Jenny Walty
Brooklyn, New York.Sunday, February 25, 2007
Art Fairs
This weekend the art world came to town and set up bazaars, so I went to the PULSE Art Fair to see if it was as impressive a show as it was last year. In short, no, but there was some impressive work, and several trends with legs. I saw a lot of messy painting and pop aesthetic.
There was also a lot of naked girls and porn art. I find the assumption of acceptability around these images offensive and think it exemplifies our cultural turn away from equality. Would you say f*** around an old lady? Sure you could, but it's disrespectful. Similarly, it is disrespectful to the 1/3 of the women in America who have been raped to sell sexual, violent, and/or exploitive images of women. I believe in freedom of expression but the market has a mechanism of cultural control built into it, and the open market is where self-censorship happens. I have no problem with the existence of niche markets and communities that "speak the language," but I do find the mainstream "trend" fundamentally regressive.
As a sculptor, I was drawn the intricate way artists are using materials. I saw some stand-out examples. This piece had a really nice undulating effect from the air currents in the room:
Devorah Sperber's work was a total revelation, transformational, spectacular! I didn't know that art could still have that effect on people. She has a show at the Brooklyn Museum from January 26–June 17, 2007.
Ivin Ballen's work at Winkelman Gallery was a great trick on the theme of materiality:
Most people walked by them thinking they were some kind of cardboard assemblage, but Ballen's wall sculptures are actually cast resin and fiberglass with a painted surface, totally archival. From far away they look like a silly mess (full disclosure-I walked by the first time as well) but have rich surfaces on close inspection, both washy and bold.
The best booth award goes to Virgil de Voldere Gallery. The booth featured DefaultProperties() by Brody Condon, a "self-playing video game," a contained but moving image that literally drew a huge crowd. It was weird but engaging.
After leaving Pulse we biked over to Fountain New York to see what our Williamsburg brethren had wrought, but sadly misunderstood the hours. The glipse through the windows looked fantastic! Marisa Olson had a great piece of her American Idol try-out, of which Patrick obtained a gold edition.
Is that you David Kesting? Rakish!
There was also a lot of naked girls and porn art. I find the assumption of acceptability around these images offensive and think it exemplifies our cultural turn away from equality. Would you say f*** around an old lady? Sure you could, but it's disrespectful. Similarly, it is disrespectful to the 1/3 of the women in America who have been raped to sell sexual, violent, and/or exploitive images of women. I believe in freedom of expression but the market has a mechanism of cultural control built into it, and the open market is where self-censorship happens. I have no problem with the existence of niche markets and communities that "speak the language," but I do find the mainstream "trend" fundamentally regressive.
As a sculptor, I was drawn the intricate way artists are using materials. I saw some stand-out examples. This piece had a really nice undulating effect from the air currents in the room:
Devorah Sperber's work was a total revelation, transformational, spectacular! I didn't know that art could still have that effect on people. She has a show at the Brooklyn Museum from January 26–June 17, 2007.
Ivin Ballen's work at Winkelman Gallery was a great trick on the theme of materiality:
Most people walked by them thinking they were some kind of cardboard assemblage, but Ballen's wall sculptures are actually cast resin and fiberglass with a painted surface, totally archival. From far away they look like a silly mess (full disclosure-I walked by the first time as well) but have rich surfaces on close inspection, both washy and bold.The best booth award goes to Virgil de Voldere Gallery. The booth featured DefaultProperties() by Brody Condon, a "self-playing video game," a contained but moving image that literally drew a huge crowd. It was weird but engaging.
After leaving Pulse we biked over to Fountain New York to see what our Williamsburg brethren had wrought, but sadly misunderstood the hours. The glipse through the windows looked fantastic! Marisa Olson had a great piece of her American Idol try-out, of which Patrick obtained a gold edition.
Is that you David Kesting? Rakish!Labels: art
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