Category Archives: art fairs

SMartCamp: Social Media Art Camp

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I’m on a break from SMartCAMP, and wow! is it fabulous to hear some of the speakers so far. The opening presentation by Marc Schiller, of Wooster Collective, reminds me of why I love blogging.

Schiller stumbled into blogging because he was looking for a way to host photographs he had taken of street art in his neighborhood, the West Village, while walking his dog. Since then, the blog he has created with his wife Sara has become an authority on street art that mainstream media turns to for content. Schiller still runs the project as a passion rather than a job, and it’s well-worth checking out if you aren’t familiar with the site.

Favorite Quote: “It’s okay to be a bit crap, as long as you are sincere and honest.”
http://www.woostercollective.com/Picture-190.jpg

If you want in on the action, check out the live stream on the website or the conversation on twitter by searching #smartcamp. I’m @linnea_west. This afternoon is focused on video and putting them online–perfect timing for my video of Scope and hopefully Pulse. The art fairs have been amazing so far, even more so to me after being on the island for 3 months.

However, it’s not for long. I just booked my ticket for Mexico, and I leave this Tuesday morning. I’ll probably be there a couple months–which just might be enough time to catch you up on all the art I’ve seen! Quick judgments: Whitney Biennial can be skipped, William Kentridge at MoMA cannot, Independent is interesting if chaotic, Scope better than Verge, and hopefully I’ll be able to say something about Pulse, Armory, and Volta soon!

Verge Emerging Art Fair

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Certainly there is a place among the New York art fairs for a venue dedicated to emerging artists–however, I’m not sure how well Verge fills it. While much of the work was interesting and well-executed, even exciting, overall the quality was uneven.

The set up in the Dylan Hotel was extraordinarily intimate, with each organization having a separate room. This could be good or bad, depending on the people and art. Scariest moment: When I walked into an empty, dimly lit room to watch a video playing on a white screen around which a mirror and sex toys were arranged, I said to my friend that the video projection must be reflecting in the mirror, when a disembodied voice replied, “No, it’s playing through the latex screen.” I jumped out of my skin!

If that was the bad (and not so very horrible at that), this is the good:

Work by John Breiner, Mighty Tanaka Gallery

  • Brooklyn galleries represent! Some great work from Antidote, Slate, Wildspace, and others.

Marc Anthony Polizzi, Untitled, 2010

  • Installations from the large sprawling pinkness on the 2nd floor stairwell (above) to metal boxes and bedspreads (Galerie Yellow Fish Art)
  • Take something besides a flier home: from a ASMPNY project benefiting Haiti to Fuse Works, which promotes multiples and editioned work, not only can you afford to take something home, but you can even put your token in a Artist Meeting Art Machine, a fine art dispensing device set up in the lobby.
    • Laurence Hegarty, Cash Register, Sarah Nightingale Gallery

What bothers me about Verge is not that anything is so very terrible about it, but that it should be better than it is. Emerging art should be the most exciting work to see, and here the uneven curation left me with the feeling I had been at a thrift store, sorting through racks to find a good sweater.

L