Fair weather weekend

A video still from “History of the Canon,” 2006 by Tommy Hartung, being shown by Moti Hasson gallery in a container on W. 24th St. between 10th and 11th Aves. as part of DiVA Streets. Free, noon to 8 p.m. through Saturday. For more locations, visit divafair.com.

A record eight art fairs descend upon NYC

By Shane McAdams

This past December there were an unprecedented 14 art fairs in Miami. Galleries from all over the world gravitated to the city, taking over bars, hotels and convention centers. Hipster artists and hedge funders mingled with bronzed locals on the beaches and at exclusive nightclubs. Their exotic stories came back to the lay art world like tales from traders on the Silk Road.

This annual decadence began with Art Basel Miami in 2002 and originally seemed like an business perk for privileged art insiders — an orgiastic anti-depressant following suit of so many industries that have their annual meetings in Las Vegas. It produced great art world lore, but didn’t seem like a business plan to replicate in every city, hot and cold, east and west.

But it happened anyway, and as Miami’s art fair presence grew, the phenomenon metastasized all over the world. There are now fairs in almost every major city in America and Europe, and in many cases, more than one at the same time. In late January this year, Los Angeles hosted the Los Angeles Art Show, Art LA, and the Los Angeles Print Fair on the same weekend. Last year when three simultaneous fairs proved too much for Chicago, one group conceded and regrouped by organizing the first annual Art DC this year.

Does this proliferation represent an arms race among art fair promoters or is it the sign of a paradigm shift in how the public consumes art? According to Alun William, Director of Parker’s Box in Brooklyn, the industry takes its lead from buyers. “Collectors are into the social scene of buying art,” he explained. “Even though a fair is not the optimal way to show work, fairs place more emphasis on the competition and exposure of the patrons.” If the cache of the “back room” sale is diminishing, it makes you wonder whether the gallery itself is in danger of becoming obsolete. But William disagrees: “Even as fairs and auctions become more prevalent, the advantage to having a legitimate space to show work properly really helps. That’s why so many New York dealers are as willing as they are to do fairs in their own city.”

The art fair explosion, of course, mirrors the inflation of the art market, and the shows essentially serve as auxiliary exhibition spaces during these bullish times. Leases are long term, convention halls aren’t, and in the case of (God forbid) a bubble burst, the galleries are indemnified this way. Ed Winkleman of Winkleman/PlusUltra, who will be mounting a solo show of Ivin Ballen’s sculptural installations at the Pulse fair this year, agrees.

“The art fairs are a sign of a strong market. More and more dealers are treating their fair booths like legitimate spaces, holding solo or curated exhibitions. Art fairs are less and less the occasion for extra inventory yard sales.”

On the other hand, Carl Berg, who is participating in the LA Art in New York fair, maintains that the fairs aren’t a replacement for galleries. “Fairs are a great way to meet collectors who wouldn’t otherwise come into your gallery, and to introduce artists to people who haven’t seen their work. However, you have to maintain a balance between fairs and gallery exhibitions.”

The success of these fairs will be tested the next few days and nights, and, ultimately, over the next few seasons. Whatever happens, the onslaught is upon us this weekend, and seeing art will take a lot more preparation. It used to be that if you could just remember that the Armory Show was actually the one at the pier and the one in the Armory was the art fair that showed mostly dead artists, you were set. Not any more.

What to Expect

This year, the Armory Show at Piers 90 and 92 features the blue-chip and established galleries you recognize on the ground floors in Chelsea: David Zwirner, Matthew Marks, Pace Wildenstein, among others. The Art Show (at the 7th Regiment Armory) was once the place for museum-quality, high-end art from artists that had already made it into the modern art survey books. But this year, several galleries are at the Armory and the Art Show, and much of what’s at the Art Show is from living artists, many of whom aren’t yet out of their 30s. Along with Zwirner, Marks, and Pace, the show will include Galerie Lelong, Sonnabend, and Sperone Westwater.

The Pulse Fair is being held at the 69th Regiment Armory where the original, history-changing Armory Fair was located. In 1913 it was Matisse and Duchamp who turned heads, and 94 years later Marcel’s legacy should be noticeable in the same building, although the fair will have less of the neo-Dada impulse than it’s had in the past. Some of New York’s best young galleries are participating in the fair, including the aforementioned Winkleman/Plus Ultra and Parker’s Box in Brooklyn, which is as solid as a gallery comes. Look for Schroeder Romero and Jeff Bailey to also have great booths.

