart from the user experience I think I have to give some positive shout outs to VIP art fair for having the balls to follow through with the question that has been on all of our minds since the onset of world wide web, CAN YOU SELL ART ONLINE?

To be honest, if you know the work and you have a good relationship with the gallery and get good condition reports etc. then I think it is cool to buy things online. I have been sent jpegs from galleries with hopes of making decisions on works of art. Collectors buy work at fairs from the gallery binder, or now with ipads, so what is the difference? BUT, VIP art fair has not re-sized the images so some are big some are tiny making it hard to see and even harder to think of wanting to purchase.

Bottom line is was this a success or a failure? I have to say SUCCESS. Apart from the sales aspect, the fair did create an interesting online experience with awesome videos of artists in their studios and collectors giving tours of their homes and works of art...so that was cool. But let's remember that this fair didn't come out of the ether...galleries did have to pay, and for that..we might have to re-think the model and say perhaps more beta testing next time!

MIJAMI...

AT LAST..uploading pix from Art Basel Miami. Here are the highlights:

ABMB
A Gentil Carioca, who showed this incredibly inventive and really funny installation by Laura Lima, the Brazilian artist who I have previously mentioned, and whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Rio de Janiero. Also large works by Thiago Rocha Pitta, a young artist who also works in video and was also featured in an off-site exhibition called Feijao com Arroz, curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti.

Nara Roesler, who had a stellar booth filled with museum quality work. A stand-out sculpture by Laura Vinci, who made a beautiful installation/chandelier of glass vessels. Vinci made a real impression on me with her installation at Inhotim, so it was really nice to see some of her more accessible work.

Canada Gallery, showed some recent works by Matt Connors, who is also one of my favorite young American painters.

Marilia Razuk also from Brazil, had some really great sculptures by Felipe Cohen, whose work concentrates on the juxtaposition of precious and non-precious materials.

Sommer Gallery from Tel Aviv presented an outstanding new video by Yael Bartana, an ode to Otto Dix called Degenerate Art Lives.

Galeria Millan, Sao Paulo, showed paintings by Rodrigo Andrade, an artist that I had previously seen at the Sao Paulo Bienal, and whose work I am following with great interest.

NADA
In general I thought NADA was very strong. I thought the floor plan was very easy to navigate and some great work was presented by members.

The Journal, gallery and magazine always seems to push the envelope, presented HO BAGS zine of collaborative drawings between Harmony Korine and Bill Saylor. Made exclusively for NADA and were an Edition of 100. Also, Sarah Braman, whose sculptures were also seen at her gallery Museum 52.

Sculptor, Ali Bailey had an impressive large work at Andrew Rafacz, Chicago.

Hillary Crisp showed George Young, an artist I have been looking at for a few years and was excited to see at the fair.

SEVEN art fair was a bold step outside the box for an art fair. I thought that the open floor plan and salon style hang was hard to navigate and made it a challenge for the dealers to anticipate interest. Saying that, it was hard to miss the best things in the room..

Postmasters gallery presented this out-of-this-world installation by Adam Cvijanovic. Having worked with Adam in the past I know his work very well. This recent series of broken walls has been explored by the artist with various scenes revealed; the scenic Alps, the moody seascape, but none have reached the potential of this galaxy nebula that he took on for Miami. Here he has really come into his own and challenges our perception. BRAVO! Also at SEVEN, Sam van Aken and Rico Gatson at Ronald Feldman, and Guy Ben-Ner video also at Postmasters.

ZOOM, the first U.S. art fair to solely focus on contemporary art from the Middle East, concluded its inaugural edition with critical acclaim. Artis, an independent non-profit that supports and promotes the Israeli
contemporary art community throughout the world, presented the most riveting video installations by a young artist I think I saw all week. Orit Ben Shitrit's two-channel video, Men Die And They Are Not Happy, 2010. In addition to the video Artis commissioned the artist to create a site-specific performance around the hotel pool, which was very powerful. I am thrilled that I made it to see Zoom and I hope that people will continue to discover the important work from young artists from the middle east.

Outside the craziness of the fairs, MOCA Miami mounted a solo exhibition of Jonathan Meese that featured many works made during the artist's childhood. The texts that accompanied the exhibition curated by MOCA Executive Director and Chief Curator Bonnie Clearwater, provided the much needed explanation of the artists practice. FINALLY...I understand..and appreciate!

OPENING!

Growing Pains Install

Michael Kagan

Marcos Brias

Robert Lazzarini

Graham Dolphin

Adam Parker Smith

Michael Kagan

Ryan Humphrey

Marcos Brias

Graham Dolphin

Edwin De Larosa

Jota Castro

Adam Parker Smith

Graham Dolphin

Edwin De Larosa Ryan Humphrey

Adam Parker Smith

Michael Kagan

Robert Lazzarini

Ryan Humphrey

Brias and Antwerp

Yesterday I did my first studio visit via skype with Marcos Brias from Sao Paulo. It was a really great talk and Charles and I learned a lot about his practice. There is some great interest in the exhibition so far and I couldn't be more excited!
Stay tuned tomorrow for shots from the opening!










Later in the afternoon Charles, Sofi and I went to Antwerp for a little culture and a LOT of shopping! Here are some cute pix of us at Rubens's house. It was pretty incredible and we were blown away by lot of the paintings inside.

Install for Growing Pains at Charles de Jonghe Brussels 11.18-12.24

Day 1 install went great!
We had a lot of fun and things went very smoothly. I am totally excited about how things are coming together and I wanted to share some prelim install shots. Having a really nice time in Brussels with Charles and his beautiful fiance Sofi, who is pictured above with me having the bestest dinner! Here are some highlights!

Ryan Humphrey
Gallery Assistant Jonathon Levy, Alix and Janouska the most amazing borzoi pup
Hard at work!
Robert Lazzarini
Michael Kagan
Graham Dolphin
Adam Parker Smith
Ryan Humphrey
Marcos Brias
Robert Lazzarini


Marcos Brias