Matthew Lutz Kinoy Mixtape 2004 2005 video still installation view

We spent much of the afternoon and early evening today at DIVA, the Digital & Video Art Fair ensconced in the the Embassy Suites Hotel this weekend, located just above the World Trade Center. Barry is also writing as I'm typing this mini-report, but I'm pretty certain he's saying something like what I am about its easy and seductive attractions.

Maybe it was the requirements of the medium but the experience was relatively serene. Unlike the traditional world of painting, sculpture and even photography, digital or video art demands darkness or at least a close substitute. At DIVA, even the process of repeatedly entering and leaving dozens of small spaces, almost every one liberally sprinkled with a number of animated screens in almost every possible size, and each with its own special claim to our visual and aural attention, seemed somehow far less stressful than my experience with the static displays of the Armory or Scope fairs.

That reminds me; today I really enjoyed the somewhat rare element of sound in the context of an art show, even if those sounds were so often so numerous and so insistent that they added unintended elements to some of the works.

At DIVA there was also the cool excitement of the exotic (finally, in a week which so far has seemed dominated by a New York aesthetic): According to the press pack, only thirteen of the exhibiting galleries were from the U.S. Most of the work shown by the remaining twenty-one seemed to be delightfully, singularly independent, even quirky.

At or near the top of a very rich selection, and regardless of considerations of nationality, I would put the work of Matthew Lutz-Kinoy. A still from one of his three videos being shown by the Paris-based curator Yukiko Kawase is shown above. The video consists of five post-teen U.S. college students in karaoke performance of music of their own choosing. The candy on a tray and the dishevelled bedding are part of the installation and are intended to perform as a welcome to visitors.

His drawings and modest sculptural interventions are scattered throughout the suite, in gestures designed to domesticate its transient hotel spaces.

Lutz-Kinoy lives and works in Brooklyn. He is a student at Cooper Union. He was born in 1984. He seems to be brilliant.

ADDENDUM: One more word about the location: While the "Executive Suites" venue remains just a shelf of hotel rooms, these quite ordinary, furnished environments do more than the walls of any white-space gallery to show how this spunky, even revolutionary art form can be displayed in an ordinary home. We really should get another monitor for our own ordinary, rather crowded rooms. How much are those little hand-helds now? Aha! They don't even need any wallspace!

Gae Savannah Tai Rhi 2005 hair accessories, beads, fabric, wood, light 34" x 18" x 18" detail

The image is just a teaser. More later on Gae Savannah, shown by curcioprojects at SCOPE this week.

Scope was a lot of fun today, and the art was better than ever. But a word of warning: The FLATOTEL venue is very seriously vertically challenged. Forty-seven floors, three elevators, one assigned to the thousands of people coming to the fair this week - well, only sorta assigned. Anyway, it just doesn't work.

Tips: Go to the top (16th) floor and gradually make your way down to the lowest floor of the arts fair, the 10th (there's no 13th). Because of the huge wait, at that point even if you've been on your feet all day you may want to consider walking all the way down to the street. Also, do not expect to find a WC anywhere above the two hole-er on the ground floor, possibly a one-hour round trip from the Scope rooms, unless you can persuade a gallery to move the art in their hotel-bathroom and let you lock the door behind you.

But enough with the logistics you won't read about in the brochure. When I get some rest and find some spare minutes, I'll continue to post about what we've seen at Scope and at the other arts events which crowd this week.

Steve Powers ESPO BAKERY detail of installation

"graffiti that looks like advertising since the early 90’s"

Steve Powers (ESPO) will almost certainly be a delectable hit on Pier 90 this weekend, especially since the food court is at the other end of the Pier. At the press preview yesterday he was still setting up his store/installation, "ESPO BAKERY," but beginning today this Deitch Projects booth will be selling ESPO-designed cookies and cakes. "The baked goods can be collected as art multiples or enjoyed on the spot," according to the press release.

[the headline quote is from the gallery site description of the work of Powers]

Dave Muller Looks Good from a Distance

And who doesn't want a boat ride? This wonderful large piece [gouache? and maybe eight feet tall?] by Dave Muller was installed on the side of Murray Guy's booth, adjacent to the large windows overlooking the walk and cartway of the pier [see the image in the post below].

yesterday, the Hudson River from this year's more opened-up exhibition spaces

The abstraction reflected in the glass is Dona Nelson's The Deep (1997) exhibited at Cheim & Read.