The wild card of the fairs is Red Dot, which is held at the Park Hotel. Hotel fairs are a traditional occurrence in the art world. The Hotel Chelsea hosted informal fairs years ago, the Gramercy Park Hotel served as the original venue for the new Armory Show, and similar events have become common, including The Aqua Art Fair in Miami and the widely acclaimed Nova fair in Chicago. Red Dot boasts a geographically eclectic mix of galleries mostly from around the United States. Red Dot will show underrated gems such as the venerable Roy Boyd Gallery from Chicago, Pentimenti in Philadelphia, and New York’s Nancy Hoffman Gallery. The Red Dot Fair might not be the best fair to seek enlightenment through art, but it might be the best place to find overlooked art that has been undervalued.

Appropriately, Carl Berg from Los Angeles will be participating in the LA in New York [LAINY] fair and will be showing a tremendous painter I saw while visiting last month named Nathan Redwood. Generally, what the LAINY fair has to its advantage is the inclusion of dozens of superb galleries that New Yorkers have never seen. For New Yorkers to see California galleries, the California franchises usually have to get big enough to open a New York branch, a la Larry Gagosian. Shoshona Wayne, ACME and Western Projects, however, don’t look to be coming here permanently anytime soon. Although more and more artists are simultaneously represented in both cities, LA has had the recent edge when it comes to new young artists. I have been thoroughly impressed by what I’ve seen there, and, unless you feel like taking the red-eye, this is your best chance to grab a peek at what’s happening on the other coast. Ironically, the problem that the LA fair will have is the same one that plagues it in its own city: it is not central to any of the other events and viewers will have to make an extra effort to get to them, but like so many of the fairs, there is a complimentary shuttle between it and the Armory Show.

The two major remaining fairs, Digital & Video Art Fair [DiVA] and Scope should probably merge with each other. There’s already going to be a travel-based limitation to seeing these fairs, and Scope looks more unfocused than other fairs. Scope’s miscellany will be a positive, but with so much going on it might be like going to pawn shops to find the right drill bit. On the other hand, the hyper-focused digital & video-only festival DiVA, which has gone solo in Paris, could use an eclectic friend down in Battery Park, where it’s taking place. (Fountain New York would be a good choice, but it’s got a choice spot a few blocks south of the Armory. The indie fair of Williamsburg galleries, now in its second year, is the eighth and final fair of the weekend.)

Despite the drawbacks, Moti Hasson will be represented at both Scope and DiVA and they make few bad decisions. Also showing are dozens of under-the-radar galleries from overseas that, if you’re patient, might yield some great finds.

There’s a lot to see this year and I suggest you get out and make the effort. You never know when the bubble will burst and we will be back to just one fair.

The List

The Armory Show: Feb. 23- 26, Pier 94, Twelfth Ave. at 55th St., Fri.-Sat. noon- 8 p.m., Mon. noon-6 p.m. $20, www.armoryshow.com.

The Art Show: Feb. 23 – 26, Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Ave. at 67th St., Fri.-Sat. noon to 8 p.m., Sun.-Mon. noon to 6 p.m. $20, www.artdealers.org/artshow

DiVA Fair: Feb. 23-25, Embassy Suites Hotel in Battery Park City, 102 North End Ave. at Vessey St. All days, 2 to 10 p.m. $10, www.divafair.com.

Fountain New York: Feb.23-26, 660 Twelfth Ave., all days, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., free, www.fountainexhibit.com.

LA Art in New York: Feb. 23-25, Altman Building/Metropolitan Pavilion,125 & 135 W.18th St., Fri. 1 p.m. – 9 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. – 8 p.m., Sun.10 a.m. – 6 p.m. $10, www.laartfair.com.

Pulse Art Fair: Feb. 23-25, 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Ave. and 26th St., noon-8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun., $15, www.pulse-art.com.

Red Dot Fair: Feb. 23- 26, Park South Hotel, 122 East 28th St. Fri. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat. & Sun.11 a.m.-8 p.m., Mon. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. $8, www.reddotfair.com.

Scope Art Fair: Feb. 23-26, The Scope Pavilion, Lincoln Center, Damrosch Park, Corner of 62 St. and Tenth Ave., Fri., 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Sat.- Mon. 10 a.m.-8 p.m. $10. www.scope-art.com.