Art & Inspiration Blog

Pulse New York was held a Pier 40 on the West Side Highway, from March 27 to March 30, 2008. After debarking from the shuttle from the Armory fair we walked through a public recreational facility, through a utilitarian park facility housing public toilets and other locked, closed doors, past a large playing field where teams of children were playing soccer and finally into a tent-like opening. Then down the long red corridor and into another room with a few informational booth, such as the one for the NYFA. Then another hall and suddenly — Lights! Booths! — and a large art fair! According the their pr, this year Pulse moved into a larger space, and I personally salute the ingenious people who found this huge, but probably comparatively inexpensive space and both imagined and then actualized its great possibilities for an art fair.

This article is brief and deals with what stood out so much that I actually remember it, aside from the unique entrance. There are some good artists and booths that deserve a mention, even a belated one.

I only mention what I like and always try to provide a link to the artist’s gallery. Since the reviews have remained on line (access the former ones through this menu link: http://www.ungravenimage.com/ArtTheoryShowsArticles.php) it serves to introduce artists and sometimes galleries as since my site is content rich, before the recent web host move my site and blog were ranked fairly highly by search engines.

Moving the web site to a new host and changing blog software was still happening behind the scenes yesterday. I changed because I realized I needed to escape the problems with the old host and especially the blogging software, but the experience has had moments when I felt I was in a bad made for TV movie and I was the heroine fleeing a bad relationship with my mate unwilling to release me. Plus, moving in to my new web digs and software there has been a learning curve and being that the ungravenimage.com web site has many. Obviously, I am still leaning how to use the new software and have yet to conquer inserting tables into the blog.Many pages, with new stuff added semi-weekly, well, here we are, a month later and I am finally posting on the Pulse Art Fair in NYC.

Since I was new to the new blog software I only sought to include one image from each of the three fairs as the previous blog software had become a nightmare to format. I know HTML and almost all coding on the web site, except the blog’s formatting is created by me.

Lyons Weir Ortt was not the last booth I stopped at, but it is the last one I remember and I remember it the best. Dead on my feet visually over stimulated as I was, it was refreshing, even exciting to pause and chat with Michael Lyons Weir who is as enthusiastic about art , and the difference that it can make as I am. For me it was a no brainer to select an image of one of Cayce Zavagliav’s portraits created from embroidered wool and acrylic yarn on linen.. The gallery graciously sent me several jpegs, so the only difficult task was to select which one. I resonate to using stitches as strokes, maybe because they are so like the yuds and vav Torah font letters that I use for my strokes. Of course, various recent articles have focused on portraits as I began my own series at the very end of 2007. I urge you to use the link to the gallery’s web site where more of this artist’s work can be discovered.

Dad

(close up of a portion of the work)

14″ x 39″
Embroidery Wool and Acrylic on Linen

At Margaret Thatcher Projects Robert Sagerman creates a tactile language of color forms with small heavy strokes oil paint up crammed up against each other as they proceed across his canvases.

I almost always shy away from mentioning photography as my training and experience primarily painting, drawing, sculpture and some video/film (I was a professional script writer). However, Vic Muniz blurs the distinctions between painting and photography with his Pictures of Pigment series. At the Rena Bransten Gallery booth there were several works that used color chips and I sort of recall other materials to replicate works or details of works by Francois Lemoyne and Odilon Redon that simply wonderful feats.

Marcus Kenney uses paint and found objects and images to make seemingly childlike and engaging but highly sophisticated and poignant works that explore race relations. He is currently enjoying a solo show at the Marcia Woods Gallery in Atlanta, too. I know because I was email invited by Marcia herself via email almost immediately after I met her. Use the link to check out this gallery and artist!

Kinz Tillou + Feigen had interesting work by Jennifer Coates, whose landscapes allude to other realities.

Nicholas Metiver Gallery had works by Patrick Hughes, who works with perspective creating sculptures that trick the eyes. I had read about his work and seen an images in magazines, but the real thing took me by surprise. There are two different links in this paragraph as the artist’s own site is extensive.

There was a lot more worth seeing at Pulse and since I am posting late here are a couple of additional links to the show. First, on YouTube is James Kalm . Since Edward Winkelman’s blog on Pulse had covered some other artists and I had the luxury of reading him before posting, I did not cover any of the same artists as I had decided to provide a link to his blog here. Hraq Vartanian has a blog with an image of the log red hall and then more on Patrick Hughes.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 2:58 am and is filed under Art Theory and Show Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.