Executive Editor's Letter

The first week of March in New York is both an art lover’s dream and nightmare as The Armory Show, and the satellite fairs that orbit around it, turn the city into a bustling one-stop art-shopping-and-viewing destination. Add to this the 2010 Whitney Biennial, and must-see exhibitions at the MoMA (William Kentridge) and the New Museum (the Dakis Joannou Collection, which I review elsewhere in this issue), and New York was more of a whirlwind than ever.

Nina Berman: Ty with Gun, 2008: from ‘Marine Wedding’ (2006/2008). Pigment print, 10 x 15 in. Collection of the artist. Courtesy the artist and the Whitney Museum, New York.I started going to New York for the art fairs six years ago, when the contemporary art market was at its peak. Last year, as the effects of the economic downturn were starting to be felt, I stayed away, as did many others. People were sounding the death-knell of the international art fair and one friend who did go last year described the atmosphere as one of “forced merriment.” So, I was really interested in what New York’s vibe was going to feel like this year.

On the first day, the phrase “cautiously optimistic” came to mind. By day three, I was thinking “schizophrenic.” The New York art scene felt like it was divided into two distinct halves; one half represented by this year’s Whitney Biennial and the new Independents fair in Chelsea, and the other half represented by the Armory Show et al. Four or five years ago, I was left starry-eyed by the flashiness of the latter; this year, I found myself drawn more and more to the former.

Let me start with the Whitney Biennial, which runs to May 30. This year’s Biennial is scaled back to 55 artists, and the general tone felt sedate. Other than a noisy video installation by Ari Marcopoulos, Detroit (2009), which required its own room, Marianne Vitale’s gleefully in-your-face video Patron (2009), in which the artist barks commands and non-sequiturs in a rapid-fire manner at the viewer, and the delightful drawings of spindly flowers by Charles Ray, there is very little that shouts for attention. Rather, many works require quiet contemplation; spare, minimalist approaches (especially in the paintings, of which there are more this year than in the past few biennials) meant that viewers had to stop and really look in order to feel their effects. For example, Tauba Auerbach, who is best known for hard-edge abstraction and Op Art-influenced canvases, stripped back her paintings to neutral fields of solid colour on folded canvases, the creases subtly animating the works. In the same room, large paintings by Suzan Frecon brought to mind Mark Rothko; the way her colours combined on the canvases feel alive, vibrating off each other. Even the large, wall-filling works by Pae White and Piotr Uklański that greet visitors when they step off the elevators feel as if they are on the verge of dissolving into the ether or slowly crumbling.

Charles Ray: Untitled (detail, 2009): Ink on paper, 47 x 31-_ in. Collection of the artist. Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery and the Whitney Museum, New York. Perhaps because of all the subtlety surrounding them, the two documentary photographers featured in the Biennial, Nina Berman and Stephanie Sinclair, really stood out. Their images, Berman’s of a severely disfigured soldier trying to resume civilian life with his pretty, blonde and unhappy-looking fiancée, and Sinclair’s of Afghan women who resorted to self-immoliation in order to escape their lives, are impossible to walk away from unaffected. Berman’s are the rawer technically, which adds to their poignancy, while there is more artful, considered composition in Sinclair’s work. These two suites of images presented an interesting paradox; Berman’s images seem to posit an argument of why American (and Canadian, for that matter) troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan as soon as possible, while Sinclair seems to present viewers with a compelling reason why our armed forces need to stay.

I was extremely fortunate to have a quiet, after-hours walk-through of the Biennial this year, so launching myself into the frenzy of Volta and the Armory Show immediately afterwards was even more overwhelming than usual. If the Whitney Biennial forecasts what art may look like in the coming years (sparer and more subdued) and what artists are concerned with (a move towards hands-on production, introspection and addressing issues that are ‘closer to home‘, literally and figuratively), then the commercial art world, as represented by the galleries at the Armory Show, seemed a few steps behind. Greg Lamarche: Bang, Bang, Bang (2010): Paper collage, 20 x 14.75 in. Courtesy the artist and Anonymous Gallery, Brooklyn.There were still a lot of big, splashy paintings, things made with glitter, and sculpture that would require a collector to renovate to accommodate. But, despite a $30 entrance fee (!), the crowds seemed undiminished. After the first hour, however, I started to notice many artworks incorporated mirrors in some way — mechanized spinning or revolving mirrors, smashed mirrors, images screen-printed on mirrors, shards of mirror embedded in things. Perhaps, such works represent a sense of self-reflection of the part of the dealers and artists operating at the higher end of the commercial art world.

At Volta (my favourite of all the fairs), two other things struck me. One was the resurgence of collage, often on a smaller, intimate scale. The other was just how terrific the booths of the Canadian dealers looked, and how unique much of the work being produced by Canadians is. Toronto and L.A.-based Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects featured the impressively intricate drawings of Oscar de las Flores; the gallery having a great deal of success with them despite the orgy of grotesqueries they contain. Montreal’s Parisian Laundry featured work by sculptor Valérie Blass. Her quirky, angular constructions covered in hair were unlike anything else at Volta. The elation I felt upon leaving Volta, though, dissipated after about 15 minutes at Scope. Of all the fairs, Scope felt the most lacklustre and out of step with the times. With the exception of the colourful, graffiti and Op Art-inspired collages by Brooklyn-based Greg Lamarche (whose recent exhibition at Show & Tell in Toronto I reviewed in Modern Painters online) and a few other artists represented by his gallery, Anonymous, absolutely nothing at Scope stuck with me. No, wait, I lie… a quartet of oversized, silver-finished sculptures of luxury goods, including a cell phone and a jewelled ring, which were positioned right in the middle of the fair, made me queasy. Such objects, which felt celebratory before the meltdown of the American economy, now come across as ostentatious.

Returning to Toronto is a relief after several days of being knocked around by New York. While many of us consider New York’s art world as the be-all and end-all, it doesn’t take long to realize that, once you’re there, looking around, not everything coming out of New York (or Los Angeles, London or Berlin, for that matter) is memorable or worthwhile. I, personally, have a greater appreciation for what we have in Toronto (and Canada), and the people who make art happen here, after I’ve been away for a little while. And yet, Toronto’s art scene can feel schizophrenic, too. There is so much good happening here, but there are also some things that we could do to make things even better. But, that’s the topic for a future letter…

Bill Clarke
Executive Editor