Limited Edition

Ana Mendieta at Galerie Lelong

This week’s post visits the multi medium exhibition Ana Mendieta Late Works: 1981-85 on view at the Chelsea location of Galerie Lelong.  Be sure to visit the gallery before this penetrating show closes on June 22nd!

The sculptures, drawings, photographs, mixed media works, and films in Ana Mendieta Late Works: 1981-85 at Galerie Lelong reveal Mendieta’s translation of her ephemeral practices in the landscape to independent art objects.  Beginning in 1980, Mendieta took several trips to her birth country of Cuba.  These visits brought a resolution that allowed the completion of her identity-oriented works and the seeking of an aspect of universality.  In 1983, Mendieta left New York to begin a fellowship and residency at the American Academy in Rome, a period that redefined her creative process.  Her time in Rome influenced the organization of the current retrospective at the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Turin and inspired a documentary film currently in post-production, Itali-Ana, Mendieta in Rome, directed by Raquel Cecilia.

Installation View

Ana Mendieta: Late Works 1981-85 is the ninth solo exhibition of Mendieta’s work at Galerie Lelong, which has represented her Estate since 1991.  Mendieta has had over 30 solo exhibitions worldwide, at museums including the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Kunstmuseum Luzern; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. This January, the Castello di Rivoli began the second wave of large-scale retrospectives with the exhibition Ana Mendieta: She Got Love, which closes on June 16, 2013. The Hayward Gallery in London will open a retrospective on September 24 this year.  In 2015, the Katherine E. Nash Gallery of the University of Minnesota will present an exhibition devoted to Mendieta’s films.

Installation View

The exhibition is on view through June 22 at Galerie Lelong: 528 W 26th Street, 212.315.0470

Bidders Beware: American Art Sales Yield Strong Results

Today’s blog post is written by Louis Salerno, the owner of Questroyal Fine Art, LLC of the upper east side; a gallery that specializes in fine American paintings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  Fittingly enough,  Salerno has chosen to discuss the American Art auction results from this past auction season.  Enjoy!

Recent American art auctions in New York confirmed the market’s accelerating recovery. Critics may point out disappointing lots, but as an eager buyer I can assure you that it was exceedingly difficult to acquire the most desirable work. This is a market that consists of well-informed collectors, determined to purchase paintings that represent the best efforts by important artists. We must be careful not to judge the market by the lots that sold poorly or failed to sell. At present, the market is expanding at a sustainable and sensible rate. Collectors are primarily interested in securing the best and most easily-perceived quality, but as the positive progression continues so will their desire to consider less popular examples and this shift, in conjunction with the ultimate participation of new collectors, will augment the depth of the market and produce more uniformly positive results.

John George Brown, Newsboy, oil on canvas, 24 1/4 x 16 3/16 inches

Results and highlights:

Christie’s offered 135 lots: 68% sold within or above the estimate and only 6% sold below the low estimate. The buy-in rate was about 26%.

Sotheby’s offered 62 lots: 82% sold within or above the estimate and only one painting sold below the estimate.  The buy-in rate was just 16%.

Bidding was extremely competitive for two sensational works by Edward Hopper: His oil, Blackwell’s Island, realized $19.1 million and his watercolor, Kelly Jenness House, brought $4.1 million.

I was determined to buy a Norman Rockwell and had my sights set on either He’s Going to be Taller than Dad or The Veterinarian, both offered at Sotheby’s. I watched each one soar beyond its high estimate: the first, estimated at $500,000–$700,000, sold for over $2.6 million! The second, estimated at $300,000–$500,000, realized $905,000.

I was again unsuccessful in attempting to buy works by Fairfield Porter and Guy Pène du Bois—in fact, I bid on three Porters without success.

The auction market is imperfect and, as a result, I was able to secure a few remarkable works. I remain interested in modernist Charles Burchfield; lot 4 at Christie’s, Three Ringed Moon, was a fine acquisition at $25,000, and its early position in the sale worked to my advantage. Later in the same sale, Burchfield’s Long House, North of Wyoming Village, estimated at $150,000–$250,000, caught my attention; I was stunned to be the winning bidder at $123,750.  Sometimes there is no explanation as to why a painting sells below its value. Buyers have only a matter of seconds to make a decision and it is often difficult to race against time.