<img alt="KiaerIan.jpg" src="/mt_archives/KiaerIan.jpg" width="450" height="575"
Ian Kiaer Paul Scheerart project/palm house 2005 mixed media installation dimensions variable [large detail of installation]

Scheerart project detail

Scheerart project detail

I know I can't be his only acolyte, but I must be among the newest. I did feel I was all alone in my excitement in the booth of London's Alison Jacques Gallery while trying to get a decent image of Ian Kiaer's really sublime sculptural assembly. The work includes the five separate parts seen in the photograph (the small rectangle on the upper right is the gallery's label). I imagined no one else had ever seen this wonderful thing, and that it would disappear moments after I walked away.

Kiaer is also represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York, but I have not yet seen that exhibit at the piers.

UPDATE: I added two [small detail] images of Paul Scheerart project/palm house after a return to the show on Monday.

Bruce Conner Untitled 1960 mixed media, pearls, nylon, mesh, wire, etc. 20" x 24.5" x 2.5"

My first Armory image, and after all I said below, it's not emerging, not obscure, but this 45-year-old piece took my breath away this afternoon. I saw it at Los Angeles's Michael Kohn Gallery.

Conner Untitled detail

taking a break at the Armory Show press and VIP preview this afternoon

Although we were there for four hours, we managed to make our way through only a little more than a third of the floor area of one of the two piers occupied by this year's pared-down roster of Armory Show exhibitors this afternoon. Well it hasn't even opened yet, so can still go back. We were there for the press preview [yes, the White House now isn't our only institution which gives press passes to bloggers], so much of the first hour was spent on the organizers' presentation.

We're pretty tired this evening, but then we never took a lunch break - or a break of any kind - and we didn't take advantage of most of this year's welcome innovations: more open space, open views of the Hudson River, the wonder of artist-designed lounge seating, and even mood lighting in the food concession area.

But we did enjoy ourselves a lot, not least because we found less of the big-name, big-ticket art whose pricey presence had seemed to dominate shows in recent years. There was a wealth of new sights and new names even for gallery-going veterans, and those weren't all in the booths of the foreign galleries. Also, is it my imagination, or does the work in those galleries look less "exotic" here than it used to? And if so, does that mean the New York art world, and that in the U.S. generally, has become less provincial, or is the rest of the world succumbing to our particular tastes?

Biggest news nugget (news at least for me) carried out of the press preview: Glenn Lowry, the Director of the Museum of Modern Art, reminded us that this year MoMA had coordinated the opening date of the next "Greater New York" show mounted by its more edgy farm team, P.S.1, to coincide with the period of the Armory Show, apparently in order to show the parent organization's appreciation of the new. Then he mentioned casually that this year the huge Queens show would be "presented jointly" by MoMA and P.S.1. Wow. Apparently MoMA's now got to be in the room when junior invites his wild and crazy friends over to the house.

By the way, the extraordinarily-wealthy beneficiary of the monies raised by tonight's tony Opening Night Preview Party on the Armory piers is MoMA, and specifically the exhibitions program, not even its new works acquisitions program. In any event, no arts scholarship or arts healthcare foundations need apply. Even the staid old-guard ADAA Art Show can think outside of its own institutional box when it comes to benefits.

That's enough at least for now about the venue and the arrangements. In the next few days I expect to post a number of images with brief descriptions, but one caution starting out: As usual on this blog site, the images will not necessarily represent the things I liked most. Rather they will be the best photographs I was able to get of those works seen which interested me most. And, also following precedent, preference will usually be given to the more obscure works, the least-known artists.

See Barry tonight, and watch both of our sites over the next few days at least, for more images and comments about the various art fairs dotting New York this week.

Oh yes, would somebody help me remember: Who are these two wonderful performance artists in the picture at the top of this post?

UPDATE: In his comment below Martin is kind enough to answer my question: The artists are Eva and Adele.

Christoph Schmidberger Yours Till the End of Time 2004

The stylish and merry crowd which braved a nor'easter to get to the opening tonight made any serious judgments, not to say almost any chance for decent photos, almost impossible, but there was more than enough opportunity to see that a return visit, or first pilgrimage, to Bergdorf Goodman before March 29th (when everything comes down) should be in order.

Fifty emerging artists represented by dozens of emerging galleries from around the country have found their way onto the designer floor walls of the Men's Store, through the good graces of the upscale clothing emporium itself, Giorgio Armani, the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) and the persuasive offices of Simon Watson's Scenic.

