An Art Lover’s Guide to Tokyo https://ift.tt/FtnsxqJ

From the influence of Japanese woodcuts on Impressionism to the proliferation of manga and anime, the global influence of Japanese art is a long and still unfolding story. Its recent chapters have been shaped by the “Cool Japan” initiative, under which the Japanese government has invested heavily in promoting national cultural interests abroad.

Post-COVID, this initiative, combined with a weak yen, has contributed to record-breaking levels of foreign tourism in Japan in 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, Japan’s art market is primed for growth. Although the 2024 Art Market Report from Art Basel and UBS estimates Japan’s share of the global market at only 1% in 2023, it also suggests that interest in art from Japan is on the rise. The political situation in Hong Kong has caused increasing focus on Tokyo as an alternative art hub in the region, and tax reforms in 2022 made it easier to import artwork. Against this backdrop, new events and attractions—including Tokyo Gendai, Art Week Tokyo, the Tokyo Biennale, and the Terrada Art Complex—have sprung up, drawing attention to the capital’s art scene.

Art-seeking visitors to Tokyo will find pockets of attractions around the city that, to some extent, reflect the historical division of “uptown” and “downtown.” This distinction is derived from feudal lords having their residences located in the hilly southwest, while the working class mainly occupied the northeast around the Sumida River. To this day, an address in western Tokyo has different connotations from one to the east—with conspicuous consumption and wealth continuing to be associated more with the former. While it’s true to say all kinds of art can be found anywhere in Tokyo, clusters of galleries also take cues from the character of their neighborhoods.

With so much to discover in the world’s biggest metropolis, we’ve assembled a guide to the must-visit galleries, museums, nonprofits, and art world haunts in Tokyo.

Tokyo galleries

In Ginza

Ginza, in the center of Tokyo, has strong ties to modernism and modern art going back to Japan’s first department store opening a fine art section in 1907. Its history as a center of cosmopolitan chic and luxury brands continues to influence the art scene.

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, which opened in 1950, switched from showing figurative oil painting in the late 19th- and early 20th-century nihonga and yōga (respectively, “Japanese-style” and “Western-style” oil painting) traditions to post-war abstraction in 1958. According to the gallery’s founder, Takahashi Yamamoto, this makes it the first commercial gallery in Japan to specialize in contemporary art. Its program covers neo-Pop, with artists such as Hiroyuki Matsuura, to neo-Mōrōism, a contemporary revival of the 20th-century mōrōtai painting style that employed soft, impressionistic brushwork.

Ginza’s historical significance can be seen in the inventory of Shihodo Gallery, which predominantly favors Japanese nihonga and yōga painters from around the 1900s—styles that have generally been more appealing to Japanese collectors than contemporary art.

Other galleries such as Nichido, which dates back to 1928, and Akio Nagasawa have attempted to update their programs by opening separate divisions focused on contemporary and emerging artists. The latter also has locations in the sleek, high-rise Toranomon Hills business district and the super-chic Minami-Aoyama, with the curation of the three galleries consciously reflecting the different character of these areas.

In Aoyama and Omotesando

Aoyama, and the adjacent Omotesando area, are Tokyo’s equivalent of Rodeo Drive. Issey Miyake, Balenciaga, Comme des Garçons, and two outstanding buildings designed by Herzog & de Meuron for Prada and Miu Miu are in Minami-Aoyama. Omotesando also hosts a string of fashion houses, several of which are housed in buildings created by Pritzker Prize–winning architects.

On either side of Omotesando—the street from which the area takes its name—are a plethora of small commercial galleries established in the 2000s. As Impressionism, figurative painting, and the historical avant-garde are to Ginza, graffiti, otaku (loosely translated as “nerd,” especially regarding the consumption of manga and anime) culture and kawaii (“cute”) culture are to these galleries.

Similar: D, 2023
Yukari Nishi
Gallery Common

For example, off Omotesando and down Cat Street—a mecca for younger fashionistas—Gallery Common and the newly established tHE Gallery Omotesando share an aesthetic indebted to Japanese youth subculture. Gallery Common artist Yukari Nishi, for example, paints plush toy-human hybrid characters that mix cartoonishness, surrealism, and a touch of 1950s American suburbia. The work of Nanako Yoshida, a Gen Z artist at tHE Gallery, depicts anime-style wide-eyed girls with pixie ears.

BLUM, meanwhile, deals more in Japanese post-war abstraction and Mono-ha.Fergus McCaffrey, on Aoyama-dori, also leans towards Japanese modernism and has been influential in promoting Gutai artists such as Kazuo Shiraga and Sadamasa Motonaga outside Japan. The gallery also promotes contemporary artists from abroad at its Tokyo branch, often with an eye to exploring shared ideas and practices between Japanese and foreign artists.