Charles Burchfield, Long House, North of Wyoming Village, 1951, mixed media on paper laid down on board, 29 7/8 x 40 5/16 inches

Fate smiled upon me again later at Christie’s; lot 126, John Breck’s stunning Early Snow, which established the artist’s auction record of $337,000 in 2007, was presented with a seemingly conservative estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. The painting had a great deal of “buzz” and I had little hope of acquiring it. But many collectors assume that they will be unable to acquire well-received paintings and consequently focus their attention elsewhere. I believe that this was the case with this piece and it hammered to me at just $195,750.

John Breck, Early Snow, 1894, oil on canvas, 18 1/4 x 22 inches

There were a few other paintings that I managed to acquire for inventory with which I’m quite pleased. In the days following the sales, the consensus is that the market is moving and interest is rising. My best advice is to seriously consider dealer inventory—it’s there that the best buys may be found.

—Louis Salerno, Owner, Questroyal Fine Art, LLC

Alan Gutierrez on his debut solo exhibition INTRO at Emerson Dorsch

Today’s post is written by Miami based artist Alan Gutierrez .  His debut exhibition INTRO is on view at Emerson Dorsch from June 13th – July 20th.  Read on to learn more about his “works”!

Searching for “work” on YouTube results in various popular music videos of that title. To a beat, the message is either one of expectations or one of declaration; “you better work” or “I’m going to work.” In this case, the call to “work” is the work itself. And although the declarations are made to appear as if with ease, “to work” becomes a lot of work. The way in which the call to “work” comes across as second nature is the most significant performative aspect of the work. There is something to be said about the allure of this, as opposed to a video of, say, a coal miner. The difference here lies in the representation of potentiality versus the final result; the willingness, the readiness, and the effortlessness. It is as if the strength in your ability to perform is paramount to the actual performance. Its when the two get folded in together that things get really interesting.

Studio-work #1, 2013, HD video, 00:01:46, Courtesy of the artist and Emerson Dorsch

This fold, above all, causes awareness. And with this awareness I began INTRO. The pieces in the exhibition appear like art-objects, yet function more like props. In the gesture of their own creation lies the allusions to labor, the laborer, and the potential for future “labor.” In actuality, we are “working” during the greater parts of our lives. And our contemporary demands to perform would go largely unnoticed if not for modes of representation and distribution; the work.

Elevated Surface, 2013, medium density fiberboard (MDF), 14 x 18 x 18 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Emerson Dorsch

Being my first solo exhibition, everything had to be humble. The materials and the means are simple and accessible to me in my current position. The methods of production are pretty transparent. That was all intentional. I wanted to start with the basics and imply my own ability to “work” moving forward. My next exhibition will be titled 2, and although it will depart from the literal trajectory, it will remain a sincere progression of INTRO, a step in the name of love (and the love of “work”).

Jacques Bailly on Jean Dufy

This week’s blog post is brought to you by Galerie Jacques Bailly located in Paris, France.  Gallery owner Jacques Bailly is the adroit scholar on famed Parisian artist Jean Dufy having completed Volumes I and II of the artist’s catalogue raisonne and working to finish Volume III.

Jacques Bailly along with circus expert Pascal Jacob have written a new book detailing the life and art of Jean Dufy as he explores his favorite subjects, those below the big top.  To learn more and order your own copy please see below.  Enjoy!

Editions Magellan & Cie invites you to discover the “greatest show on Earth” through the resplendent works of Jean Dufy. The bilingual text by eminent circus authority Pascal Jacob guides the reader through this artistic extravaganza, uncovering the joyous world of entertainers who so fascinated the painter for over thirty years. Musical clowns, acrobats, trapeze artists, bareback riders and equestrian shows: the acts performed simultaneously under the circus tent create rhythmic and compellingly colorful portraits that usher the reader into the infinite richness of Jean Dufy’s most singular works.

To see an extract click here
To order a copy of this book (€uro 35 plus shipping) click here

Marianne Boesky Gallery: Anthony Pearson

Today’s post discusses the new Anthony Pearson exhibition now on view at Marianne Boeksy Gallery’s Chelsea location.  This is the artist’s second solo show at the gallery.  Pearson’s work is also included in Leila Heller Gallery’s group show “Bass! How Low Can You Go?” on view through June 1st.  Please enjoy this long post to celebrate the long weekend!

Installation view: Anthony Pearson, 2013.  Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York © Anthony Pearson.  Photography by Jason Wyche.

