I was going to write a post about Armory show 2017 from last week when I noticed 2 things: first is that it is the 8th of March and second is that many photos I took during my visit are portraits of women. So hereafter I propose to you my curated art spots and they all have a woman on.
The first week of March is the Armory week in New-York City – week of contemporary fairs. The major one is The Armory show 2017 taking placed at Pier 94 – a large event venue right on the board of Hudson river in Midtown Manhattan. Fantastically the day of the opening, it is 18 degree Celsius – 65 Fahrenheit outside, it creates already an atmosphere of a fiesta. There are other 5 or 6 satellite fairs at the same time in New-York, but I will talk about them in another post. The Armory Show is huge fair with almost 300 participating galleries, but it is not the most important. The most important FRIEZE NYC will take place in May.
The first art work (top left) I would like to comment is by Matthias Bitzer. The meaning that I read is multi-layer and multi-form of a human being, a woman in this particular case. The portrait is surrounded with geometrical forms and shades which go beyond 2 dimensions. I thought that maybe the artist wanted to present us someone half women – half god, represented by the golden sun. It also appears as a sacred image, a zoomed miniature, as if we entered into someone’s intimate space.
The second art work (top right) that you see here is by Iris Van Dongen seen at Bugada and Cargnel gallery. In this case – I would say that the artist represented the woman in the context of Mother Nature. A Fairy animal creature comes out of her head, and most of the space of the art work is takes by a kind of a huge plant. The big black in the middle bring sort of a violence into the picture. It invades the place and even appears to be alive.
Then down left there a paining by Claire Tabouret, seen at the same gallery. I believe that this is really a strong image especially these days. We do not really know if she has blood around her mouth or it is the lipstick. And we wonder which scene happened just before. What is impacting of this image is the ambiguity it holds.
And the last image to comment is by Valerie Belin, discovered at Edwynn Houk Gallery (down right). This time the woman is full make-up and beautiful, although very cold eyes looking down. And the flowers surrounding the image are also gorgeous, however it brings a hint of still life dimension or even vanity allusion.
So here is my curatorial choice of Armory Show 2017. Of course – there was much more to see and to comment. Bloomberg commented that the fair was a financial success, that some of the works of arts sold before even the opening happened, that art market is benefitting good behavior of economy and stock market. so I guess this is all GOOD for ART.
Please read me soon where I will talk about 2 other art fairs that week: Art Show and Independent.
An feel free to give me your comments and your readings of the art works. You can contact me at masha@phylin.com
Phylin
https://www.thearmoryshow.com/
Read also about fabulous show of Katarina Gross here.
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