In Roppongi

Roppongi, an area once infamous for its nightlife, has been reinvented as a gentrified cultural hub thanks to the development of the so-called “art triangle” of the Mori Art Museum; National Arts Center, Tokyo; and 21_21 Design Site. Commercial galleries also gravitated to the area, with the Piramide building complex housing a number of galleries.

These include Perrotin, which can draw upon a roster of internationally celebrated artists such Barry McGee and Takashi Murakami; Ota Fine Arts, which is committed to showing contemporary Asian art, as opposed to concentrating just on Japanese artists; and Kotaro Nukaga, notable for favoring art with more overtly social and theoretical concerns.

In Shinagawa

The Terrada Art Complex (TAC), two multi-level warehouses in south Shinagawa, has branches of established Tokyo galleries such as Scai The Bathhouse, ShugoArts, Tomio Koyama, and Taka Ishii. Alongside them are younger galleries whose artists are more representative of millennial and Gen Z culture.

Gallery UG’s roster, for example, includes Kunihiko Nohara, whose brightly painted wooden figures are reminiscent of Studio Ghibli characters, and Takaoki Tajima, whose cat characters are a mix of Miffy and Yoshitomo Nara’s petulant toddlers. Gallery UG has two venues in TAC, with a third gallery opening in the Kansai region in 2024.

Contemporary Tokyo leans into kyara art (art that portrays anime or manga-like figures), appealing to a local crowd. “This kind of work has been more popular to Asian viewers than visitors from Western countries,” said gallery director Rika Utsugi.

The waterfront Tennozu Isle district hosts the annual Tennoz Art Week, aiming to promote contemporary art and cultural tourism with workshops, a street market, and performances.

In Taito Ward

Before anime and manga, subculture in Japan could be said to be the “floating world” of the Yoshiwara, the red-light district from which the ukiyo-e style of woodblock printing sprung. One location of the Yoshiwara was in today’s downtown Asakusa area. In contrast to the predominantly white-cube model of the galleries mentioned so far, Asakusa Gallery is an unadorned 1965 townhouse, which was renovated by the owner and curator Koichiro Osaka. Combining an intimate space and curation that grapples with social and economic topics, the exhibitions at Asakusa Gallery have an energetic edge, in keeping with the area’s history of cultural provocation.

For those who believe that there should be no distinction between art and popular culture,Mograg Gallery describes itself as a “low-brow” artist community. The work is not dissimilar to what can be found in Omotesando or the Terrada Art Complex, but priced more affordably.

In Sumida Ward

On the other side of the Sumida River from Asakusa, the neighborhoods of Mukojima and Kyojima have several eclectic artist-run and small commercial spaces. Kōbō Gallery sells ceramic objects with intricately painted Japanese iconography, and is the workshop of Chinese artist Zhang Yue. The nearby Reminders Photography Stronghold specializes in photo books and runs bookbinding workshops, artist residencies, and portfolio reviews.

Further south, Mujin-to Production has a roster of artists for whom site-specificity, intervention, and artistic independence are key issues. Among these are Sachiko Kazama, whose black-and-white woodcut prints have parodied militaristic propaganda; the provocative art collective Chim↑Pom from Smappa!Group; and Meiro Koizumi, whose work has dramatically confronted Japan’s military history. Describing Mujin-to’s curatorial outlook, director Eri Ishijima said, “We try as much as possible not to select artists with similar expressions and thoughts. It is important to be different.”

Museums and nonprofits

The two biggest venues for contemporary art in Tokyo are the Mori Art Museum, which was founded by the late property developer Minoru Mori with the goal of making Tokyo an international art hub, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT), which is funded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Both run exhibitions of big-name international artists, but also have programs for supporting local emerging talent.

The Tokyo Photographic Art Museum in Ebisu, another municipal institution, has a public access photo archive and regularly shows contemporary photography and video art alongside exhibitions of vintage and modern prints. The annual Yebisu International Festival of Art And Alternative Visions, which focuses on photography and video, has evolved around the museum.

In Ginza, the nonprofit Shiseido Gallery claims to be Japan’s oldest art gallery. Originally opened in 1919, the venue today showcases excellent picks of emerging and mid-career artists, successfully updating the gallery’s founding mission, for contemporary Japan, of exploring beauty in art and life.

With its high ceilings and glass-block walls, Maison Hermès’s Le Forum gallery, at the top of the Renzo Piano–designed Hermès store in Ginza, is an aesthetic experience in itself. In the context of Hermès’s tradition of luxury craftsmanship, the exhibition program favors work that manifests careful attention to materials.

On Omotesando, the Fondation Louis Vuitton has the Éspace Louis Vuitton, which sits atop a Jun Aoki–designed building that was made to resemble stacked Louis Vuitton travel trunks. Exhibitions here draw on the foundation’s considerable collection, with past shows including Wolfgang Tillmans, Gilbert & George, and Christian Boltanski. Down the road, the visually discombobulating multi-use Gyre building houses the nonprofit Gyre Gallery. Under the slogan “Shop and Think,” the complex consciously mixes art, craft, design, and commercialism. Gyre Gallery hosts intellectually stimulating shows of consistently high quality, often curated by the Sgùrr Dearg Institute for Sociology of the Arts.