Optical nuance and the handling of materials are at the core of Pearson’s practice. His work engages light and atmosphere as a way of revealing a highly consistent formal vocabulary. For this exhibition, Pearson again introduces new iterations of scale and form, expanding on previously established precedents in his work. Rolled and bundled volumes in bronze relief, as well as highly finished PlasterPositives of varied scales, are combined with previous mainstays of Pearson’s practice, his Flares and Solarizations.

Anthony Pearson, Untitled (Plaster Positive), 2013, Hydrocal in lacquer finished maple frame, 69.75 x 45.75 x 4.5 in, Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York © Anthony Pearson.  Photograph by Lee Thompson.

As with all of Pearson’s work, it is not only the objects themselves, but the relationships among the objects and the overall environment in which they are presented, that dictate both the formal and conceptual conditions of the work. In this exhibition the arrangement of specific works become additionally activated byan augmentation of the gallery’s lighting.

Pearson’s abstract forms allude to the body, landscape, and to art history itself, yet remain undeniable in their material primordial fact. He engages a process driven studio practice that pushes through drawing, photography, painting and sculpture to arrive at something simultaneously ancient and futuristic.

Installation view: Anthony Pearson, 2013.  Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York © Anthony Pearson.  Photography by Jason Wyche.

His work is built from the substantive facts of materials such as wood, plaster, metal, clay, as well as the photochemical play of silver gelatin prints. The use of these materials is activated by both a free-form expression and a regulatory logic, but the experience of his objects and images themselves is the ultimate concern. They are designed to foster physical clboseness and slow, attentive absorption. In terms of both looking and making, temporality lurks in each of the conceptual recesses of his ongoing project.

Anthony Pearson, Untitled (Tablet), 2013, Bronze relief with cobalt patina, 27.5 x 12.5 x 4.5 in, Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York © Anthony Pearson.  Photography by Jason Wyche.

The result is an idiosyncratic body of work that is held together only by the pragmatism of its own framework. Using both the analog and the digital, and the classical and the synthetic, Pearson creates an intuitive structure that allows viewers to enter into an open, lyrical, meditative engagement with sensuality and phenomena. This sensuality and phenomena exist both within and beyond the reference of mechanized human intervention and organic from-earth-itself cultivation. For Pearson, the liberation of the artist’s gesture and chosen language is best understood and reconciled through categorical classification. The studio is the ground in which both personal expression and absolute order is established.

Modern Brazilian Photography on display

This weeks Limited Edition post is brought to you by Galeria FASS’s director Pablo Di Giulio.  He provides a history of modern Brazilian photography and the context for photographer German Lorca’s beautiful works.  Enjoy!

This month several exhibitions are being held in São Paulo that are dedicated to photography.  MIS (Museu da Imagem e do Som) is hosting May Photography and Itaú’s Collection of Brazilian Photography is being shown at Instituto Tomie Ohtake.

We can start looking at Brazilian photographic production in the context of what is now being shown at the aforementioned exhibitions.  These shows focus on the 1940s, the decade considered to be the core of Brazilian modern photography.  From this decade emerged a group of photographers who created the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante, in São Paulo.

German Lorca. São Paulo crescendo, 1965

This photoclub was formed by amateurs and photographers who had privileged access to what was being done within the realms of photography in Europe and the United States at the time.  They were well versed in the abstractionism and experimentalism in vogue during the 1940s.

German Lorca, alongside Thomas Farkas, Geraldo de Barros, José Yalenti and José Oiticica Filho were members of this group whose main goal was to legitimize photography as an art form. In 1965, The Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante was able to get a room specifically dedicated to photography at São Paulo’s VIII Biennial. It was the beginning of photography being taken seriously as an artistic language and being appreciated by critics, museums and art galleries.

German Lorca. Troncos cruzados, 1965

German Lorca’s estate and contemporary work has been represented by FASS since 2012. What is amazing about this 90 year old man is his dedication to photography throughout his lifetime. Almost unconsciously and instinctively he has managed to always do something modern, and created photos that are considered very representative of the canon of Brazilian modern photography.

He has worked extensively with advertising and commissioned campaigns; one of the few members of the club who worked as a professional photographer.   Although Lorca is a successful commercial photographer his experimental work remains unique including multiple exposures of the negative, overlapping images, as well as the exploration of geometric abstractions and high-contrasts.

German Lorca. Lapa, 1960

Lorca has had many group and solo exhibitions throughout his career including a major retrospective at the São Paulo’s Museu de Arte Moderna in 2012 titled German Lorca Fotografias. His work is also included in important collections such as MASP, MAM-SP, Coleção Porto Seguro de Fotografia and Cisneiros Fontanals Art Foundation.

