MAY 2013

SBFA ROUND UP OF FRIEZE WEEK

AND
CONTEMPORARY AUCTION WEEK, NYC

INTRODUCING NEW SBFA ARTISTS
MELISSA STECKBAUER AND DAVID DREBIN

Paul McCarthy "Balloon Dog" Frieze, NYC, 2013

ROUND UP OF FRIEZE WEEK

This May I was back in NYC for Frieze and another round of art fair madness. After a red eye from Madrid and a one hour commute from the airport amid a torrential downpour, I made my way straight to Randall's Island to catch Thursday's private view of the highly anticipated, second edition of Frieze NY, the U.S. version of the successful London fair. Luckily, by the time I caught the ferry from 34th and the FDR, the sky had cleared and I quickly gained my second wind. Despite the jet lag, I was happy to be back in my city, and it was an added bonus to view Manhattan (including rarely visited East Harlem), from the East River, something most New Yorkers rarely do. After a pleasant but short ferry ride, we disembarked with disheveled hair and trod over the rain soaked grass to the entrance of the immense billowing white tent, next to which stood Paul McCarthy's ridiculously massive 80 foot red "Balloon Dog." This inflatable sculpture, a tongue in cheek play on Jeff Koons' famous metallic blow up toys, apparently sold during the fair for close to one million USD, quite a sum to pay for a lot of hot air. McCarthy's playful jab at Jeff Koons, recently dubbed "the most successful American artist since Warhol," by New York Magazine, seemed timely, given that Koons was opening two shows, back to back, at David Zwirner and Gagosian galleries in Chelsea.

Inside the fair the crowd was bustling and there was clearly no dearth of collectors, yet one thing you noticed immediately was that there was space to breathe and plenty of room to contemplate the art without feeling like a sardine, much like one does at Armory, Frieze, London or (any of the now three) Basel's. The bright, airy and expansive atmosphere reminded me of the Independent art fair I had attended in March at Dia's former digs in Chelsea, except that the vast Frieze tent, designed by the Brooklyn company SO-IL, also happened to offer up some fantastic eats from local favorites like the Fat Radish, Mission Chinese, and Marlow & Sons, just in case you were suffering from "fair fatigue" after viewing the art on display by the180 international galleries on exhibit. These days no art fair would be complete without the additional gastronomic accoutrements, and this year Frieze even added a tribute to the legendary artist-run, pay-what-you-wish restaurant "FOOD," opened in SoHo in 1971 by Gordon Matta- Clark and Carol Goodden. I was excited about FOOD until I realized they were serving up an unlikely combination of kim chi, beef jerky, pickles, cheese and Tang on plastic cafeteria trays for a whopping $15. This was clearly NOT about the food.

FOOD, 1971, SoHo NYC

If you found the thought of paying 15 bucks for TANG hard to swallow, there was always one of two VIP bars or even better, "The Vault," artist Liz Glynn's secret Prohibition-style bar hidden away in an undisclosed location within the fair. At "The Vault" however, not even your VIP card would gain you access, as keys for the secret bar/artwork were apparently distributed "at random" to only a chosen few, who could then enjoy cocktails poured by actors who recited stories based on the works of Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges. Why is it every art fair now seems to include a bar as an artwork? Across town in Chelsea, German artist Tobias Rehberger opened his new pop up art bar, the Oppenheimer, at the new Hôtel Americano, to coincide with Frieze this year. This looked like a remake of the one I visited on Benesse's "art island" in Naoshima, Japan and was apparently an exact replica of Rehberger's bar in Frankfurt. Yes I agree- art, artists and libations do go so well together, but since visiting Eduardo Sarabia's "Salon Aleman," featuring his own home made tequila, which I first sampled at the United Nations Plaza in Berlin back in 2006, I have never encountered a better "art bar." Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the venue in Berlin was also a "night school" for contemporary art, rather than a commercial art fair.

