Matthew Drutt is executive director of Blouin Cultural Advisory Group, a consulting firm that guides private clients and institutions building discerning collections of fine art and organizing exhibitions of distinction. Here he offers his top eight picks from this week's art fairs in New York.
Click on the slide show to see images of the works he highlights below.
ADAA
James Bishop’s enigmatic paintings and drawings are at once abstract and imagistic, marked by a poetic or delicate reduction of form. Lawrence Markey Gallery has several outstanding and rare examples of his drawings priced at $20,000 each, subject to availability.
LA-based painter Dave Muller turns the traditional genres of still life and landscape on their heels with works that are informed by his other practice as a musician. His mural for Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Tex., is one of the standout works on public display. Anthony Meier Fine Arts has devoted its entire stand to a new group of works on paper, which range in price from $15,000 - $45,000.
Armory
A founding member of Gran Fury, Donald Moffat is one of the finest artists of his generation, whose works I din to be undervalued considering his stature in the field. His recent solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston put to rest any doubt about the significance of his contributions. His new works, part sculpture/part painting, can be seen both at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea and at her stand here, with prices for a work like this beginning at $75,000.
I first saw Jorinde Voigt’s intricate and lyrical drawings based on algorithmic systems at a solo show at the Von der Heydt Museum in Germany last year. Now you can see them for yourself at Martin Klosterfelde’s stand as well as in the artist’s U.S. debut at David Nolan Gallery in Chelsea. They are $20,000 for larger works and $4,000 for the smaller drawings.
Independent
Tanja Roscic is a young Croatian-Albanian artist who lives and works in Zagreb and Zurich, whose previous works have explored surreal realms of feminine isolation and dislocation. The works presented at Freymond-Guth’s stand evoke strategies of Modernist artists like Hannah Hoech and Kurt Schwitters, with abstract collages that are constructed, painterly, dark, and beautiful, starting at 3500 CHF.
Also at Freymond-Guth are the lush abstract wax paintings of Italian artist Loredana Sperini. They need to be seen in better light than the fair provides, but at 4200 CHF for one of these beautiful works, you can well afford to take one home and see for yourself.
Joshua Neustein has a long and active career going back to the late 1960s, but the installation of his signature collage/constructed works made from carbon paper will be a revelation to many. They are Beusyian, Arte Povera, and Minimalism wrapped into one, and they are extremely affordable at $4,150 each.
Volta
Christian Patterson once worked as an assistant to photographer William Eggleston, and his earlier works make that relationship quite evident. The material presented at Robert Morat Galerie’s stand is an installation of photographs and documents that explores the actual story behind the murderous crime spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend in the 1950s, later fictionalized and celebrated in a film by Terrence Malick in 1973. The artist retraced the path of the young couple across Nebraska, photographing their crime sites, some of which amazingly still bear traces of their grisly former history. His shotgun drawings (made with a .410 shotgun) start at $2,000, while the photographs in editions of seven are $3,000. There is also a publication that accompanies the project.