Pablo Di Giulio

Director

FASS

Visit Galeria FASS’s gallery guide page!

http://www.blouinartinfo.com/galleryguide/884154/884152/home-overview

Bernhard Knaus Fine Art

In this week’s post we are happy to report that Gallery Guide has a new member

Bernhard Knaus Fine Art located in Frankfurt, Germany was founded in 1996.  Specializing in contemporary art from a roster of internationally know artists Bernhard Knaus Fine Art is committed to presenting fresh work in the culturally diverse city of Frankfurt.

Opening May 15th is a solo show by Robert Zandvliet titled “SEVEN STONES”

Click on our gallery guide listing for more information about the gallery!

http://www.blouinartinfo.com/galleryguide/281841/304006/home-overview

JEAN DUFY – EDITIONS HAZAN

This week our post is brought to you by Galerie Jacques Bailly in Paris. Jacques has recently published a book on the artist Jean Dufy, and below is a little information about the new publication! It truly does look like a beautiful book.

Editions Hazan invites you to discover a unique perspective of Paris with a fully-illustrated guide to the works of Jean Dufy. The guide features bilingual texts describing the strong bonds that linked the painter to his adopted city for fifty years.

The reader embarks on a journey amid the most iconic depictions of monuments, squares, bridges and avenues adorning a City of Light glorified by Jean Dufy’s radiant palette.

To see an extract, click on this link: http://www.jeandufy.com/pariscentcouleurs/

To obtain this guide (€ 19,90 plus shipping), click on this link:

http://www.jeandufy.com/docs/bdc-paris-aux-cent-couleurs-en.pdf

Hybrid Art Project

This week, our post is brought to you by Galeria Nara Roesler, from São Paulo Brasil. Their Director, Alexandra Garcia, below reviews Eduardo Coimbra’s work entitled, Nuvem. Enjoy!

Hybrid Art Project is a monumental event taking place in Moscow, Russia, which has invited ten artists to showcase their work during the three week program that includes public talks, music events, workshops, performances and much more. Brazilian artist Eduardo Coimbra was selected by curator Marcello Pisu and participates with Nuvem (Cloud.)

Eduardo Coimbra, Nuvem, 2013

Nuvem is a sculptural object meant to interact directly with the coming and going of pedestrians and to establish relations and connections with the urban landscape. It is composed of 5 square light boxes, each 4.7 meters high, containing photographic images of clouds on its two larger faces. The side faces are covered with mirrors, enabling the large square volumes to lose a sense of weight and volume, leaving only the luminous presence of the photographic images.

The sculpture stands on the crossing of Kuznetskiy bridge with Petrowka. Its scale enables Nuvem to be visible as much to pedestrians as to passerbys in the flow of vehicles. “The images of clouds and skies, very present in my work, here appear as sequential plans that suggest the apparition of an ethereal body”, comments the artist.

Nuvem was previously presented in Rio de Janeiro, at Praça XV, in 2008 and in 2012, the piece was produced  again by the State of Sao Paulo as part of the Arte na cidade program and occupied the Praça Charles Miller.

Eduardo Coimbra, Nuvem, 2008

Coimbra shows a keen interest in landscape and spatial perception issues, and the endless ramifications that these entail — specially the discrepancy between appearance and reality, and the place of contemporary production within the history of a classical iconographic genre.

He started his career in the early 1990s with works in which familiar objects were reinvented through the use of small engines, lighting fixtures, and electrical mechanisms. The artist has gradually shifted focus to large-scale works, culminating in the creation of important public installations. It is worth noting that even his more intimate productions hint at his interest in grandeur and true dialogue with the human presence.

Eduardo Coimbra, Luz Natural, 2012

Coimbra was born in 1955 in Rio de Janeiro, where he lives and works. He featured in the 29th São Paulo International Biennial (2010) and the 3rd Mercosul Biennial, in Porto Alegre (2001), both in Brazil. Recent group shows include: Coleção Itaú de fotografia brasileira at Instituto To mie Ohtake, in São Paulo, Brazil (on show until May 19, 2013); From the margin to the edge at Somerset House, in London, UK (2012); Espelho Refletido, at Centro Municipal de Artes Hélio Oiticica, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2012); Höhenrausch 2, at the Offenes Kulturhaus Oberösterreich, in Linz, Austria (2011) and After Utopia at Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato, Italy (2009). Recent solo shows include: Projeto Nuvem, in São Paulo (2012); Museu observatório, at Museu de Arte da Pampulha, in Belo Horizonte (2011); and Natureza da Paisagem, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (2007), all in Brazil.