Anyhow, enough about the accoutrements, what about the art? This was an art fair was it not? Yes indeed, yet another art fair, as if New York needed another one. Armory week, this past March, was a veritable art smorgasbord that included no less than nine satellite fairs, from which I am still reeling. Gallerists now have to travel through several time zones to exhibit at a minimum of 5-6 art fairs a year, and now we have Basel, Hong Kong to boot. I applaud the efforts of those gallerists who tirelessly promote their artists worldwide, that is dedication, but do we really need a Frieze on both sides of the pond? Some think Frieze, NY will replace New York's stuffy old Armory show, others wonder if, due to the strong US collector base, European galleries will switch allegiance from the London fair to New York. Either way, it looks like Frieze, NY is taking over.

Last year, the inaugural edition of Frieze, New York offered a strong showing of North American work, with 35 percent of participating galleries coming from North America, 51 percent from Europe and 14 percent from other regions. This year those proportions remained more or less consistent. The London fair, on the other hand, has a higher European-to-American ratio; last year, about 63 percent of the galleries came from Europe and 24 percent from North America. Matthew Slotover, one of the fair organizers stated however, that there was already a high crossover of gallery applications for the two fairs, suggesting that galleries consider it worthwhile showing in both cities. Ozkan Canguven of Gallery Rampa in Istanbul, who exhibited twice at Frieze London before going to Frieze New York last year, said that the New York edition had been the best fair the gallery had ever done. "I had thought we would do better business in Europe, but New York had such an international crowd of collectors," she said. "Americans, Brazilians, Mexicans, and lots of Europeans." Maureen Paley, whose London gallery has been a longtime Frieze participant, exhibited at both the London and New York Frieze fairs last year, said that it seemed obvious to her that the opportunity to be in New York was prime time on the international arts calendar, and not to be missed. But one wonders if the pool of international collectors is large enough to absorb this seemingly, ever expanding art market? If one looks at the increasing number of international art fairs, the recent record-breaking auction results for contemporary art, and the proliferation of new online art commerce sites, it would seem so.

This June there is Art Basel (in Basel) and the Biennale in Venice, but I have decided to skip these to take a bit of a break from the incessant global art mash-up. I think many of us our suffering from "fair fatigue," but as Roberta Smith duly noted in the New York Times, despite the fact that it is "fashionable to be snarky and condescending about art fairs…art fairs represent the collective efforts — if not the hopes and dreams — of thousands of people who want art to be at the center of their lives." And this is why we always come back. Despite the rampant nepotism in the art world elite, the "art world" is still one of the last places to discover something unique, beautiful and intellectually engaging, amidst our vapid and all encompassing media landscape. Something, that whether a commodity or not, grabs our attention, makes us think and stirs some deeper emotion within us. This is the draw, and this is what keeps us coming back, so if we are able to stop and focus on the art without being distracted for more than 5 minutes, there is some great work to discover, especially at Frieze this year.

Certainly one of the most-talked-about works at the fair (and one which considers the "distraction dilemma") was Tino Sehgal's Ann Lee at Marianne Goodman's booth. This performance piece featured a Japanese manga character "borrowed" from French artists Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno. Brought to life by one of Sehgal's "interpreters," a waifish adolescent girl engaged in conversation with fair-goers and posed questions like, "would you rather feel too busy, or not busy enough?" and "What is the relation between sign and melancholia?" The revolving cast of young, female "interpreters" who played Ann Lee, were poised, yet rather unnerving in their robotic movements. It was clear some audience members were not quite sure if she was human or some sort of "replicant." This work is typical of Sehgal's oeuvre, which consists of dematerialized works that only take place as oral exchanges and focus on human interaction, situation and confrontation. The performance piece was a bold statement that put the emphasis on the essence of art in its ephemeral form, and posed questions about our preoccupation with constantly feeling busy, fulfilled, distracted and entertained, which was entirely relevant within the context of the spectacle at hand. Tino Sehgal, a 2013 Turner Prize nominee, was also just awarded the Gold Lion Award for Best Artist at the Venice Biennale, the art world's version of the Academy Awards.

