Posted inArt

Old Favorites and New Surprises at Moving Image

There’s a problem inherent in the basic premise of a video-art fair. On the one hand, it’s refreshing to see artwork at a fair in different media than painting, works on paper, and the occasional sculpture, which are the usual standbys at fairs because they’re easier for a quick sell. On the other, the format doesn’t really suit video art, because fairs are not designed for extended looking. While it feels like an increasingly glaring omission these days to not see more multimedia work at fairs, there’s also reason why that’s the case.

Posted inArt

Searching For An Explanation at the Moving Image and Independent Fairs

After attending both the Moving Image Fair at the Waterfront Tunnel and the Independent in the old Dia:Chelsea building, I realized that art fairs and the art contained within them are suffering from the same problem as many recent exhibitions in major museums: It’s nearly impossible to appreciate the art by itself without a detailed explanation of the artist’s background and motivations.

Posted inArt

Paying Attention at Moving Image 2011

The first thing that I noticed about Moving Image, an art fair based entirely around video works, was the relative calm. Gone were the crowds, gone were the collectors running rabidly from booth to booth, gone were the chatty gallerists and curators. Moving Image is a place to look at art and experience it one on one. It takes some time, but walking through the videos I definitely caught a few stand out pieces that would have been overwhelmed in an regular art fair display.