Monthly Archives: May 2009

Affordable Art Fair: Rosé, Pluralism, and Urban Outfitters

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The Affordable Art Fair opens today, and, as its name suggests, it is a pandemonium of booths representing art on the lower end of things, from $100 to $10,000 (75% of the art is under $5,000.) At the cocktail reception last night, I had three things on my mind: pluralism, Urban Outfitters, and rosé. The rosé explains itself, I suppose, and the other two–pluralism and Urban Outfitters–were all I could afford to take away. Not to mention, as a warning to those of you who go, fairs are like speed dating, which can be daunting if you want to fall in love.


Pluralism, while not quite anything goes, describes a variety of styles being pursued alongside each other in the art world. The evidence that the art world is pluralistic mounted from gallery to gallery. (See Wikipedia on it here, and interesting recent discussion of it on Edward Winkleman’s blog.) Between abstract painting and small sketches, to some castings and interesting mixed media panels, it was quite a whirl. There was even a Native American–although he himself wasn’t for sale. There were some very good pieces last night, especially (predictably) on the higher end of things. I also had the pleasure of seeing some New York galleries I was unfamiliar with. This review would of course be more interesting if I had taken some semblance of notes; you know, put specifics to generalities. Unfortunately, I did not and yet I will forge onward to make what is no doubt a very gauche point.

Urban Outfitters, a trendy clothing store not entirely devoted to teens, has a rather good looking selection of things for the apartment. Among curtains and teacups, they have wall art. If you wondering what on earth this had to do with the Affordable Art Fair last night, let me explain: Urban Outfitters did not have a booth. But what they do have are a lot of pieces in similar styles to what I saw last night.

Like H+M to high fashion, Urban Outfitters is able to ape some of the many styles represented last night. That’s a commendation to Urban Outfitters rather than a sleight to the Affordable Art Fair, but I do think its telling that the pluralism that I thought was so varied on an individual level could actually be codified in a department store. Good art, of course, transcends such classifications and there were many great pieces at the fair. Also, Urban Outfitters (or Art.com or Target or whatever) aren’t as well-made in terms of material, expression, the technique and work put into them, or originality. But they look rather similar.
Between the rosé and the Urban Outfitters comparison, you might decide I have abominable taste and stop reading this blog. Maybe I do; I didn’t fall in love with any of the pieces and found the fair bewilderingly fun. Basically, it has original, well-made artworks for every taste and every price point. And that makes for a good art fair, and one that can’t be replaced by a visit to the decorative prints at Urban Outfitters.
For a nice review of the Affordable Art Fair, check out monkdogz’ artblog.

Photography –> Engagement?

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I wrote a rather annoyed post against photographing works of art in museums. This was mainly a rant against cell-phone camera gaggles who cruise through the museum capturing blurred images of masterworks without really looking at them, not to mention getting in my way and seeming to miss the point of the museum: to look at art.

The blatant hypocrisy of this view, as I take photos in museums, is not lost on me, nor is the elitism of my quibbling justification that I really look at the art and try to be aware of the people around me.

To use my two exemplars for the last post, MoMA and Met have different photography policies. MoMA is quite good about letting it’s visitors take pictures without flash. The Met does not allow photography at all. The Met’s policy may be the best, as quite a few people at MoMA accidentally take flash photos. This could eventually harm the painting. Anyhow, photos of paintings are so unimpressive in quality compared to the original, it’s almost a waste of time to take one. (And did I mention the gaggles wielding camera phone?)

On the other hand, one of our compatriots here at Art Ravels suggested to me that they could be taking them to share with friends and relatives who will not have the opportunity to see them in person. To which I say, touche. Another commenter pointed out that he liked taking photos of installations and sculpture because he felt he was able to bring out different facets of the work. To which, again, I say touche.

Most interestingly, it was suggested that I look at Thomas Struth’s Museum Photographs, which document viewers reactions to art pieces. These well-behaved museum goers, even the children sitting on the floor, all seem to be looking at the paintings and not taking photos. But then again, all they ever do is stand their and stare. This got me thinking: more than a sign of visible approval, is taking a picture the one way a visitor can react when presented with an art object? Maybe people in museums should be able to do more, before the atmosphere turns into something as quiet, reverential, and ignored as the one below.


Art as it is most often presented is a take, not give, kind of thing. If you want to react to it, you end up removed to a different room miles away typing on a computer into a blog or some such tomfoolery. Perhaps photography is a sign of engagement. Do you think picture-taking is a way of responding to and interacting with the art?

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were more?

The Writing on the Wall: Tangled Alphabets and Words

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Leon Ferrari, left, and Mira Schendel, right

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture containing words has worth to the nth power. The special exhibition up at MoMA now, Tangled Alphabets, examines the works of two artists who explore words extensively in their works, and it got me thinking about how words have been used in art. Writing on an artwork exists traditionally as a signature or a date, or perhaps an inscription such as ‘Marcus me fecit.’

Tangled Alphabets focuses on the work of South American painters León Ferrari and Mira Schendel. The show says that the artists “produced their works in the neighboring countries of Argentina and Brazil throughout the 1960s and 1980s, when the question of language was particularly central to Western culture due to the central role taken by post-structuralism, semiotics, and the philosophy of language.“

Franz Kline, left, and Cy Twombly, right.

Since the 1950s however, writing has come into prominence in the visual arts. Surrealism, and the automatic writing it inspired (where the author writes from his or her unconscious) combined with an interest in the East, led to the prominence of the written word in Abstract Expressionist works. And, at least according to the critic Harold Rosenberg, the action painting popular at the time allowed the psyche assert or express itself, similar to the process of automatic writing.

From Wikipedia we have it that “automatic writing was an important vehicle for action painters Franz Kline in his black and white paintings, Jackson Pollock, Mark Tobey and Cy Twombly who used gesture, surface, and line to create calligraphic, linear symbols and skeins that resemble language, and resonate as powerful manifestations from the collective unconscious.” In the hands of artists like Kline or Twombly, writing becomes a lush visual element. (Kline denied that it was in fact calligraphy; Twombly’s graffiti-like scrawls are legible.)

Andy Warhol, left, and Roy Lichtenstein, right.

Of course, pop art took words in another direction, as they exploited comic books (Roy Lichtenstein) or packaging (Warhol) In these works, the words are an intrinsic part of the image being reappropriated. In the reuse of printed materials, like some of Robert Raucheneberg’s collages, words become part of the material itself.

For a contemporary approach to automatic writing, look no further than MoMA’s recent acquisition. This untitled work, above, by British artist Jack Strange features a lead ball pressing down the g key indefinitely. (I was born the same year as the artist, 1984, and feel like I desperately need to catch up with someone who already has 2 works at MoMA!)

Words are conceptual and tied to a specific meaning, while the visual arts are just that, visual, visceral and more fluid in meaning. The combination of words and images makes your mind work overtime. Having to read something uses a different part of the brain that looking at something, and sometimes words seem too explicit. On the other hand, they certainly pack a punch.