Gone to the Fair

This month saw the first online edition of Frieze New York. Starting the 8th of May, the week long event allowed plenty of time to visit the two hundred and thirty nine galleries and view more than four thousand works of art. The visit could start by selecting a list of sites according to location (every continent was represented minus Antarctica), section (Spolight, Non profit, Main Galleries, Dialogos, ...), artist gender (Female, Male, Transgender, Non-binary or Other), price bracket or medium.
The registration was free and allowed to enter the "viewing rooms" which also provided direct access to the galleries' websites.
I relish visiting art fairs, Frieze London, FIAC, Miami Art Basel, The Armory Show, this time, I logged into Frieze New York, alone in front of my computer.
Color distortion, loss of texture, fuzzy lines, skewed depth, size, missing shadows and reflections, among the drawbacks of looking at photographs of artworks, the lack of physical interaction is the most frustrating for me. During my repeated visits to the online platform, I appreciated pieces from artists I encountered at previous shows but new ones stayed mute. I most likely would have just given a glance at a painting from Torkwase Dyson featured by Pace Gallery, if I had not seen the exhibition Torkwase Dyson: Black Compositional Thought/ 15 Paintings for the Plantatiocene at the New Orleans Museum of Art before its temporary closure. Looking at the image of a midnight blue and black composition filled with white geometric drawings on the screen, I would have missed the spiritual dimension of her work by skipping the act of contemplation which can only occur in front of the real thing. A photograph of James Turrell's light piece brought back memories of my visit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the adventure of going through the exhibition James Turrell: a Retrospective, bathing in colors, disoriented at times. I kept clicking my mouse for more.
Of course the fair on line has some advantages, especially for collectors, with prices displayed next to most artworks' photographs and I was able to visit daily for a whole week. I even fantasized about owning paintings I could not afford by projecting them on the white walls of my living room, thanks to AR (augmented reality) available on the Frieze New York app.

The new immersive technology (AR) is creeping in the art world making its debut at the fair with its own section called "Acute Art". The  website of the same name was launched timely in March and is described as "a new art platform that transforms the way we collect, trade and live with art". Indeed. After downloading the app and some practice, I was able to experience free digital art samples, small versions of COMPANION (EXPANDED), graffiti (sounds included) from  KAWS and objects from a "cabinet of curiosities" called AR WUNDERKAMMER created by Olafur Eliasson. It was fun to decorate walls with clouds, rainbows, or arrange virtual sculptures of COMPANION on the floor. Like in a magical world, objects would appear and disappear with a glide of my fingers while my eyes stayed glued to the screen of my phone. The business part happens on the website: for 10,000 dollars, I could own a 1.8 meter sculpture (edition of 25) from KAWS, download it on the app and project my newly acquired piece of art in my surroundings. Next, I could send pictures (shot with my phone camera) to my friends and share them on social media. Of course, I would receive a digital certificate of authenticity. Later, when tired of the work or to get my money back, I could sell it again on the site and feed a secondary market. The simple operation offers a way to trade art while bypassing galleries, fairs and auction houses.
How will this new field evolve? Future will tell, but museums have already adopted VR, AR, and we can predict that smartphones will multiply when they reopen. Will artists change their practice to adapt to this new technology?
It's a brand new world, but I can't wait to visit the next fair in the flesh.

photographs by the author:

Painting from Torkwase Dyson at the New Orleans Museum of Art

COURAGEOUS FLOWERS from Olafur Eliasson and AT THIS TIME (EXPANDED) from KAWS in my living room

THE SCOTTS from KAWS in my living room.

From Cave to Light

 
James Turrell's work must be experienced and the exhibitions taking place from coast to coast this Summer with a combined retrospective between the LACMA and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, a site specific installation at the Guggenheim in New York City and a side show in Las Vegas at the Louis Vuitton City Center are an opportunity to do so. Considering the technical and operational resources involved to organize such shows, it may be an occasion not to miss.
To prepare for the visit at the MFAH to see James Turrell: the Light Inside, I read the book, James Turrell: a Retrospective published at the occasion of the nationwide event.
For once, I will relate my visit in the first person, because it is a very personal experience after all.