If you found the thought of paying 15 bucks for TANG hard to swallow, there was always one of two VIP bars or even better, "The Vault," artist Liz Glynn's secret Prohibition-style bar hidden away in an undisclosed location within the fair. At "The Vault" however, not even your VIP card would gain you access, as keys for the secret bar/artwork were apparently distributed "at random" to only a chosen few, who could then enjoy cocktails poured by actors who recited stories based on the works of Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges. Why is it every art fair now seems to include a bar as an artwork? Across town in Chelsea, German artist Tobias Rehberger opened his new pop up art bar, the Oppenheimer, at the new Hôtel Americano, to coincide with Frieze this year. This looked like a remake of the one I visited on Benesse's "art island" in Naoshima, Japan and was apparently an exact replica of Rehberger's bar in Frankfurt. Yes I agree- art, artists and libations do go so well together, but since visiting Eduardo Sarabia's "Salon Aleman," featuring his own home made tequila, which I first sampled at the United Nations Plaza in Berlin back in 2006, I have never encountered a better "art bar." Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the venue in Berlin was also a "night school" for contemporary art, rather than a commercial art fair.

Anyhow, enough about the accoutrements, what about the art? This was an art fair was it not? Yes indeed, yet another art fair, as if New York needed another one. Armory week, this past March, was a veritable art smorgasbord that included no less than nine satellite fairs, from which I am still reeling. Gallerists now have to travel through several time zones to exhibit at a minimum of 5-6 art fairs a year, and now we have Basel, Hong Kong to boot. I applaud the efforts of those gallerists who tirelessly promote their artists worldwide, that is dedication, but do we really need a Frieze on both sides of the pond? Some think Frieze, NY will replace New York's stuffy old Armory show, others wonder if, due to the strong US collector base, European galleries will switch allegiance from the London fair to New York. Either way, it looks like Frieze, NY is taking over.

Tino Sehgal, Ann Lee, Marianne Goodman

Last year, the inaugural edition of Frieze, New York offered a strong showing of North American work, with 35 percent of participating galleries coming from North America, 51 percent from Europe and 14 percent from other regions. This year those proportions remained more or less consistent. The London fair, on the other hand, has a higher European-to-American ratio; last year, about 63 percent of the galleries came from Europe and 24 percent from North America. Matthew Slotover, one of the fair organizers stated however, that there was already a high crossover of gallery applications for the two fairs, suggesting that galleries consider it worthwhile showing in both cities. Ozkan Canguven of Gallery Rampa in Istanbul, who exhibited twice at Frieze London before going to Frieze New York last year, said that the New York edition had been the best fair the gallery had ever done. "I had thought we would do better business in Europe, but New York had such an international crowd of collectors," she said. "Americans, Brazilians, Mexicans, and lots of Europeans." Maureen Paley, whose London gallery has been a longtime Frieze participant, exhibited at both the London and New York Frieze fairs last year, said that it seemed obvious to her that the opportunity to be in New York was prime time on the international arts calendar, and not to be missed. But one wonders if the pool of international collectors is large enough to absorb this seemingly, ever expanding art market? If one looks at the increasing number of international art fairs, the recent record-breaking auction results for contemporary art, and the proliferation of new online art commerce sites, it would seem so.

This June there is Art Basel (in Basel) and the Biennale in Venice, but I have decided to skip these to take a bit of a break from the incessant global art mash-up. I think many of us our suffering from "fair fatigue," but as Roberta Smith duly noted in the New York Times, despite the fact that it is "fashionable to be snarky and condescending about art fairs…art fairs represent the collective efforts — if not the hopes and dreams — of thousands of people who want art to be at the center of their lives." And this is why we always come back. Despite the rampant nepotism in the art world elite, the "art world" is still one of the last places to discover something unique, beautiful and intellectually engaging, amidst our vapid and all encompassing media landscape. Something, that whether a commodity or not, grabs our attention, makes us think and stirs some deeper emotion within us. This is the draw, and this is what keeps us coming back, so if we are able to stop and focus on the art without being distracted for more than 5 minutes, there is some great work to discover, especially at Frieze this year.