Between Omotesando and Shibuya, the Ueshima Museum, which opened in 2022, aims specifically at contemporaneity. Its substantial private collection, which includes work by Kohei Nawa, Chiharu Shiota, Banksy, and Damien Hirst, is a mixture of internationally renowned stars and younger Japanese artists.

Nearby is the historically significant Spiral building, designed by Fumihiko Maki to evoke different Japanese writing systems: formal and rectilinear kanji on the outside, cursive hiragana on the inside. The space hosts exhibitions of art, craft, and fashion.

Off Aoyama-dori is the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, a key Tokyo venue. It champions emerging Japanese artists in addition to showing works from its collection of historically significant figures, including Andy Warhol, Man Ray, and Donald Judd.

Art world haunts

Historical hangouts around Ginza are the Café Paulista, which dates back to 1911, or the unique Toraya for unforgettable traditional Japanese confectionary in the renovated red-brick Tokyo Station Hotel. If the legendary Café de L’Ambre gets too busy, superlative coffee can also be found at the Café Bechet, where the coffee master will spend up to 25 minutes crafting your drink with monastic devotion.

For site-specific nosh in Minami-Aoyama, try the quirky A-Z Café, designed in collaboration with Yoshitomo Nara, or the Kengo Kuma–designed Sunny Hills shop for Taiwanese pineapple cake. By contrast, Commune 246, just off Aoyama-dori, is a collection of food trucks that offer a more casual al fresco snacking and drinking experience.

The hard-to-find Howa, close to the gallery Fergus McCaffrey, is a beautifully designed restaurant that offers specialities such as yuba (delicate-tasing folded tofu skin) and A5 kuro wagyu steak at reasonable prices.

The Gyre building houses a unique café space designed by architect Tsuyoshi Tane, and a French restaurant with a terrace overlooking the Omotesando boulevard. On the other side of the road, the restaurant Maisen serves tonkatsu (deep-fried breaded pork cutlet) in a renovated bathhouse that dates back to the 1920s. For pork connoisseurs, the ne plus ultra of tonkatsu can be found at Butagumi near to the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi.

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/Yi2E3FT

Art Basel Hong Kong 2025 announces exhibitor list. https://ift.tt/07EzPGn

Art Basel Hong Kong has announced its 2025 edition will feature 242 galleries from 42 countries, the same number of exhibitors as last year. The event is scheduled for March 28–30, 2025, with preview days on March 26th and 27th, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. More than half of the participating galleries originate from the Asia Pacific region, including leading galleries such as Pearl Lam Galleries and Hakgojae Gallery.

As in 2024, the 2025 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong will be organized into three sections. The 196 participants in the main Galleries sector include several blue-chip names such as Lehmann Maupin and Hauser & Wirth. Across all three sections, 23 galleries will be participating for the first time, eight of which will present in the Galleries section. Among them are blank projects, Aeneas Bastian Fine Art, and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery.

The Discoveries sector will host 22 exhibitors, including Asia Art Center and Jhaveri Contemporary. More than half of these names are emerging galleries established within the last decade. This sector is dedicated to fostering the visibility of up-and-coming talent in the art world. Insights, another sector, will present 24 curated projects from galleries, such as Tokyo’s Yutaka Kikutake Gallery and London’s Flowers, focused on Asia and the Asia Pacific region, emphasizing photography from the 1970s to the present.

“The impressive line-up of galleries participating in our 2025 Hong Kong edition reinforces the fair’s position as a cultural crossroads and vital anchor in Asia’s ever-growing art scenes,” Angelle Siyang-Le, director of Art Basel Hong Kong, said. “We’re committed to continuing to strengthen our ties with the local art scene and its rising stars.”

This edition will also introduce the MGM Discoveries Art Prize, supporting emerging artists with a $50,000 cash prize shared between the artist and their presenting gallery, plus an opportunity to exhibit in Macau. Art Basel has also co-commissioned a project with Hong Kong Museum M+, presented by UBS: Ho Tzu Nyen’s Night Charades (2024), which will reimagine famous Hong Kong film scenes in animation, will be projected on the museum’s facade during the fair.

For the complete list of galleries, follow this link.

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/8zmUlKh

5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries This November https://ift.tt/luLjfb5

Solar Eclipse Plate I, 2024
Magdalena Wysocka & Claudio Pogo
Open Doors Gallery

Silverlake Cruising, 2024
Killion Huang
EDJI Gallery

In this monthly roundup, we shine a spotlight on five stellar exhibitions taking place at small and rising galleries.