Upon making a reservation on the Internet for a 1:00 pm slot, the museum's site provided some practical information:
"Within the exhibition, visitors will encounter the following:
• Areas of near total darkness combined with dramatic lighting
• Optical illusions that can create a false perception of space
• Sloped flooring and raised platforms
• Narrow stairs without handrails"
Ten minutes early and not a soul waiting in line at the small entrance booth, I was told to come back exactly at 1:00 o'clock. Back on the dot, I was given a tag to put around my neck indicating my time slot and wandered in an anonymous hall reminding me of a school or a train station. A guard stopped me when I tried to follow the first sign written "Entrance" and I waited for two visitors to exit before walking in a white cave-like space. Aurora B, 2010, from the Tall Glass Series goes through a gradual transformation of colors in the course of several hours from dawn to dusk according to the comments on the wall, and at the time of my visit, the glowing light in the center was white surrounded by a pastel blue and pink aureole. The rectangular piece is the size of a small window, constructed with LED lights and frosted glass. Of course, I could not wait to witness the changes and carried on to the next cave where my eyes got hit by blue. Blinded by the light from the screen, I found a bench in the back of the white-walled space, sat and waited for my vision to accommodate and look at Rethro II Blue, 1969. The blue rectangle filling the whole wall has no focal point and the blue glow invades the room, carpet, visitors and melts away. I could see perfection, infinity, beyond blue... or nothing...just blue light.
Due to the ins and outs, the intermittent exposure to the hallway light played some tricks with my rods and cones when I looked at Rondo Blue, 1969, a minimalist construction.
Across the hall, a line of visitors had formed to see the installation reproducing the ganzfeld effect. With low voices, several guards-ushers  were instructing the visitors to take off their shoes, put on white booties... and wait. The atmosphere was quiet, full of expectations as we sat in front of an elevated stage. When it was my turn, I climbed a few steps, with a guard on each side (for fall prevention) and found myself bathing in pink, surrounded by walls dissolving in a pink fog. Some visitors were dancing and horsing around as guards (again) used arm signals to define a perimeter for their frolics. I missed the rush of adrenaline involved with the real thing experienced while flying (with instruments) in  clouds or driving through a blizzard in North Dakota when the road could be the sky and the ditches look like clouds. The colored armchair adventure is an attempt to reproduce what nature can do best, and I realized that all along a few visual cues kept me from being disoriented.
Moving on, my vision was slightly distorted, greenish for a few minutes, as I looked at the prints lining up the walls. They included  prints from the Roden Crater Site Plans, the Deep Sky and Spaces portfolio and the First Light portfolio (1989-90). The visit went on with Raethro II Blue, 1971, representative of the Shallow Spaces constructions, reverse of the earlier Projection Pieces. This time, the corner of the wall is cut and the projection of the light from inside the cavity leaves us believe that it is a flat surface with a colored shape projected on it, as opposed to Acro Green, 1968, an example of the previous Projection Pieces series, creating the illusion of shape on a flat surface. Next, Tycho White, 1967, from the Shallow Spaces series, the only work realized with two projectors is a rectangular minimalist white composition divided by a darker perpendicular line drawn by adjusting the two rays of light. I found the red and violet installation from the Wedgeworks series enthralling with its feel of immateriality and had an urge to walk through it to look beyond and discover some parallel world.
Of course, the biggest piece is the permanent installation underground between the two main buildings of the museum which gave the title to the show: The Light Inside. I always found it decorative, fun to go through when visiting the MFAH and other visitors look like they are too, playing in the space, walking back and forth.

The exhibition is a unique venue to see James Turrell's work from the permanent collection in a setting that allows to grasp the artist's production over the span of his career minus the Skylight series. However, I found the setting frustrating with constant interruptions and mundane details repeatedly distracting the visitor. Such a visit should flow from start to end and allow a smooth walk for the eyes, including lighting, colors of the walls and floor of the interim space between the works. Minimalism is demanding, perfection is the only option and the ambitious exhibition falls short of its goal, inspiring awe with the magic of light..

Two other permanent works are located in Houston with "One Accord" , Skylight at the Live Oak Friends Meeting House and "Twilight Epiphany", Skyspace on the Rice University campus.

no photographs allowed
photographs Flickr photo sharing

Ganzfeld effect
Skyspace, Rice University campus, Houston (detail)
"Twilight Epiphany", skyspace on the Rice University campus, Houston

Turrell at the Bookstore

The colorful book, James Turrell: a Retrospective, published at the occasion of three exhibitions taking place conjointly at the LACMA, the Guggenheim, NYC and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will overshadow the display at the gift shops this Summer with its pink, mauve to violet jacket, the artist's name spelled in red on the background.
Three hundred pages long, composed of ten chapters, the coffee table look-alike book is filled with breathtaking photographs and includes a biography, an interview with James Turrell and essays written by Michael Govan , CEO and director of LACMA, Christine Y. Kim, associate curator at the LACMA and two contributors, Alison de Lima Greene, curator at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and E.C. Krupp, astronomer, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
Each chapter is printed on a different colored paper, turquoise, mustard, dark blue, violet, red... Under the chapter's title, a statement from the artist introduces the text followed by abundant photographs to illustrate the subject. We discover skylight spaces, ganzfeld effect, the architecture of space and follow the artist's path through his projects like Roden Crater in Arizona or others in far away places like Japan, Australia, Argentina...
Alison de Lima Green reminds us of Turrell's background: California in the sixties, Minimalism, the Light and Space movement and relates his interaction with numerous artists including Robert Smithson, Dan Flavin, Malevich with a special mention for Robert Irwin and Doug Wheeler, otherwise, the book is exclusively dedicated to Turrell and his work for the past fifty years. The contribution of technology to "see the light", emphasized in the last chapter brings us back to the introduction titled "Inner light, the radical reality of James Turrell" which resumes the quest of the artist.
A book filled with colors, but a visit to the museum is required to look for the light.



photographs Flickr Photo Sharing

"Gand", 1968
"Air Apparent", ASU Campus, Tempe, AZ