Certainly one of the most-talked-about works at the fair (and one which considers the "distraction dilemma") was Tino Sehgal's Ann Lee at Marianne Goodman's booth. This performance piece featured a Japanese manga character "borrowed" from French artists Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno. Brought to life by one of Sehgal's "interpreters," a waifish adolescent girl engaged in conversation with fair-goers and posed questions like, "would you rather feel too busy, or not busy enough?" and "What is the relation between sign and melancholia?" The revolving cast of young, female "interpreters" who played Ann Lee, were poised, yet rather unnerving in their robotic movements. It was clear some audience members were not quite sure if she was human or some sort of "replicant." This work is typical of Sehgal's oeuvre, which consists of dematerialized works that only take place as oral exchanges and focus on human interaction, situation and confrontation. The performance piece was a bold statement that put the emphasis on the essence of art in its ephemeral form, and posed questions about our preoccupation with constantly feeling busy, fulfilled, distracted and entertained, which was entirely relevant within the context of the spectacle at hand. Tino Sehgal, a 2013 Turner Prize nominee, was also just awarded the Gold Lion Award for Best Artist at the Venice Biennale, the art world's version of the Academy Awards.

Another standout this year was Korean artist, Do Ho Suh's recreation of his Berlin flat rendered in translucent green polyester at Lehmann Maupin. Do Ho Suh is renowned for his site-specific installations that manipulate scale to emphasize the malleability of space and examine the issues of cultural identity and anonymity.

Do Ho Suh, Weilandstrasse 18, 12159 Berlin, 2011, Lehmann Maupin

Another major work that was hard to miss was a solo presentation at Gavin Brown's Enterprise, by the Norwegian provocateur Bjarne Melgaard. The booth featured lavender colored walls, brightly colored blankets piled on the floor, and equally vivid canvases. It was apparently some sort of elegy to Theresa Duncan, the artist and wife of Jeremy Blake (both who committed suicide in New York in 2007). Another piece that really turned heads was a work by Daniel Firman at Galerie Perrotin. Similar to Sehgal's "interpreter," this doppelganger of a young woman in a black skirt and stylish wedgies, was found leaning against the wall, pulling her sweater over her head, as if to say she had had enough art for one day and could look no more. She was not a living, breathing actor like Sehgal's Ann Lee, but rather an uncanny sculpture made of wood.

Daniel Firman, Linda, 2012, Galerie Perrotin

Over at Luhring Augustine, Tom Friedman's kitschy, enlarged sculptures of Hostess cupcakes, pizza and Wonderbread carried on the food theme, but I much preferred Jeppe Hein's large mirrored "Rotating Views," at Johann König, and another work made with cracked mirrors by Doug Aitken, a wall-mounted sculpture featuring the word "ART." While the use of glass, text and mirrors seems ubiquitous at these fairs, this medium does successfully lend itself to the "black mirror" effect, and Aitkin's blatant critique, just like McCarthy's "Ballon Dog" did elicit a smile.

Doug Aitken's wall-mounted sculpture "ART"

Around town, Dan Colen seemed inescapable with another large glass sculpture, comprised of plexi glass basketball backboards, on view at Gagosian's booth. Colen also had recently created works at all three auction houses, where the 33-year-old achieved record prices for two of his "bubble gum" canvases, covered in wads of saccharine, pastel colored chewing gum at Sotheby's Contemporary Evening Sale and at Christie's 11th Hour benefit, organized by Leonardo DiCaprio. Colen also had work on display at Vito Schnabel and David Rimanelli's show DSM-V, at the future Moynihan Station that featured the likes of Picasso, Basquiat, and Warhol alongside more contemporary contributors like Cecily Brown and Urs Fischer.

Dan Colen, 53rd and 3rd, Chewing gum and paper on canvas, 2008, sold at Sotheby's for 1,085,000 USD

