By Pat Fleisher
#1. ART CHICAGO '96- Hiro Yamagata at Fred Hoffman Fine Art, Santa Monica,USA
My participation in contemporary international art dealer's fairs goes back a long way. As editor of Artmagazine, I was sent to BASEL, BOLOGNA, PARIS, WASHINGTON & NEW YORK, as well as the VENICE BIENNALE & DOCUMENTA in the 70's. I then organized ART TORONTO for Artmagazine in the 80's. Under the banner of my next publication, Artpost, I organized ART EXPO TORONTO in l986, one of the first events at the new Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Since l992, when I started Artfocus magazine, I have exhibited in (or attended) artfairs in CHICAGO, NEW YORK, MAASTRICHT, MIAMI & MADRID.
But after being honoured with an invitation to represent the Canadian art press in a "group booth" at ART'27'96 in Basel, Switzerland this June, I was unable to find journalists' travel sponsorship to attend in person. To make at least a little presence of "art from Canada" in BASEL, I shipped a big box of back issues of Artfocus by air and relied on distribution by fellow "group exhibitor," Spanish/ American sculptor, Angel Orensanz, with his publication, Artscape from New York. Orensanz, who has exhibited frequently in Canada, was in Europe to be inaugurated into the prestigious Academic Senate of the International Academy of Modern Art in Rome in June .( A sculpture by the artist is being donated to the City of Toronto by the Spanish Consulate in December.)
I did attend ART CHICAGO'96 in May. The show, organized by Thomas Blackman Associates, was held downtown on the waterfront, in the newly completed Festival Hall of the restored Navy Pier. It featured 180 galleries from 20 countries, representing more than 2,000 artists from across the globe. Sole representative of the Canadian art press was 'C' Magazine, which was invited, but could not arrange journalists' sponsorship for ARCO'96 in Madrid in February.
Many of the same dealers and some of the same art was seen in MIAMI, MADRID & CHICAGO. For example, I found the creator of the the fascinating rubber tire chair & TV shown in my Spring '96 article on ARCO'96. The chair, by Miralda, is an edition of nine, appropriately titled, "Have a Goodyear." It was displayed by Galerie De France from Paris in both fairs.
The most popular exhibit in the the show was a display of vintage cars, hand-painted with flowers and butterflies, by Hiro Yamagata, shown by Santa Monico dealer, Fred Hoffman Fine Art. Next in interest to the younger generation, was "the plate man," literally, a live seated man with plates protruding from his suit in every direction, displayed by a German dealer.
The trend to "functional art" was seen in many galleries. Roy Lichtenstein adapted his comic strip technique to a hand-painted tea set shown by private dealer, Jonathan Novak of Los Angeles. Cartoons were everywhere as subjects, as seen in the Pop paintings in Galerie Ribbentrop from Germany.Once again, an array of fascinating techniques in photography was seen in many galleries.
Paintings by a few up-and-coming Canadian artists were prominently displayed: David Urban ( see review in Artfocus, Aug/ Sept'96) with Galerie Barbara Farber from Amsterdam and Tony Scherman with Daniel Templon from Paris. (Both artists are represented by Sable-Castelli Gallery in Toronto.)
Although few Canadian dealers participated in ART CHICAGO '96, many well-known "names" in the Toronto art scene were seen wandering through the show including Walter Moos, Gordon Novak, Jeannie Parkin, Fela Grunwald, Marion Sheill, Geoffrey James, Nikola Nikola with Rose Rongits, & Linda Book. Although Montreal dealer, Robert Landau (who also participated in BASEL '96) had a huge booth, he showed international art rather than Canadian.
A taste of the lively Chicago gallery scene was offered in a Sunday morning tour of The River North Gallery District. Twenty-three contemporary galleries, in the warehouse area centred around Superior and Franklin Streets, hosted a buffet brunch for visitors from the fair. It was interesting to note The Judy A. Saslow Gallery, which specialized in "Outsider Art" (a feature in ARTFOCUS, Spring'96). The US version, based on Dubuffet's L'Art Brut, was discussed at length in the May'96 issue of Art News.
But the highlight of my Chicago stay was revisiting the studio/gallery of architectural designer, John David Mooney, who I met during the simultaneous triple art fairs held in Chicago three years before. I enjoyed the exhibit of powerful architectural photography by Gerald Zugmann on view in the gallery, and previewed Mooney's newest megaproject, an innovative light sculpture treatment of a total building for the l996 Olympic Games held in Atlanta this summer. n
This article is
reprinted from ARTFOCUS MAGAZINE Aug/Sept '96.
ARTFAIR CALENDAR
January
ART MIAMI '97, January 10 -14, l997, Miami Beach, Florida, USA
February
ARTEXPO/ NEW YORK'97, February 6-10, l997, New York, USA
ARCO '97, February 13 -18, l997, Madrid, Spain
THE ART SHOW '97 (ADAA), February 20-24, l997, New York, USA
ARTFAIR SEATTLE '97, February 20 -23,l997, Seattle, Washington, USA
March
TEFAF MAASTRICHT '97 , March 8-16, l997,Maastricht, Holland
April
ART AMERICAS '97, April 3-7,l997, Miami Beach, Florida, USA
ART FRANKFURT '97, April 26- May 1,l997, Frankfurt, Germany
ART EXPO '97, April 26- May 1,l997, Barcelona, Spain
May
ART CHICAGO '97, May 8 -13, 1997, Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois
June
ART 28 '97, June 11 - 16, l997, Basel, Switzerland
(co-inciding with THE VENICE BIENNALE in Italy
& DOCUMENTA in Germany)
#2. FIAC 96, Oct.2-7- Gun Gordillo at Galerie Denise Rene, Paris, France
STOP THE PRESSES - November l996
The five leading European & USA art fairs
have formed a new association, I.C.A.F.A. - INTERNATIONALCONTEMPORARY ART FAIRS ASSOCIATION,
with headquarters in Paris. The founding members are Arco in Madrid, Art Basel, Art
Chicago, Art Cologne & Fiac in Paris. For further information write: I.C.A.F.A.,
Siege social: REED-OIP-11, rue du Colonel-Pierre-Avia-75015 Paris, FRANCE.
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