Szelit Cheung, “Mado”

Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne

Through Jan. 17, 2025

Door IV, 2023
CHEUNG SZELIT
Galerie Christian Lethert

“How do I remember a space—particularly an empty one?” Szelit Cheung recently asked in an interview with Prestige Online. The Hong Kong–born artist searches for an answer in the oil paintings on view in “Mado” at Galerie Christian Lethert. “Mado” —meaning “window” in Japanese—is also the title of a series of oil paintings in which Cheung portrays several windows, particularly by illustrating golden light flowing into empty spaces. The titular body of painting works is accompanied by three other series, where Cheung explores how light can fill a room—“Kan,” “Door,” and “Folding Space.”

These minimalist, small-scale works include Door IV (all works 2023), which features two open doors against a dark green wall. From the portal-like entryways depicted, aurous orange light spills into the dark, empty room, drawing attention to the transformative power of light. Meanwhile, Folding Space IV depicts a dimly lit room with a spotlit opening, where shadows create an eerie, surreal space.

Having graduated from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2012, Cheung now lives between Hong Kong and Melbourne. The 36-year-old artist has held solo exhibitions in Hong Kong with Rossi & Rossi and Touch Gallery.

Killion Huang, “Reflections”

EDJI Gallery, Brussels

Through Nov. 30

Dayfall, 2024
Killion Huang
EDJI Gallery

The Goldfish, 2024
Killion Huang
EDJI Gallery

Chinese artist Killion Huang felt acutely aware of his solitude after moving into a new studio space. There, he started to think about how being alone can shake one’s sense of identity. His latest paintings, shown in “Reflections” at EDJI Gallery, channel these moments of self-awareness and introspection into vulnerable snapshots of everyday life in domestic settings.

Among the standout works are Dayfall (all works 2024), depicting a pensive subject looking off into space against a curtained window, and The Goldfish, where a lone figure contemplates their reflected image in a wardrobe. Both use the mirror to symbolize self-perception. Huang’s simmering reds accent the dull pastel palette of these vulnerable scenes, and his gentle brushwork renders his subjects—standing in their bedrooms, gazing longingly, or lost in thought—with a tender touch.

Born in 1999 in Hangzhou, China, Huang graduated from New York’s School of Visual Arts in 2022. He presented his first solo exhibition at EDJI Gallery in November 2023.

Magdalena Wysocka & Claudio Pogo, “Blind Field”

Open Doors Gallery, London

Through Nov. 30

Habit Pattern no.1, 2022
Magdalena Wysocka & Claudio Pogo
Open Doors Gallery

Berlin-based artist duo Magdalena Wysocka & Claudio Pogo create grayscale prints using risography, a Japanese digital printing technique from the 1980s. Sourcing images from books, found photographs, and various archival materials, Wysocka and Pogo recontextualize these images into obscured or fragmented visuals. After almost a decade of experimentation, the duo has begun producing large-scale artworks, such as those featured at Open Doors Gallery in London.

Their practice embraces the technique’s inherent unpredictability and imperfections, allowing these “mistakes” to contribute to the final piece. For instance, Habit Pattern no.1 (2022) features a sequentially printed image of a hand holding a cigarette that varies in quality. These imperfections turn into a visual narrative as the original image appears to disintegrate in the grid.

Joining forces in 2016, Pogo and Wysocka come from different backgrounds. Pogo brought his expertise from running PogoBooks, a publishing and photography venture that he founded in 2010, while Wysocka has a strong background in printmaking and design, having earned her MA degree in printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland.

Thomas Cameron, “Twenty-six days a year”

Canopy Collections, London

Nov. 8–Dec. 20

Delivery, 2024
Thomas Cameron
Canopy Collections

Thomas Cameron adopts the role of the flâneur—a detached urban observer leisurely traversing the city, absorbing the sights without participating. In his paintings, the 32-year-old artist captures these snapshots of contemporary city life, depicting anonymous figures in overlooked, everyday moments, from staring at a cell phone to walking down the sidewalk. His latest exhibition at Canopy Collections, “Twenty-six days a year,” narrows in on individuals caught in the act of waiting.

These works include Delivery (all works 2024), depicting a figure clutching a brown bag of food while waiting for the elevator, and Dim Sum Chefs, portraying three cooks during a smoke break outside. In all these works, Cameron draws attention to the in-between moments, which can end up filling a surprising portion of our days.

A finalist for the Artsy Foundations Prize Summer 2024, Cameron graduated with an MA in fine arts from the City and Guilds of London Art School. His previous solo shows have been mounted by Canopy Collections and London-based nomadic gallery Taymour Grahne Projects.