This year, NADA, the well-respected satellite fair, run by the New Art Dealers Association, was held at Basketball City on Pier 36 in the LES. It was an odd venue (what with the unsightly grey carpeting covering the courts and the basketball scoreboards still up), and I only had two hours to run through the fair, but there was a great mix of good work to be found. I loved the mixed media paintings of Athens born, Berlin based, Despina Stokou at Derek Eller, and Nicholas Frank's paint splattered surfaces, displayed on the floor at Milwaulkee's impressive Green Gallery, run by John Riepenhoff. I would have bought one of 26 year old Andrew Brischler's beat up-looking, minimalist color field paintings at Sarah Gavlak, but they were completely sold out. At least I got to meet the affable up and coming artist in person. At Invisible-Exports, one of the many new LES galleries, Lisa Kirk and Scott Treleavea's works were of interest and young L.A. dealer, Anat Egbi presented a solid solo show of Joe Reihsen's abstract works. A new discovery that I absolutely fell in love with was Natalie Karg's/Cumulus Studios. Her booth featured "art by the yard" and outdoor functional pieces by artists like Liam Gillick and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Her booth was minimally hung with several bolts of fabric in different commissioned designs by Bob Pruitt, Jack Pierson, Billy Sullivan and Elen Berkenblit, along with Liam Gillick's powder coated aluminum side tables in traffic yellow, green and red-just in case you want to add a dash of conceptual art to your garden or terrace. Also unforgettable was a poignant tribute to young artist-gallerist Daniel Reich, who took his own life in 2012. The bright yellow booth featured a short one-page memoriam and painted portrait of the dynamic art world personality, who was known for going up against the Chelsea hegemony. RIP Daniel, you will be missed.

Daniel Reich Tribute NADA Artfair

CONTEMPORARY AUCTION WEEK, NYC

After trying to fit in 2 days at Frieze, drop in at NADA, and check out Cutlog (the rather lackluster new French fair also in the LES), I skipped the other satellite fairs like PULSE and headed uptown to check out both previews at Sotheby's and Christie's instead. I was overwhelmed at the sheer number of works on view at both auction houses and I even had to leave my colossal stack of auction catalogues in New York, since I would have needed an extra suitcase just to carry them home. Overall, the auction houses were offering more lots this May than in 2012, and they ended up selling more this season as well, making history with record-breaking prices for several artists. Christie's realized an incredible $495 million in a single sale — its May 15 evening auction of postwar and contemporary art — marking the highest-ever total for any category in its entire history. Record prices were set for 12 contemporary artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jackson Pollock and Roy Lichtenstein. Sotheby's sale of contemporary art only brought in a "mere" $293.6 million, however they still managed to set records for artists like Barnett Newman and Gerhard Richter. At Christie's Jackson Pollock's drip painting "No. 19, 1948" sold to an anonymous bidder for $58.3 million. The last time this work came to auction in 1993 it went for $2.4 million….nice profit. Even the pros were reeling. "It shows how broad the market is — as in deep pockets," said dealer Larry Gagosian, and at the end of the evening sale at Christie's, auctioneer Jussi Pylkkanen remarked on the sheer number of bidders willing to drop more than $20 million and remarked "We are in a new era of the art market."

Jean-Michel Basquiat's Dustheads at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art auction. Sold for $48.8m

It is no secret that the pursuit of contemporary art has become a defining marker of wealth and social status for the 1%, and with the current lack of attractive investment options for the wealthy, many of those at the top have decided to diversify their portfolios and park their cash in art. But how are these billionaires, oligarchs, sheiks and hedge fund managers actually impacting the art market? There has been much outcry about this by critics like David Hickey and Sarah Thornton, who have refused to write about the astronomical art market any further. In Thornton's article "The Top Ten Reasons NOT to write about the Art Market" she complains that "it gives too much exposure to artists who attain high prices," "It implies that money is the most important thing about art," and that "it enables manipulators to publicize the artists whose prices they spike at auction." According to critics, the current market system ends up legitimizing and promoting artists simply because of contrived economic accomplishments, which in many cases are buoyed by speculation, dubious art market insiders looking to raise the value of their own art holdings, and third-party guarantors who have undisclosed interests. Part of the problem is that the neutrality of an auction is lost with works that are guaranteed because underwriters can bid on a work they've guaranteed in order to make a profit. The stakes are high and a guarantor can earn several million dollars on a single lot. Critics argue they have an unseen advantage over other bidders because a buyer who wants a work might wind up competing against someone who only wants to bid up the price. That means that auction records — the industry's prime metric for measuring value — are not always accurate, and when the top prices for a particular artist are only reached via these kinds of behind-the-scenes deals, it is reasonable to ask whether it is indicative of the real art market at all.