Dillon Gallery’s Makoto Fujimura Exhibition, ‘Golden Sea’

Julie Hamilton met Fujimura during her studies at Baylor over their mutual love of Georges Rouault. Leaving Texas, she traveled to Duke for graduate studies in theology and art history, interning a summer at Dillon Gallery. She is currently a creative resource scholar for the Fujimura Institute and recently contributed a chapter for Fujimura’s retrospective monograph Golden Sea concerning his work in collaborative and performance art due out this May.

Golden Sea, Makoto Fujimura’s Exhibition, By Julie Hamilton

Trained in the techniques of Japanese Nihonga, Makoto Fujimura offers a seasoned yet innovative vision in his upcoming exhibition Golden Sea at Dillon Gallery, with vanguard approaches to traditional materials. This midcareer exhibit testifies to Fujimura’s significant transition in his artistic career, approaching a new horizon in his visual aesthetic by reimagining possibilities in contemporary art. Ever-excavating his intuitive vision through process-driven methods, Fujimura credits his inspiration for these works to phenomenological experimentation with fresh techniques and materials.

Golden Sea

In a studio visit I had with Fujimura two years ago, he was certain that his painting Golden Sea would not be exhibited in Chelsea, seemed too personal for a public audience. However this May, Golden Sea is the central piece and title for both his retrospective monograph and documentary. Why the transition? I consider this exhibition to be more autobiographical than others, emitting Fujimura’s lyrical confessions through both the brilliant malachite and gold in his Golden Sea, as well as the grisaille shadows in his Walking on Water—Flight. Typically Fujimura is commissioned for focused projects that concern particular themes. In contrast, four of the featured paintings for this show were made extrinsically to his Soliloquies (2009) Four Holy Gospels (2011), and QU4RTETS (2012) exhibitions. These pieces were created concurrently with those collections, but are peripheral in their subject matter. These marginal paintings could be considered autobiographically revelatory of Fujimura’s central themes: sublimity and pathos, community and isolation, revelation and ambiguity, generativity and absence, articulation and silence—essentially paradox. While Fujimura avoids concrete pictorial realities in this exhibition, his dance-like movements through form and color convey paradox as a way of life by navigating beyond apparent binaries.

Walking on Water- Waves

Originally intended as a response to the devastating Japanese tsunami in 2011, the Walking on Water series became a reality for Fujimura as he waded through the flooded Dillon Gallery this past October, losing numerous works. Yet the “walking on water” reference alludes to more than the event of Sandy. For Fujimura, it is also an encounter with the impossible, even the miraculous, an ability to maintain peace amidst the storm. At first glance of this series, one might think back to Mark Rothko’s late works, as well as Yves Klein’s anthropometries. But the third painting in this triptych is perhaps the most conceptually profound. Entitled Banquo’s Dream, this piece was born amidst the storms of Sandy. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth after seeing his son C.J. play the character of Banquo in an October performance at Bucknell University, Fujimura notes his own internal tempest mirrored the churning winds outside his studio on his farm in Princeton. The tensions and anxiety in his composition process paralleled Banquo’s emotional trauma. By utilizing untreated burlap as a base (like his Emily Dickinson’s Trinity, lost in Sandy) an inordinate measure of Nihonga pigments are required to saturate the painting’s surface, which Fujimura initially resisted. His “ghastly” poetic gestures of oyster shell resemble draped gossamer, a fragile and ephemeral veil unable to obfuscate the gold. Likewise, Banquo’s dream offers an anchor in the midst of Shakespeare’s nightmare, “affirming the deep psychology of human experience interacting with divine mystery.”

Walking on Water-Banquo's Dream

Standing in front of these large canvases, Fujimura asks his audience to enter into the space of being overwhelmed in the disorienting environment that he has created. Mineral traces on his obscure surfaces range from faint to gratuitous, offering an intimate experience for the viewer who attends closely to his particular employment of materials. These pieces punctuate Fujimura’s career as open-ended investigations, asking more questions than they resolve. Leaving space for mystery, Fujimura’s paintings are hospitable to self-discovery and even hope of epiphany.