Destiny Oyibode, “When I Grow Up”

Ogirikan Art Gallery, Lagos

Nov. 9th–24th

The Voice, 2024
Destiny Oyibode
Ogirikan Art Gallery

My Only Dream, 2024
Destiny Oyibode
Ogirikan Art Gallery

Nigerian painter Destiny Oyibode always wanted to be an artist. He pursued this childhood dream at Auchi Polytechnic in Edo State, Nigeria, where he received his national diploma. However, his dream was suddenly interrupted—and nearly stopped altogether—by a severe illness that placed him in the hospital for a year.

His first solo exhibition with Ogirikan Art Gallery considers the weight of these childhood aspirations. “When I Grow Up” features a selection of Oyibode’s figurative paintings, each depicting children in their dream professions. The Voice (all works 2024), for instance, captures a boy as a future politician, while My Only Dream shows a young girl as a ballerina. The exhibition reflects how early ambitions shape identity and resilience, exploring how dreams endure despite life’s setbacks.

Upon recovering from his illness, Oyibode returned to Auchi Polytechnic, completing his higher national diploma in painting in 2018. After briefly teaching visual arts at a secondary school, he now dedicates himself to painting full-time in his studio in Benin City, Nigeria.

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/yY1VL5W

Ruth Asawa to get major retrospective at SFMOMA and MoMA. https://ift.tt/P1WLens

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has announced the first retrospective of Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa since her death in 2013. Titled “Ruth Asawa: Retrospective,” the exhibition is scheduled to run from April 5 to September 2, 2025, at SFMOMA, before traveling to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where it will be on view from October 19, 2025, to February 7, 2026.

“Ruth Asawa: Retrospective” will feature more than 300 works representing six decades of Asawa’s career and spanning a range of mediums, including sculpture, bronze casts, painting, and works on paper. The exhibition is loosely organized into chronological sections, with particular emphasis on Asawa’s early works, including those developed from a looped-wire technique she learned in Toluca, Mexico.

Born in Norwalk, California in 1926, Asawa enrolled in Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina, shortly after World War II. There, she studied under notable figures such as Josef Albers and R. Buckminster Fuller. Work by Albers and Fuller will feature in the retrospective alongside Asawa’s works, as well as those of other collaborators including Imogen Cunningham, Ray Johnson, Hazel Larsen Archer, and Marguerite Wildenhain.

A dedicated gallery will focus on work Asawa made after moving to San Francisco in 1949, highlighting her productivity during the subsequent decade. The gallery will prominently feature her iconic hanging looped-wire sculptures, which she developed in the 1950s and exhibited both locally and internationally.

Elsewhere, her designs for commercial projects, such as fabric patterns and wallpaper, will be highlighted. Additional sections of the exhibition will explore Asawa’s engagement with nature and her miniature wire sculptures, and will recreate the environment of her San Francisco home and studio.

“It is an immense privilege to present the full range of Ruth Asawa’s life’s work through this retrospective,” said Janet Bishop, a co-curator of the exhibition. “Not only was Asawa an exceptionally talented artist—among the most distinguished sculptors of the 20th century and a major contributor in so many other mediums—but she lived her values in everything she did, modeling the importance of the arts and opening up creative opportunities for others at every turn.”

Following its debut at SFMOMA and subsequent run at MoMA in New York, the exhibition will travel to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain and the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland, coinciding with what would have been Asawa’s 100th birthday.

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/MfiAgwc

ADAA: The Art Show 2024 Champions Unity Among American Galleries https://ift.tt/H64WGNA

Hors d’oeuvres, sharp outfits, and the clink of champagne glasses greeted the 5 p.m. VIP opening of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA)’s The Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory on October 29th. The vernissage of the fair’s 36th edition might not have boasted the A-list guests of last year but appeared to have lost none of its glitz in the grand Upper East Side venue.

Founded in 1962, ADAA is a nonprofit membership organization that supports galleries from across the U.S. Today, it has more than 200 members from more than 30 cities, and this year’s edition of its annual fair brings together 75 galleries (down from 78 last year). More than half of the exhibitors are presenting solo booths, and the VIP evening was an intimate occasion where the ADAA’s sense of community took center stage.

“One of the cool things about The Art Show is that there’s a coming together—a sense of pride for not just the high bar set by the membership, but also this sense you’re part of a group, you’re not an island,” said Kinsey Robb, who took up the role of executive director after Maureen Bray announced her departure in September.

As always, at the heart of the event is the ADAA’s philanthropic mission: Each ticket sold supports the Henry Street Settlement, one of the oldest social service organizations in New York. “We’re setting an example of the good that can be done,” Robb noted.

A warm welcome

Throughout the fair’s VIP evening, guests took a relaxed but keen approach to perusing the booths on view—a refreshing shift from the more frenzied environments of the European art fairs earlier this month.

The team at Kasmin’s booth effectively served as the welcoming committee throughout the evening, surrounded by massive photographs by the 79-year-old photographer Tina Barney, who is currently the subject of a solo show at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. The booth featured pieces, including Julianne Moore and Family (1999), with prices ranging from $30,000 to $65,000. Director Nick Olney noted that Barney’s reputation as a cultural anthropologist provided an intriguing perspective as guests arrived.

