Having attended Art Basel Miami Beach on a number of occasions (I covered the fair for many years for Art in America and other publications) and having traveled to Art Basel Hong Kong 2017, I was eager to finally visit the mother-ship in Basel, which I did in early June. I only spent a total of about 6 hours at the fair, which means I saw a bit less than half, but I was left with many strong impressions. Before sharing a few of my thought and highlights, I must note that although I was in attendance on the preview day of Art Basel 2018 with a "First Choice VIP" pass, the size of the crowd went far beyond anything I had experienced on equivalent days at the previous fairs. That the dealers and other gallery staff working the fair had five … [Read more...]
Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris
Having run late for our set-time appointment at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, we took a taxi and entered through a security checkpoint cubical so that Frank Gehry's spectacular building, made up of 12 huge curving sails of glass, revealed itself to us slowly from the museum's interior, an experience I would expect few people have. As we moved through the space, the building unfolded from the inside to the outside with increasing urgency, yielding to soaring views of its own structure and eventually giving way to a multi-level series of outdoor terraces with views of the surrounding park, the Bois de Boulogne, and Paris beyond. The fabulously complex, intricately designed structure of curving glass panels, wooden breams, and metal … [Read more...]
Inhotim=Paradise*
I wept from joy 3 times during my 2 1/2 days at Inhotim. The first was in the gallery that houses Canadian artist Janet Cardiff's Forty Part Motet (2001). The piece consists of 40 speakers on stands that encircle an otherwise empty, large, white-walled space. A single horizontal window cut into one wall affords views of the abundant foliage outside. From each speaker comes the voice of one of 40 singers performing the sixteenth-century choral piece Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis. Although I have experienced this work before and have always been deeply affected by the tapestry of voices raised in sacred song, the rays of light streaming through the window and the slice of Eden glimpsed just beyond made immersion in the piece even more … [Read more...]
Notes on Art Basel Hong Kong 2017
On our way to Seoul to attend a traditional Korean wedding (see photo at the bottom of this post), my husband and I stopped off in Hong Kong, where I attended Art Basel Hong Kong for the first time. I spent two days at the fair and still didn't see it all, but what follows are short notes on a few of the works that struck me and stayed with me. What those who attended the fair only on the Wednesday--the VIP day--may not have realized and what I found remarkable as someone who attended several iterations of Art Basel Miami Beach when it first began, is that when I went to the fair on the Thursday, the first day the fair (which is in its fifth year in Hong Kong) was open to the public, there were thousands of people waiting to get in--and … [Read more...]
Notes on a Visit to Buenos Aires, December 2016
In early December, I traveled to Buenos Aires, where I always encounter wonderful art and exhibitions, ranging from early Modernist to Contemporary, some of which I will note briefly here. Time and again in Buenos Aires, I have seen work by Latin American artists little known to me who were shortly thereafter the subjects of major museum and gallery exhibitions in the U.S. and elsewhere. I will therefore point out work by artists--a number of women in particular--whose art caught my eye. At MALBA, Museum de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, where I always begin my trip, the permanent collection galleries featured abstract work of the late 1950s by the Brazilian artists Lygia Clark, who had a retrospective at New York's MoMA in 2014, … [Read more...]
Notes on Shanghai: Hugo Boss Asia Art
Do not rush to see the Hugo Boss Asia Art award exhibition at Shanghai's Rockbund Art Museum. While it is an intriguing show presented in a handsome Art Deco building, the exhibition is currently over and Shanghai's air quality is frightening, the AQI (Air Quality Index) in the "very unhealthy" range. Walking to the museum wearing a 3M particle filtering respirator mask, I felt that I had entered a dystopian future, which was made all the more horrible by the realization that this "future," for millions of the world's occupants, is now.The exhibition Hugo Boss Asia Art: Award for Emerging Asian Artists, which is in its second year, presents work by six artists who live and work in China, the Philippines, Cambodia, Taiwan and Myanmar. … [Read more...]
Notes on Shanghai: My introduction to art in China
In late July, I accompanied my husband, Don, who had business in Shanghai and Beijing, on my first trip to China. Although my exposure was limited to a few days and venues in each, I found the contemporary art scenes in both cities astounding. What follows here and in the post on Beijing are a few random notes on what I saw and experienced.In Shanghai, other than the Untour Shanghai Food Tour, which provided a wonderful introduction to Shanghai's old French Concession neighborhood and its enticing street foods, the Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum, better known as the Power Station Museum of Art, was a standout. Situated in a converted electric plant on the Huangpu River, the museum is China's first state-run museum devoted to … [Read more...]
Notes on Beijing: My introduction to art in China
First, some general comments with regard to Don's and my hotels and sightseeing during our brief stay in Beijing. Whereas we stayed in the nondescript Westin Hotel Bund Center in Shanghai, in Beijing we spent several nights luxuriating at the Opposite House, located in a lovely neighborhood replete with high-end stores and foreign embassies. The hotel is new, hip and styling (part of the Swire Hotel chain, which also manages the Upper House in Hong Kong, another of our favorites) and we were upgraded to an enormous, incredibly well-appointed room, which we loved. As it was raining the night of our arrival, we ate in one of the hotel's restaurants, Sureno. Don and I sent back a shrimp appetizer that we found sub-par, only to have the chef, … [Read more...]