Art & Inspiration Blog

ArtHamptons 2009 is the only art fair this season in the Hamptons. As such it did double duty offering contemporary galleries a place to exhibit along side blue chip secondary market dealers.

Retuning for its sophomore year the fair has grown by 33%. Specializing in Modern and Contemporary Art from the late 1800′s until today, the fair housed 65 international galleries and over $200 million dollars of art.

While the Hamptons is knows as a summer place to see and be seen, the second weekend in July is especially the place to be if one is a member of the art world. Opening night gala for the fair was a fundraiser held for at the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton .

Visitors to ArtHamptons included celebrities such as Jon Bon Jovi, Russell Simmons, Kelsey Grammer, Joy Behar, and several housewives from the reality TV’s “ The Real Housewives of New York City ”. More importantly, I spotted several top collectors on the day I attended. However collectors seemed to maintain a low key presence, unlike the chummy gaiety of previous pre-recession times at fairs in other cities and venues.

Repeating last year’s success, Mark Borghi Fine Art’s booth was situated at the entrance to the fair. I have learned to make it my first and last stop so the images of the museum quality works there can linger behind my eyes. Among splendid works by Picasso, de Kooning, Chamberlain, Indiana, Calder and more, I spied an atypical but splendid painting by Wayne Thiebold capturing the essence of being windswept on a summer day at the beach. I know I deeply need to own this, cherish it and then lend it to a museum so others can too. I tell Mark that one day, I will be trading my art with him for works such as this. Since I am founding Post Conceptual Art (using symbols as strokes to form traditional images), especially the branch of UnGraven Image, this could be more that a pipe dream.

Peter Marcelle Contemporary booth was dedicated to his late friend Andrew Wyeth. Last year Peter sold the second most expensive work at this fair, and this year his Wyeth is top sale. Among the watercolor and temperas is a stunning portrait of Helga, priced at $15 million that I hope ends up in A NYC museum so I can visit it often. Peter invites me to an opening at his newly expanded Hampton Road Gallery that night.

Dan Rizzie this year’s poster artist for ArtHamptons is also represented by Peter Marcelle. See:

Dan Rizzie: Quirky Cool Passion

ANDY WARHOL 1984 original painting of MICHAEL JACKSON

Synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen inks on canvas,

Salvador Dali Playing Cards (King of Clubs), 1972; Lithograph on Arches paper; Signed Dali in pencil, lower right and numbered 136/150 in pencil

I nearly missed Animation and Fine Art Galleries of Chapel Hill, NC, as the name said movie cels to me. Wrong! More glorious art, mostly prints and multiples all crammed into the booth in a system of movable walls. Like the Thiebold at Borgi, many of the works were too detailed to show up well in a small jpg in a blog, but blue chip art prints that are not often seen at the fairs. Thanks to Bryan Guarnieri for allowing the use of the Salvador Dali print shown here.

A small but stunning Chamberlain lured me into the Margot Stein Gallery where I enjoyed a pleasant conversation with Barton Stein, along with the pleasure of being surrounded by the art of Dine, Holzer and Wesselmann.

DC Moore Gallery represents Jane Wilson, this year’s lifetime Achievement winning artist. Wilson is noted for her Hamptons landscapes, which were displayed at the gallery’s booth.

I often visit DFN Gallery when I am in Chelsea , which represents several Hamptons artists, including Cornelia Foss, whose work was on display in the gallery booth.

Black & White Gallery had strong work by Alicia Ross using cross stitches of cotton for strokes. I especially appreciated Motherboard_7, a large work that is worth a trip to the gallery to see if you are in NYC.

As always it was delightful to see Rick Friedman, Executive Director and Founder of ArtHamptons and his lovely fiancee Cindy Lou Wakefield. I though the fair last year was super, but this year’s was better, largely due to the mix of more solid Contemporary Art galleries. Thanks, Rick—and I’m looking forward to ArtHamptons 2010.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 3:23 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.