Julianne Moore and Family, 1999
Tina Barney
Kasmin

“It is great being here in the front because you’re seeing everybody as they come in and to be a real entrance, and [Tina’s work] is really welcoming,” said Olney. “It’s great to come in with these gazes of the subjects of Tina’s photos. She’s often shooting gatherings or family communities, so it sets a really great tone as you step into the fair.”

For Olney, the fair holds a special significance, recalling when he first presented at The Art Show in 2001. “It’s an incredible jewel box and a fantastic representation of what’s happening in American art right now,” he said.

Indeed, the mood of the fair was a far cry from the typical nerves associated with a vernissage. This was particularly true for Tribeca’s Charles Moffett, who is participating for the first time.

“It’s just a really warm welcome. It’s honestly everything we hoped for,” Moffett said when Artsy spoke to him two hours into the fair. He mentioned that ADAA president Anthony Meier and other committee members had already stopped by the booth to show support. “It’s been everything you’d want in a community of dealers.”

The gallery presented a solo booth featuring works by C’Naan Hamburger, the 40-year-old former skateboarding world champion turned painter. After her egg tempera–based paintings sold out at the gallery’s exhibition of the artist in March, the gallery sold five works and placed two more on hold within the first few hours of the fair, priced between $8,000 and $15,000. “Everything about these paintings exudes a New York quality to it—whether it’s the park, the packages outside of a UPS truck, or in a doorman building,” said Moffet.

A Texan focus

Situated in the historic Park Avenue Armory, one of New York’s most iconic venues, it can be difficult to separate The Art Show from the city itself. But with its nationwide scope, The Art Show is far from a single-city fair, and it is making moves to emphasize this further.

New to The Art Show 2024 is the former director Maureen Bray’s swan song, the newly introduced “Spotlight On…” program, which will focus on member galleries from a different U.S. city. This year’s edition starts with Bray’s hometown, Houston, and features four exhibitors: Inman Gallery, McClain Gallery, Josh Pazda Hiram Butler, and Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino. The section is also accompanied by a series of related talks and events throughout the weekend.

“We’re not just a community that only exists with New York galleries in New York City for The Art Show,” said Robb. “We’re trying to expand that playing field to make it inclusive and have a spotlight shared on some of our galleries in areas where we don’t always think that there’s a big burgeoning art scene, when there really is. Why wouldn’t we want to highlight that?”

Genies, 1956
Dorothy Hood
McClain Gallery

And Houston more than rose to the occasion. A stronghold in Houston’s art community for four decades, McClain Gallery is a standout in this year’s program.

“[It’s an] interesting approach because [the Spotlight On… program] continues the discussion about things decentralizing,” said founder Robert McClain. “We know that all these other cities outside of New York have very talented artists that live and work there, so it’s a good opportunity for New York collectors to get a better sense of what’s going on outside New York.”

The gallery brought a mix of historical and contemporary works from the Lone Star State. The gallery, which last participated in The Art Show in 2020 with Texas-born abstract painter Dorothy Hood, has once again brought her work into the spotlight this year. Alongside Hood’s pieces, the gallery is presenting figurative mixed-media works by fellow Texan Delita Martin, depicting Black women in collages marked by various colorful patterns. Hood’s work is priced between $4,000 and $120,000, while the works by Martin range from $25,000 to $35,000.

Solo booths bring surprises and new perspectives

With solo booths such a prominent part of the fair, there are plenty of new perspectives and discoveries to be found, presented in depth by exhibiting galleries.

One such discovery is Venus Over Manhattan’s solo booth of works by Seth Becker. These textured, small-scale oil paintings—each paired with a postcard from the New York–based artist’s collection—capture mundane yet somewhat surrealistic scenes, such as Nude and Pheasant (2024), depicting a naked figure with a pheasant holding an envelope walking across the bed. All works are available for $20,000 each.

“I do love this fair; I love the diversity of it,” said the gallery’s founder Adam Lindemann. “I like fairs that are a little unpasteurized and unhomogenized. I like some of the art to just feel a little more from a source or a surprise. And a good thing about this fair is you walk around, and it’s full of surprises.”

Choses, 2024
Alice Tippit
Timothy Taylor

Another revelation to many was Timothy Taylor’s solo booth of works by Alice Tippit. The Chicago-based artist’s whimsical paintings—which use no more than five colors for each piece—generated buzz among guests trying to uncover the nature of the illustrations. Choses (2024) is a minimalist, abstract composition with a striking contrast between mint green and pitch black, split diagonally, where a small black pear and a green kitchen knife rest on either side. These works were priced between $8,000 and $12,000 apiece.

