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I am back in New York and it almost feels like coming home. The work ethic is still in full force, unlike us Europeans who love to party and linger in the aromatic happy holiday atmosphere. However, there is still some fun loving coming from Gavin Brown who arranged a spectacular winter tent on his gallery roof with food to be had in every corner of the room and where I had the pleasure of bumping into TJ Wilcox and Adam McEwen. Then next day Luhring Augustine had a lovely small intimate event where I cosied up with Glenn Ligon, Josh Smith and Jeff Elrod.
I also managed to drop into Andrea Rosen gallery where we acquired a wonderful new Josephine Meckseper for the collection.
The show was ambitious with Meckseper keeping to her own distinct style using pre-fascist and ‘previously degenerate’ Bauhaus architecture for the basis for the show.
Patricia Treib gave an interesting talk about her work at WALLSPACE. It can be a struggle to explain your own work but Patricia managed very well. Discussing how she started with an object and then worked her way through the spaces in between, sometimes repeating the same idea over and over again. Definitely an artist to watch carefully.
I went to Lisa Cooley to check out what all the hype was about with Scott Reeder. Pasta and painting, whatever next? Alphabet pasta to create painting! Surprise, surprise! The work was good and effective, using pasta as a serious medium to create something more than just visually pleasing. Another artist to watch for sure.
A highlight of all my visits was Michael E Smith at Michael Benevento Gallery, he is an artist with the most unique perspective. His work is usually far from aesthetically pleasing and instead reflects the environment he is working in, now upstate New York but previously in Detroit. There is often a disturbing aura but scrape the surface and you find hidden narratives and associations just waiting to be discovered.
In the evening we headed to ‘LA2: The Young Collectors Exhibition’ opening at Leila Heller Gallery. LA2, alias Angel Ortiz has worked in many artist’s studios including Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. Here he is signing old Gameboy’s.
The co-chairs Tiffany, Alexander Heller and friend Raul Cubina were out in full force with 200 future young collectors and artists.
Another highlight were my visits to Brooklyn. We first stopped in to see Roland and Lawrence at Luhring Augustine who were so proud of their wonderful Michelangelo Pistoletto show; ‘The Minus Objects 1965-1966’ in Bushwick. The work looked incredibly fresh having come straight from the artist’s studio, except he had created them right at the beginning of Art Povera and over a period of 5 months in 1965.
Our visit to the painter Zak Prekop was definitely worth a mention, his paintings were very real and technically perfect.
Then onto The Still House Group, which was exceptional. The Red Hook, Brooklyn landscape was utterly breath-taking. As we entered their incredible studios we were greeted by the charismatic and enthusiastic Alex Perweiler, one of the two founders of the group.
Alex had an intriguing studio based on found objects and re-appropriating them into art works. Not an original subject I know but there was definitely a strong sense of happening.
Alex Ito, who at 22 is the youngest member of The Still House Group and Brendan Lynch, the oldest member at 28.
Brendan’s work was full of energy and hitting all the right notes to create a formidable body of work by an emerging artist.
Louis Eisner, whose work of a fully plastered mannequin I showed in a previous post, was intriguing.
He had taken monkey drawings and turned them into art works, taken shop fronts and turned them into art works. Something about Louis’s work attracts me to keep looking and learning.
It reminded me of the Zabludowicz Collection’s Michael Landy, ‘Costermonger's Stall 1992.’
Then Dylan Lynch was using found objects to create his art. He showed me his latest work where he had been influenced by the Fraternity culture in college. He looked a little uncomfortable underneath all the furniture….
Tiffany’s favourite of all the artists was Nick Darmstaedter, one of the old boys. Like Brendan his breadth of work was vast and is set up incredibly well for the commercial art world.
My favourite artist in the group and the only lady is Hayley Mellin, her work is so engaging and I loved the Richter candles.
The group’s artist in residence, Dominic Samsworth, from Wiltshire in the UK was explaining to us his complicated practice. He had taken old billboard photographs and re-appropriated them but still kept a hint of the old meaning. He is having a show next year in their showroom where all will be revealed.
I had time to drop by Aaron Suggs’ studio to see the most magnificent translucent boat reflected in Perspex. The installation is designed to show the reflection all around the room and will look fantastic!
We visited Jacques Louis Vidal of Know More Games gallery, where I finally met Joe Graham-Felsen and managed to join all the dots. Matthew Booth and Joe often collaborate together. This is one of the works by Matthew in our collection; ‘Joe Graham-Felsen’ 2010.
Here’s Joe hiding amongst some of his work. His practise is totally unique based on human social interaction as well as the performative.
In TriBeCa we met with Laurie Simmons, the famous mother of the famous daughter and creator of Girls; Lena Durham. She took us into her home and we spoke about her time at Yale and how she had taught Gregory Crewdson. Just nearby outside the studio of Lucien Smith we bumped into Klaus Biesenbach from PS1 who had been visiting the new Mayor to learn about his new New York Hurricane initiative after his horrible experiences and incredible endeavours to rescue his beloved Rockaway in New Jersey. Pam Kramlich, and Fabienne Stephan of Salon 94 joined us and my two girls Tiffany and Olivia.
It was lovely to visit the world of Lucien Smith. Only 24 years old but with great plans to build an interesting future both as an artist and a collaborator. Here is Lucien in front of his next project; STP, which he will work on with his assistants Ben and Luke.
Even Lucien had a version of a signed KAWS ‘Companion’ on his desk.
He very kindly took the time to show us his intense practice. We were all mesmerized and found the whole process thoroughly captivating.
I had time to visit Team Gallery in Soho where Tabor Robak was exploring the digital world in ‘Next-Gen Open Beta.’ My favourite work was ‘20XX’ where the artist uses city scapes to create a new visual landscape.
Last stop and what a treat Christopher Wool at the Guggenheim.
My last day in New York was surreal, December 22nd and it was 60C! We were walking around in T-Shirts and after a couple of glasses of wine at the Mercer and then Sidi greeting me on the street corner I thought for a moment I was in LA LA land.
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