Perhaps going directly from the Armory to Scope was a mistake. At a significantly smaller scale, lower budgets, and complete with an indoor smoking room and a cash bar manned by none other than Bushwick artisanal pizza powerhouse Roberta’s, Scope Art Fair New York was very much like a Bushwick opening after a day at MoMA. The editorial lens of the significantly more exclusive (and expensive) art fairs do, in fact, produce better art viewing experiences.
Jesse Chapman’s painting of the struggle to stick a contact into an eye, “The Lens” (2009), strikes me as an apt allegory for recent painting. It is one of the gems from Exit Art’s shinning survey of contemporary painting, NEW MIRRORS: Painting in a Transparent World, that is set to close this weekend.
Much like this uncomfortable morning ritual, painting is caught in an awkward moment. Like the nearsighted allegory looking in the mirror, it is keenly self-aware of its need for a new way of seeing and a new lens through which to gaze. With scowling lips, it begrudgingly prepares for the many vain attempts it takes on a rough morning (or try a rough decade) to get that lens in properly.
Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads
Subscribe to our Email Newsletter
Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads
A Truly Subversive Artist Is Not Necessarily Someone Who Is Theatrical or Gimmicky
Graffiti Writer Gets Pwnd by Marc Jacobs
Brooklyn Designer Held Without Bail for Hanging Plastic Bags from Trees
Should Museum Acquisitions Come at the Expense of their Education Departments?
North Korea's New Website
The Daily Practice of the Impossible
The Stellar Fucking Growth of Fuck Yeah Tumblelogs
Worker Bees of the Art World, Unite
Gay Life Portrayed in Traditional Chinese Paper-cuts
