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Today we went to New City art fair, Japanese contemporary art at hpgrp Gallery in Chelsea.
Almost everything, from Satoru Tamuras machines from Tezukayama Gallery (who also carried and showed works by Yayoi Kusama, Tomohiro Kato, and Takao Machiba), to the works at Art-U room (by Kazuo Shiraga, Atsuko Tanaka, Jiro Yoshihara, Sadamasa Motonaga, Chiyu Uemae, and Takesada Matsutani), the ones at hprgp (Hisaharu Motoda and Yuichi Hirako), to Satelites ART LAB (Shingo Iguchi, Ben Mori, and Anna Tsubaki), to Fuko Ueadas paintings on Gallery Kogure (along with Takahiro Hirabayashi, Hidenori Yamaguchi, Hiroyuki Matsuura, Takahiro Sanda, Yuwa Kato and Takato Yamamoto), to Gallery TEN (who carries Eishi Takaoka, Michio Kono, Jumpei Yamamuro, Masataka Kitamono, and Kazuko Kaneda), to Shusuke Ao`s installation on eitoeiko (who was also showing Shusuke Ao, Ichiro Irie, Yuki Yoshida and Junta Egawa), almost everything was outstanding.
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Today we have gone to the Independent art show at Center 548. Two floors (starts in the second floor, and the roof top only has a bar). The second floor has some, very few, interesting works. The third floor? Don`t even bother. From childish to improvised, without even being outsider or brut.
When I go to art shows like this I exit with a strange happy grin. The reason? I realize I still have a personal taste, and I know what I don`t like, no matter how crowded the space is, or if it is in Chelsea.
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Yesterday we were invited by Miwako Tezuka (domo arigato!) to the inauguration of Edo Pop at Japan Society. It was wonderful!
Besides the classic and beautiful nishiki-e works by the masters Katsushika Hokusai (yes, Under the Wave off Kanagawa from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, was there), Utagawa Hiroshige, Toshusai Sharaku, Toyota Hokkei, Utagawa Kunisada, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, and Suzuki Harunobu, there were contemporary works by graffiti artist Aiko, strikingly “Japanese” transparencies by Emily Allchurch, reinterpreted iconic portraits by Paul Binnie, political criticism in the work of Ishii Toru and Kazama Sachiko (amazing the large format Alas!
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On Thursday I woke up to a message from a friend, professor at MIT, who was flying to SXSW and was stuck onboard the plane with the Boston airport closed. We had a freak snow storm: it started snowing in the morning. The snow accumulated throughout the day. By night it stopped and temperatures went up. In two days we have gone from 20ºF to 54ºF. New York weather: unpredictable and not for the faint of heart 😉
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A couple days ago we were invited to the inauguration of Moving Image contemporary video art fair at the Terminal Stores (Waterfront Tunnel).
Interesting initiative, in a spectacular space, but as always some works were more appealing than others. This time, without a doubt, the only ones that I would definitely recommend are the ones shown by Ted Victoria (represented by Schröder Romero & Shredder). Very objectual, but quite imaginative and evocative.
Since this week there are way too many art shows to visit, I`ll miss some, for sure.
Luckily, these events are getting better and better with their online access and info, and now we have Volta‘s catalogue online:
We also have a good portion of Armory‘s show online, by Artsy.
Enjoy 😉
This is the Armory art week in New York: Armory, SCOPE, Volta, Independent, Spring/Break, PooL, New City, Moving Image, ADAA, and Fountain.
My friend Jorge (thank you, Jorge!) gave us a VIP pass so we attended the inaugural party of the SCOPE contemporary art show.
I enjoyed it for the same reasons I enjoyed Volta last year: international, interesting, refreshing, criticism, political charge, varied… There were too many interesting artists and works to mention, but in the photo gallery you have a few examples.
