Here’s an indisputable fact: Art fairs, at heart, are about selling art. And that doesn’t have to be a disgusting thing, at all — artists themselves need to make money. How else are they going to pay off those MFA debts, plus the $500 per month rent for the corner of that Bushwick studio? That said, there are many ways to sell things — different styles, venues, and attitudes, whether you’re hawking used cars or process-driven abstraction — and something about NADA is far less nauseating than the flashier, more brightly lit bonanza over on Randall’s Island. Before getting to the highlights, let me offer some advice: Without indulging in guilt or flirting with FOMO, you can most certainly skip Frieze this weekend in favor of this pluckier fair. The only thing you’ll truly miss is a ferry ride and the overheard inanities of the mega-rich. (My personal favorites from yesterday’s Frieze VIP opening: A woman loudly asking her husband what the name was of that building he used to own in Miami; and a prospective painting buyer explaining that he just likes looking at Paul Cowan’s all-blue abstractions, which are incredibly boring, and smell like lazy money.)
Overall, there’s very little crap at NADA. (I’m happy to donate that as an official slogan, if the fair is interested.) A few highlights: Marlon Wobst’s dreamlike oil paintings at Berlin’s Schwarz Contemporary are terrific. San Juan’s Roberto Paradise has a jam-packed booth with plenty of great stuff: Jose Lerma’s airborne garbage bag sculptures that double as portraits of Puerto Rican politicians and eventually crumple and fall to the earth; Austin Eddy’s large-scale black-and-white paintings, which are funky, weird, and romantic; Chemi Rosado Seijo’s abstract work, which involves the artist leaving primed, blank canvases out in nature for months on end, and letting the elements leave their mark; and a wall full of found, tourist-y paintings of Haitian landscapes bought by Jose Luis Vargas and then augmented with acerbic text and collage.
Brooklyn’s Interstate Projects crams a gallery retrospective of sorts into a closet-sized space, featuring a cut-Plexi sculpture by Body by Body, tiny Sculpey sculptures by Jeff Baij, and a textile painting by Erika Ceruzzi that converts her abstract doodles into embroidered patterns.
The Apartment, based in Vancouver, wins the award for the most cohesive and stylish presentation. They’ve paired minimalist works by Matthew Higgs (geometric shapes, lots of books) with furniture created by RO/LU. The shelves, chairs, and couches intentionally borrow elements from various artists, like Yves Klein and Carol Bove. Elegant little ceramic pieces by 70-something year old Canadian artist Wayne Ngan are arranged throughout. The Hole, from New York, should also win points for inventiveness, transforming its booth’s exterior so that it resembles a crummy, graffiti-addled bodega selling works by Jaimie Warren, Katherine Bernhardt, and others.
Galerie Christophe Galliard of Paris has a few multimedia works by Berlin-based Fabien Knecht. For one project involving photographs, video, and a painting, he breaks the window of Marcel Duchamp’s former house. (It sounds obnoxious, but give it a chance.) For another, he films himself walking around downtown Manhattan in a suit covered in dust and debris from a town in Iraq that was recently the site of a horrific suicide bombing; the very Beuysian suit hangs next to the video monitor. On a more lighthearted tip, Freight + Volume gives over its entire booth to Ezra Johnson, including a series of enamel and porcelain sculptures — a colorful crowd of dancing, flexible forms. Boston’s Samson has a series of acrylic-and-ink-on-aluminum mesh works by Summer Wheat, all from 2014. And Regina Rex of Queens, New York has glass-and-foam-centric sculptures by Dave Hardy, including some exciting (and relatively affordable) small-scale pieces. They’re smart updates on minimalism tailored to D.I.Y. hardware store tastes, perhaps representative of the overall spirit of this fair, which values creativity and discovery along with the unavoidable facts of commerce.
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