I loved the quirkiness of Bill Adams's one-eyed kitten, courtesy of KS Art. Although I just couldn't get a clear photo, for a number of reasons, here it is anyway to haunt us all:

Bill Adams One Eye 2004

I had the same crowd and lighting problems with most of the other pieces, and a glass of wine in one hand was no small handicap. But without taking away anything from the other exhibitors I'll say that I thought the works in the display areas given to ATM Gallery, Foxy Production and Goff + Rosenthal (which represents Schmidberger, repsonsible for the drawing at the top) were especially impressive.

On our way home we looked at the store's 5th Avenue windows, where we stood in the 14 degree cold warmed by a wonderful Adam Cvijanovic mural featuring salvaged Vegas electrical signs strewn about a dry warm desert. Cvijanovic is shown by Bellwether gallery. On the other side of the entrance were several fine colorful Tyson Reeder works, which easily upstaged the clothes with which they shared the spotlight. Daniel Reich regularly shows Reeder in his more conventional space on 23rd Street (although it's still hard to associate the word "conventional" with Daniel Reich).

While it is certainly arguable whether this is a good way to show art, few of us would have a problem with the proposition that anyone who shops Bergdorf's and spends hundreds of dollars on one shirt should be told (reminded?) that some really good art can be carried home for about the same investment - and it will never wear out.

Allan Pettersson

It begins in the middle, the sounds suggesting that you have been there listening all along. In a way, you have, since the symphony is Allan Pettersson's Eighth (1969), and it is only one section of a very long song. The symphony closes with the orchestra slowly dipping back into the dark pool from which it had emerged some fifty minutes earlier.

This 20th-century Swedish composer (1911-1980) completed fifteen symphonies and together they feel very much like a single, endless piece, the powerful introspective work of an entire lifetime. His song is one of great sadness, although it may also contain the faintest suggestion of hope, even if that hope may only be for the extension of a life of pain, or the rebirth of life - anticipated as one of pain as well.

"Jag är ingen tonsättare, jag är en ropande röst (något som ej får glömmas), som hotar att dränkas i tidsbullret."

"I am not a composer. I am a voice crying out, (something that should not be forgotten) that threatens to drown in the noise of the times."

In the early 20th century Sweden had not yet become the extraordinarily successful society it is today. Large numbers of Swedes were still leaving the country as emigrants. Pettersson's childhood reflected the distress of that society and his own immediate family, and its physical scars left him in pain for the rest of his life. He died in his late 60's after having been housebound for ten years.

The music is profoundly disturbing, but achingly beautiful, and it owes little to the fashions of its century. At the time of the composer's death I had barely begun to assemble my collection of his music. I concentrated on each of the symphonies (the epic form which almost-completely dominated his output) and in the end I managed to find all except the uncompleted First and Seventeenth. But while the record of the music survives, on my own LP and CD shelves, and surely on those of other admirers, I never hear of a public performance today. Has Pettersson become just too dark for our own new dark age?

Sergiu Comissiona

My romance with the post-classical symphony form began in the 60's with Mahler, moved through Bruckner, Nielsen and Sibelius to Shostakovich, whose death in 1975 seemed to close the door to this extravagant world. But in Boston in 1980 I spotted a beautiful Deutsche Grammophon LP with a color photograph of a kindly-faced bearded man in profile on a rich apple-green ground. In those years the LP art certainly did sell music! But that's properly another story. Inside this particular sleeve was a recording of Petterson's Eighth Symphony by the Baltimore Symphony conducted by Sergiu Comissiona, then its music director.

I immediately fell in love with the composer's music. I did not hear of his death later in that year until much later. The performance on that recording is magnificent, and on its evidence alone I based my admiration for the conductor. Sergiu Comissiona died in his hotel room in Oklahoma City last Saturday, only hours before he was to perform as guest conductor of the Oklahoma Philharmonic.

Joel Levine, music director of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic and a longtime friend of Comissiona's, filled in for him Saturday night and led the orchestra through a powerfully emotional performance, said William Cleary, past president of the Oklahoma Philharmonic Society.

"It was like a concert unlike any I have been to, and I've been going for 40 years," Cleary said. "The orchestra got three standing ovations during the first number, and I've never seen that before."

And from this fan, a belated and very humble thank you, Maestro.

[image of Pettersson from Passagen Hemsidor, image of Comissiona from Asian Youth Orchestra, Pettersson quote from Paul Kenneth Cauthen]