The sales also featured a strong representation of works by younger artists, which some say has become Phillip de Pury's specific niche. Tauba Auerbach's "Untitled (Fold)" sold for a record $290,500 to New York dealer Alberto Mugrabi and Dan Colen's bubble gum-on-canvas "S&M" (2010), sold for a record $578,500 (estimated at $200-300,000) to New York art advisor Wendy Cromwell. Similar works by the likes of Nate Lowman, Sterling Ruby, Carol Bove, Joe Bradley, Adam McEwen, Mark Grotjahn, Ryan McGuinness, Kehinde Wiley and the Bruce High Quality Foundation could be found throughout the auctions, many of which set record prices for these artists. Since its launch in the spring of 2005, Christie's First Open sale, where collectors can discover emerging artists, has become a fixture on the global contemporary art circuit. Just how are these new record- breaking auction results affecting these young artists and their art production? If Larry Gagosian is right and the market is really that broad, then perhaps it won't matter; artists will sell, galleries and art fairs will boom and everyone wins…but perhaps the art market is being filled with a lot o hot air, fuelled by speculation and inflated prices and perhaps, like McCarthy's "balloon dog," its anther bubble waiting to burst.

INTRODUCING NEW SBFA ARTISTS MELISSA STECKBAUER AND DAVID DREBIN

Melissa Steckbauer

SBFA is pleased to announce our representation of American artist Melissa Steckbauer. Steckbauer's mixed media works on paper and photo-based collages explore the complexities of human relationships, communication and sexual identity. Over the last ten years she has been studying and producing artwork about intimacy and communication with a femme-based approached. She began her practice working primarily in two-dimensional mediums such as oil, acrylic, graphite, and watercolor. In the last two years, however, she has transitioned to a multi-media and photographic based practice, focusing on themes such as tenderness and presence. Steckbauer takes a subjective approach to her photographs with an aim to minimize the level of invasiveness in the subject-photographer relationship, but still allow for an intimate and honest exchange. She then applies the use of collage strictly for its ornamental and aesthetic properties. Steckbauer explains, "the medium of collage offers a strong range of physical possibilities that may also be completely upended by virtue of it's material structure." Steckbauer weaves the photographs together with other images and materials and makes up multiple, patterned, and geometric cuts. The formal, ornamental layer is meant to gently divorce the photograph from its personal content, first destroying the image and then rebuilding it as an object. Her images are sourced from her personal archive of old family photos as well as photographs of members of her own social circle in Berlin. Melissa Steckbauer has been the recipient of numerous awards and has had solo exhibitions at the LSD Galerie in Berlin, Van der Stegen Gallery in Paris, Sottopasso in Livorno, Italy, and IAF Shop in Fukuoka, Japan. She currently has a new solo show on view at Liebkranz Galerie in Berlin, entitled The Architectonics of Love. Melissa Steckbauer was born in 1980 in Tucson, Arizona. She received her BFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied Art History at Utrecht University and Fine Art at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht. She currently lives and works in Berlin.

David Drebin, Capri

SBFA is pleased to announce our representation of Canadian photographer David Drebin. Drebin is a well known celebrity photographer, but has also has recently made a name for himself in the fine art field, with his photographs that may be categorized into close-ups, panoramas, tableaus, and interiors. Land-and cityscapes make up his vivid panoramas. From breathtaking dark seas reflecting city lights, to sand beaches lined with palms, to the haze of a sparkling metropolis, the panoramas draw us into the glamorous milieu of jet-setting sophisticates. Drebin's narratives are often centralized around women. Reminiscent of the surveillance of paparazzi, his photographs allow us a glimpse into the secret lives of these femme fatales. Despite the single frame of the image, he manages to convey complex emotions inherent to each personality. His glamorous characters are often caught up in some intrigue, as seen in his series of women photographing each other. The voyeuristic gaze is two-fold. Is this a play on vanity or feminine rivalry? Like a tabloid devotee, we long to uncover the details of the drama. The Morning After is a collection of images that reside on the border between art and fashion photography. Drebin, from exposure to print, enthralls us with the style and wit of his visual stories. We live vicariously through his characters, and relish in the fantasy evoked by his images. David Drebin has exhibited at Camera Work in Berlin, Fahey Klein Gallery in L.A., Guy Hepner Gallery in London, and most recently had a solo show at Contessa Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio. David Drebin was born in Toronto, Canada and studied at Parsons School of Design, NY, he currently lives and works in New York City.