Posted inArt

Trying to Make Galleries Relevant, One JPEG at a Time

Send Me the JPEG at Winkleman Gallery is not a show about art, but about the art world. Its title derives from a new phenomenon wherein collectors forgo viewing art firsthand and instead buy works based on digital photographs alone. Those who still love encountering new art in person worry to what extent the online market will eat up art sales and, consequently, whether brick-and-mortar galleries can survive. In March, critic Jerry Saltz movingly voiced his concern about their demise: “The beloved linchpin of my viewing life is playing a diminished role in the life of art.”

Posted inNews

VIP Art Fair Violates Online Privacy, Won’t Load, Deletes Chats?

Today marks the first (and only) full week of the world’s first online-only art fair. Ending on January 30, the VIP Art Fair has already begun to make waves. How is the fair fairing? Well, visitors are having mixed results. Due to heavy traffic the fair’s website has been loading slowly, harshing the buzz on a big opening weekend. You think the oldsters on dial-up will stand for that? Art Review reports that VIP Art Fair might be stealing your email address. Critics and gallerists complains about the molasses-like speeds. I complain about the Tweet-share button. Here’s a post-weekend guide to the VIP Art Fair, including my own initial impressions.

Posted inOpinion

What Others Are Saying About #Rank

Earlier this month, I sent out a call for comments on #Rank, a project created by artists William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton, who were the masterminds behind #Class (Winkleman Gallery, February 2010).

The following are the responses we received from across the country and around the world. Some are by event participants, while others from observers (both in Miami and remotely). They represent various perspectives on#Rank (with minimal editing and in no particular order).

Also, tonight there is a post-Miami #Rank discussion (6-9pm) at Winkleman Gallery for those who would like to continue the discussion.

Posted inArt

Why Ed Winkleman Did #Rank at the Seven Miami Art Fair

How many of the estimated 46,000 artists, dealers, collectors, and lookyloos that checked in at Art Basel Miami Beach actually made the 35-minute car trip from the stunning South Beach to industrial Wynwood for the Seven Art Fair is still unclear.

Seven was to Basel what Independent New York was to the Armory Show. An art fair (ok fine, temporary exhibition forum), yes, but set up as a museum-like display rather than sales booths, more concerned with theme and content than commodity object. Curatorial considerations made intelligent relationships between artists from different galleries, instead of an “art world greatest hits.” Because of the elimination of sales booths, the pressure was off. Here, dealers seemed to be interested in discussing ideas.

Posted inArt

Painting Real Fiction: Christopher K. Ho at Winkleman

Regional Painting (2010), at Winkleman Gallery, is not a remarkable presentation; the casual viewer could be excused for thinking it is just another painting show. Twelve paintings on linen, each twelve by sixteen inches, beautifully framed in walnut, greatly varied in technique and style, are hung equidistant around the gallery. Some are intentionally amateur, others unexpectedly virtuosic, all preserve some part of the clear-primed linen. There is an antique quality to some, taking their cue from early 20th C. abstraction, others are more contemporary and even a little slick. They are Christopher K. Ho’s legitimate attempt at earnest painting, but also represent a much larger system of conceptual artworks.

Posted inArt

Miami’s Seven Art Fair Goes Indie

The buzz before Miami was that Seven Art Fair was going to be one to watch and that is certainly the case.

This indie fair of seven galleries with solid programs — and some art stars among them — have created a wonderful little side fair that has a well-organized area for video works (which is both inviting and well spaced), a space for the #Rank event (which we’ve mentioned before), rooms for work by various artists to talk to one another (some better than others), but most importantly an attempt to collide gallery stables to see what they could come up with together (most notably on one wall covered salon style with pieces from the whole constellation of “Seven” artists).

Did all the artists fit perfectly together? No, but this is an art fair and not a curated exhibition. It was good to see some galleries try something that felt interesting and less commercial than the run-of-the-mill art fairs.

Posted inArt

Always Social: Getting Noticed (2008-2010), Part Two

The most striking aspect of social media art is that it contains facets of net.art, by being digital; visual art, by existing on a two-dimensional surface; public art, by existing in spaces used habitually by hundreds of millions of people; and performance art, by being inherently social. Whether the aggregate is greater than its sum remains to be seen …

Posted inArt

$ECRET$ OF THE NEW YORK ART WORLD for #class

When Edward Winkleman offered his new storefront gallery on West 27th Street to artists William Powhida and Jen Dalton to “consider ‘alternatives/solutions’ to the market” they decided to organize a show titled #class. The hashtag in front of the name is a reference to Twitter and the communal tags that help users find related tweets on a given topic, event or idea. Like the online service, the #class exhibition — is it an exhibition? — is composed of crowd sourced content. Hyperallergic is taking part with $ECRET$ OF THE NEW YORK ART WORLD.