Why is it so GOD DAMNED hard to sell a piece of art around here? I can’t help asking myself this as I soon join the ranks of civilians outside the Art World proper and close the doors on my 4 year long project, Lisa Boyle Gallery.
Seems I am in fashion though, since a handful of my compatriots are shutting down near the same time. 40000 last December, soon Navta Schulz, Gesheidle and others. Closings here, closings in New York, even my friend in Boston are hanging it up. What gives, you ask? A writer for Time Out Magazine recently talked with me and a couple of the other dealers about this little black cloud and what conditions exist that make this happen, particularly in a clump, as often occurs. “Whose fault is it?,” she wanted to know. I told her in a conspiratorial tone that I had plenty of ideas. Continue reading »
This week the West Coast Crew heads down to Ratio3 to talk to Ryan McGinley and gallerist Chris Perez.
Ryan McGinley makes large-scale color photographs of nudes in abstracted natural landscapes. With his subjects as willing collaborators, he used photography to break down barriers between public and private lives. Drawn from skateboarding, music, graffiti and gay subcultures, his models perform for the camera and expose themselves with complete self-awareness.
McGinley’s more recent work signals a departure from the urban youth culture images for which he is well known – over the past few summers he has been working almost exclusively in natural settings in the American west.
At 24, he was the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He has also had solo exhibitions at PS1 and in Spain at the MUSAC in Leon. In 2007 he was awarded the Young Photographer Infinity award by the International Center for Photography. Continue reading »
Head of a Man is the name given to a $5 million Vincent Van Gogh portrait that was purchased in 1940. Only thing is now no one belives it is a Van Gogh. The Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum performed a 10-month investigation by scholars and has found the portrait was probably painted by a fellow student of Van Gogh in Antwerp or Paris in the mid 1880s. They are absolutely sure though that it is not a forgery since the work makes no attempt to directly mimic or pass itself off in a documented or established way as a Van Gogh. Continue reading »
This week Caleb Lyons, one of the directors at Chicago curious space “Old Gold,” drops in to interview John Phillips and Tony Wight about the current changes at Bodybuilder and Sportsman/Tony Wight Gallery, John and Caleb’s exhibitions, contemporary abstract painting, and we once again tackle the topic of what is a hipster?.
Robert Fitzpatrick, director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art since 1998, has become international managing director of Haunch of Venison, a 6-year-old gallery for contemporary art with spaces in London, Zurich and Berlin.
Mr. Fitzpatrick, 67, stated when he took the position that he would stay no more then 10 years in the position and has proven his word literal.
He is now moving to New York, where his new position would be to oversee the fall opening of a 20,000-square-foot branch of the Haunch of Venison gallery at Rockefeller Center.
