Summer Round-Up
It’s summer which means a lot of really great exhibitions are open and with reduced restrictions and more vaccinations, people are eager and ready to see art in person. When visiting art museums and galleries, I encourage my clients to practice and hone their looking skills. By this I mean, because we are bombarded with visual stimuli and suffer from screen fatigue, our tired eyes sometimes glaze over the details.
When looking at art, it is essential to slow down, stop and look. And then take some time to note the details that you observe including colors, textures, and patterns. This is a critical tool in developing one’s taste in art. The noted art critic Roberta Smith of the NY Times said, “My main activity is looking, looking and more looking and trying to listen to my subjective reactions as objectively or as neutrally as possible.” Keeping this in mind, I challenge you to stop and look a bit longer than feels comfortable the next time you are in front of an interesting work of art; this is an exercise I did with my Stanford students. Please get back to me and let me know what you discover in the process!
In thinking about where to practice these skills, I’ve included a round-up of select exhibitions:
MIAMI: Superblue (immersive art experience featuring James Turrell and TeamLab) in Allapatah (located right in front of the Rubell Museum); Cuban abstract painter Emilio Sanchez at LNS gallery (open through August 14); 2021 recipient of the Jorge Pérez YoungArts Foundation award Malaika Temba at Mindy Solomon Gallery (opens June 26); Peggy Nolan at Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum (open through August 22).
BAY AREA: Liam Everett, some days later (the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with Altman Siegel; Everett has also created a site-specific mural on the facade of the 1150 Building at Minnesota Street Project); Wangechi Mutu, I Am speaking, Are You Listening? at the Legion of Honor; Damien Loeb’s cosmic landscapes are on view at PACE Palo Alto until July 2; Paul Walkers colorful interior still-lives, which he painted during the pandemic, through July 15 at Eleanor Harwood in San Francisco.
NEW YORK: Alice Neel, People Come First, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through August 1); El Museo del Barrio presents Estamos Bien, the first survey of LatinX contemporary art (through September 26); Sam Moyer’s Doors for Doris installation at the entrance to Central Park (at 60th and Fifth); There’s There There curated by artist Rashid Johnson at Hauser and Wirth in Southhampton (Johnson’s participatory Red Stage is also up in Astor Place in the city).
COLORADO: A slew of galleries have announced pop-up spaces in Aspen this summer including Almein Rech, Lehmann Maupin, Mitchell-Innes and Nash (don’t miss a chance to see Genesis Tramaine’s portraits at Almein Rech, which opens July 17). Intersect Aspen has recently announced August 1-5 as the in-person dates for this year’s art and design fair which will take place at the Aspen Ice Gardens; Aspen Art Museum is presenting Cy Gavin’s Paintings which explore nature, light, and darkness; if you love ceramics, check out Simphiwe Mbunyuza’s work at Marianne Boesky (through July 25).
Below are some art market updates:
OVR: Portals (an exclusively online art fair put together by Art Basel) is currently running and closes on June 19. (OVR = Online Viewing Room)
A few days ago, the New York Times Magazine just released a fantastic step-by-step guide on “How to Buy a Work of Art”. If you don’t have time to read the entire article, feel free to reach out to me, happy to walk you through the highlights!
The Louvre has announced Laurence des Cars as its new director- the first female director in it’s 228 year history. She plans to build “a museum of the present” and focus on attracting younger and more diverse audiences. (ArtForum)
London galleries and museums have finally re-opened where a local collector rejoiced saying “I can’t look at art online anymore. I want to smell it. I want to taste the creativity. You can’t do that on Zoom.” (NY Times)
The FRIEZE art fair has announced it will host an edition in Seoul, further solidifying Seoul’s powerful position in the global art market.
Curator Cecilia Alemani has announced “Milk of Dreams” as the title for the 59th Venice Biennale with three main themes: the representation of bodies and their metamorphoses; the relationship between individuals and technologies; the connection between bodies and the Earth.
Tickets for Armory New York in September have just been released (use code EARLYBIRD for discount); please reach out to me to coordinate any guided visits during the September fairs.
Daniel Salick, board chair of the Hirshhorn Museum, recently proposed a 1% tax on artworks to support arts education.
Sotheby’s will offer Tim Berners-Lee’s source code for the world wide web as an NFT. (The Art Newspaper)