“It’s a very conceptual process,” said gallery partner Chloe Waddington. “She’s thinking about double entendres, metaphors, pulling a lot from literature, and things like crosswords that she’s seeing in her daily life. She’ll never tell you explicitly what she’s trying to get at. It’s more about leading the viewer to a specific place.”

Surprise XLIII, 2024
Isabella Ducrot
Petzel Gallery

Tendernesses on grill VIII, 2023
Isabella Ducrot
Petzel Gallery

Elsewhere, a fair standout was Petzel’s booth of works by Isabella Ducrot. The Italian textile artist, who is in her nineties, is gaining widespread recognition from galleries and institutions, including her first international solo museum show at Le Consortium in Dijon, France. Petzel’s booth at the fair features works from Ducrot’s “Surprise” series, which weaves her late husband’s handwriting into the fabric of the collages. Prices range from $7,000 to $42,000.

“Scale-wise, the booths are more intimate here, and there’s that same intimate quality in her work, the fabric and textile collages, and the handmade paper,” explained director Francesco Longenecker of the presentation. “The medium matched the fair in a way, and the scale of the booths are more domestic in scale, and the work is as well.”

This attention to storytelling is also evident at Michael Werner Gallery’s booth, which brought a collection of delicate pencil drawings by French avant-garde pioneer Francis Picabia. The works at the fair serve as a companion to the gallery’s current show of paintings, “Francis Picabia: Femmes,” intending to broaden the artist’s narrative for collectors browsing the Upper East Side—no mean feat for an artist of Picabia’s stature.

“To bring a show like this, it takes a few years in the making because it takes such a long time to get the works together,” said the gallery’s director Birte Kleemann. “It is beautiful to be able to show them as a suite, and the way [The Art Show] is set up lends itself to a solo presentation.”

A community-anchored art fair

As it nears its fourth decade, The Art Show remains a breath of fresh air in the New York art world’s calendar. Coming off a packed month of art fair activity in Europe and elsewhere, it’s an intimate showcase that places its community spirit front and center, across galleries of all sizes.

“Sometimes we forget fine art galleries are small businesses,” said Robb. “Not everybody’s a mega-gallery. And when you’re going through a tough period, whether because of political changes, environmental changes, economic changes, real estate—ups and downs—being able to feel that you’re part of a cohort of people who want you to be successful is unique. It creates a sense of wanting all ships to rise.”

The Art Show runs at the Park Avenue Armory until November 2nd.

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/tTPUgqj

Alisan Fine Arts inaugurates 10,000-square-foot multi-purpose venue. https://ift.tt/oTpI4rP

On October 26th, Hong Kong gallery Alisan Fine Arts opened its new multi-purpose venue, Alisan Atelier. Located in Hong Kong’s Aberdeen neighborhood, this expansive 10,000-square-foot features a gallery, library, museum-grade art storage, and several project and entertainment spaces.

The inaugural exhibition at Alisan Atelier, “Remaining the Mountain, Becoming the Ocean,” features the first joint exhibition of artists Mok Yat-San and Man Fung Yi. The gallery has represented both artists individually since 2007, and this exhibition is in line with the collaborative spirit that the new space aims to foster. The exhibition includes 22 recent works by the artists.

The new space, in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island, will present programming in addition to Alisan Fine Arts’s global headquarters in Central, Hong Kong, which will focus on established artists and ink art. The gallery also runs a space in New York.

Coherence of Hearts: Mystical Wonder , 2023
Man Fung Yi 文鳳儀
Alisan Fine Arts

“While we continue to cement our leadership in promoting established masters such as Lui Shou-kwan, Chao Chung-hsian, and Walasse Ting, Alisan Atelier will showcase emerging talents, welcome experimentation, and facilitate intergenerational and interdisciplinary exchanges, hopefully attracting a younger and broader audience as a result,” said Daphne King Yao, global director of Alisan Fine Arts.

Mok Yat-San is known for his surreal sculptures that also take a contemporary spin on ink work, while Man is known for multimedia techniques ranging from incense-burn marks to digital video. The exhibition also premieres “Mokman’s Cosmology,” a series of four collaborative works that bring together the artists’ reflections on landscapes and the universe.

“In the realm of art, Mok Yat-San and Man Fung-yi are rare ‘soulmates,’” said Tang Hoi-chiu, an adjunct professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, who curated the show.

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/zj67E4U

Meet the Emerging Women Gallerists Shaping the L.A. Art Scene https://ift.tt/AbewQgt

Women-owned and -run art spaces have a robust history in Los Angeles. Regen Projects’s Shaun Regen; Diane Rosenstein; Nazarian / Curcio’s Shulamit Nazarian; Kristina Kite; Hannah Hoffman; Susanne Vielmetter; Carlye Packer; Lisa Overduin; Helen Babst; Honor Fraser; Anat Ebgi; Night Gallery’s Davida Nemeroff; Various Small Fires’s Esther Kim Varet; New Image Art’s Marsea Goldberg; Make Room’s Emilia Yin; and Château Shatto’s Liv Barrett are just a few notable examples from recent history—not to mention international women-owned galleries including Marian Goodman, Gladstone, and Sprüth Magers that have set up branches in the city.

Now, a new group of women-owned galleries are bringing a spotlight to the city’s relentlessly expanding art scene, and a renewed focus on how they are choosing to run a gallery their own way.

“I’m obsessed with the Founders podcast,” gallerist Sara Lee Hantman divulged of the series that dedicates an episode to a towering entrepreneur of our time. “I’ve gone through maybe a hundred episodes by this point, and, so far, there have only been two episodes that profiled women, and they were Coco Chanel and Estée Lauder.”

Hantman is the founder of Sea View, a gallery based in a sunlit, pastel-tiled home in the lush green hills of eastside Los Angeles’s Mount Washington neighborhood. Artist Jorge Pardo originally conceptualized the building as a “social sculpture,” and the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art used it as an offsite venue in the late 1990s.

Rather than fashion and beauty CEOs, however, Hantman is more likely to derive her entrepreneurial ideas from her peers in L.A.’s art community.

A new moment for L.A.’s women-owned galleries

Sea View is one of those newer names. Since its opening in January 2023, the gallery has become an anchor for arts in the area, particularly with the frequent neighborly gatherings planned together with artist Lena Daly, who opened the Wolford House project space a few doors away.

Compared to the row of white boxes that line Western Avenue or dot Hollywood and Downtown L.A.’s raw, industrial spaces that house galleries and project spaces, the location and domestic setting of both Sea View and the Wolford House more closely resemble the way that many in the Los Angeles creative community live, work, and get together.

Across town, Emma Fernberger recently opened her gallery in the center of the city’s blooming Melrose Hill gallery district, while Megan Mulrooney has taken over the gallerist Nino Mier’s West Hollywood storefronts.

Winemakers, 2024
Piper Bangs
Megan Mulrooney

“I feel very lucky [to be opening now]; it feels very of-the-moment for female gallerists,” Mulrooney shared as she was installing her inaugural exhibitions: a solo show of Piper Bangs, “Fruiting Body”; a solo of Marin Majic, “Dawning”; and “Saints and Poets,” a group show curated by gallery artist Jon Pylypchuk.

“I’m joining at a time when Sara [Lee Hantman] and Emma [Fernberger], among others, are opening in L.A., so we can share and be collaborative and uplift each other, which I think is important. It’s always been important in my career,” she added. Mulrooney’s first few exhibitions will also focus on women artists, with shows by Falon Stutzman, Anke Weyer, Mindy Shapiro, Maria Szakats, and Flora Temnouche in the works.

For Mulrooney, the city’s history of women in leadership positions in museums and cultural institutions is tied to its sense of place for galleries conceptualized by women. “There are so many female curators and directors in the major museums here,” she said, among them Ann Philbin (and soon, Zoë Ryan) leading the Hammer Museum; Diana Nawi at LACMA; Clara Kim and Johanna Burton at MOCA; and Cameron Shaw at the California African American Museum.

For Hantman, the approach taken by her gallery differs from that of her male peers. “Most galleries, which have been owned by men, have always been deeply concerned with scaling,” she said. She recalled an early visitor to Sea View, a successful male gallerist coming to see the space for the first time: “‘So,’ he asked, ‘Do you have any plans to scale?’”

Hantman laughed. “It was such an interesting way to say hello…Being a woman changes how you prioritize your business plan. I’m really interested in growth and building my gallery business, but I’m so much more interested in longevity and being happy while doing so.”

A close community

Hantman pointed to how many of her fellow women gallerists have looked after their staff in a way akin to family, and “take on a motherly role,” she said.

“The sensibility feels really different, and I’m excited to see that way of working becoming more commonplace,” she continued. “I’ve worked in all kinds of galleries, and, no matter what they say, they all want to become the biggest gallery. I want to become the biggest smallest gallery.”

The shift in priorities in the gallery business model is felt even more deeply in Los Angeles, a city known for entertaining at home, spontaneous beach days and road trips, and a healthy sense of balance in life.

For former New Yorker Emma Fernberger, Los Angeles is home to “a great spirit of collaboration among women. I don’t know if it’s endemic to being women or endemic to our generation, but it’s working around less ego,” she told Artsy. Fernberger opened her gallery in 2023—building a program that highlights the work of women artists, including Alina Perkins, Nicole Wittenberg, and Vicky Columbet—when she was just a couple of weeks pregnant. She recently gave birth.

“So many women [who are also running their own galleries here] have been so kind and so generous,” Fernberger shared. “They welcomed me to motherhood, to the sisterhood.”

She laughed and said, “I can’t think of any other industry where your competitors are sending you boxes of baby gifts or the name of a lactation consultant.”

from Artsy News https://ift.tt/iW4sdop