Jill Krementz covers The Art Show

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The Park Avenue Armory.

The Art Show
The Park Avenue Armory at 67th & Park
February 28-March 3, 2019

The annual ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America) art fair opened on Wednesday, February 28th with its traditional Gala Preview supporting The Henry Street Settlement.

The fair features 72 galleries drawn from the membership.

This year, nearly half the fair has been devoted to ambitious solo exhibitions, with many featuring new works on view to the public for the first time. Among those presenting new work: Sean Kelly, with the premiere of a new series by abstract artist Sam Moyer and Peter Blum Gallery highlighting new paintings and works on paper by Dutch artist Robert Zandvliet.

Among the many art world luminaries on opening night were William Kentridge, Joan Bankemper, Marian Goodman, Jeanne Greenberg, Sean Kelley, Matthew Marks, Peter Blum, Jeffrey Deitch, Paula Cooper, Steve Henry, Peter MacGill, Alexander Gray, Valerie Cassel Oliver, Richard Armstrong, Ian Alteveer, Isabelle Dervaux and Gala co-chairs Tom & Janine Hill.


William Kentridge was among the many artists whose work was on display at the Park Avenue Armory. Shown here: “Quello Che Non Ricordu” translates to “That Which I do Not Remember.” Kentridge’s woodcut was exhibited by gallerist Barbara Krakow.

Tom and Janine Hill, co-chairs of the Gala Preview which raised approximately $1 million for Henry Street Settlement, adding to the nearly $31 million the fair has raised for the non-profit over a more than three-decade-long partnership.

Mr. Hill will join panelist Pamela Joyner on Saturday, March 2 at 11AM in the Board of Officers Room at the Park Avenue Armory for a discussion moderated by Michael Findlay, Director, Acquavella Galleries —” Private Collecting for the Public Good.”


 

L to R.: Arnold Lehman, a Senior Advisor at Phillips Auction House and former director of the Brooklyn Museum.; Arnold Lehman and Stuart Feld, the owner of Hirschl & Adler.
Gallerist Matthew Marks with a Martin Puryear sculpture.

The Nohra Haime Gallery featured “Wilderness,” a solo presentation of work by Lesley Dill focused on language, the written word, and the investigation of divinity and deviltry during the wildness of Early America.

The long, thin figures appearing in Dill’s work wear the strength of the words of the authors they represent. Each persona has powerfully impacted and personally connected with the artist through their words.

Dill posits that there is something untamable, fierce, and persistent in their beliefs, which ultimately unites them. Her sculptures, figurines, and works on paper present a new way of reading and absorbing the words of these idiosyncratic characters.


Janice Oresman popped by to say hello to her friend Leslie. They are both alumni of Smith College.
L to R.: Alexandria Deters is a gallery and Publications Associate at Peter Blum.; Art writer Carol Vogel.
Maxwell Davidson with his wife Mary and one of their sons, Charlie.

Ceramicist Joan Bankemper who lives and works on Riverside Drive.

The Nancy Hoffman Gallery had a solo exhibition of ceramic mosaic sculpture and gouaches by Ms. Bankemper.

These works follow the artist’s love of nature and its transformations. They are not simple pieces; they are complex tapestries of life, filled with abundance. Bankemper has only recently begun to exhibit her sculptures, new territory for her after her devotion to creating conceptual gardens.


Peter Blum presented a series of new egg tempera paintings and works on paper, made in 2018, by the Dutch artist Robert Zandvliet (b. 1970). Since the 1990s, Zandvliet’s work has been on the cusp of abstraction and representation, with a strong focus on the landscape.
Diane Ackerman, Collector Raymond Learsy and Peter Blum

Jeanne Greenberg, Salon 94, featured Ruby Neri (b. 1970, San Francisco) whose sculptural practice embraces a broad spectrum of figuration, drawing upon idiosyncratic 20th-century West Coast traditions as well as a global catalogue of art historical and anthropological modes.

Her totemic, life-sized vessels rely solely on red clay and glazes to generate forceful, highly sexualized representations of the female form.


Sarah Lucas was also shown at Jeanne Greenberg’s. Click here to read Jill Krementz’s coverage of Sarah Lucas’s acclaimed retropspective at The New Museum.
Peter MacGill exhibited photographs of Richard Misrach along with many other photographers’ works.
L to R.: Collector Maria V. Toro with Maya Lin’s “Wire Landscape, Matterhorn,” 2012, a steel wire sculpture on view at Pace/MacGill;  Gallerist Sean Kelly is presenting a solo exhibition of new work by Sam Moyer that advances her distinct and innovative language of abstraction. Moyer has moved from a predominantly conceptual and process-based practice to one addressing more formal and theoretical issues regarding the construct of painting.
The Met’s Ian Alteveer and The Morgan Library’s Isabelle Dervaux.
Angela Westwater (Sperone Westwater) showed Susan Rothenberg.
L to R.: Judy Auchincloss.; Jeff Rosenheim, Photography Curator in charge at The Met.
L to R.: David D’Arcy (The Art Newspaper) and Judd Tully (Art News).; April Hunt runs a public relations firm called sparkplug-pr.com
Thelma Golden and Citigroup Vice Chairman Ray McGuire, who chairs the Board of the Studio Museum in Harlem.
Richard Armstrong, Director of the Guggenheim Museum, with Sally Waxton Van Doren, a collector and artist from Missouri … or, as Dick Armstrong said, “Missoura.”
L to R.: Jeffrey Loria, a secondary-market art dealer and exhibitor.; Zeli Zaloudek, who also works at the Jeffey Loria Gallery and is assisting Mr. Loria who is putting together a book featuring artists such as Niki De Saint Phalle, Clifford Hill and Henry Moore.

Marian Goodman and Philipp Kaiser — “I’m her art husband,” he said. Mr. Kaiser is, as we all know, the recently appointed chief executive director of artists and programs at the Marian Goodman Gallery.

This year’s show was dedicated to the photography of the German artist Thomas Struth. The selection of work presented included street scenes from New York in the 1970s, five of which will be on view for the very first time. Struth visited New York in the late ’70s through an inaugural scholarship from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He stayed for nine months, capturing street scenes from a central perspective.


 

L to R.: Jeffrey Deitch.; Joan Washburn and Paula Cooper at Joan’s booth.
Steve Henry, a Director at the Paula Cooper Gallery. Steve and Paula were both visitors this year as opposed to participating gallerists given the rotation policy of the ADAA’s 180 members.
Karen Marks, a director of the Howard Greenberg Gallery, was celebrating her 57th birthday as well as Gordon Parks whose solo show of photographs was on display.
“I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.” Gordon Parks (1912–2006) is one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, and has become recognized as an eminent cultural icon.
Alix Hornyan, a sales director at the James Goodman show, wore a Calder Necklace ($575k). On display in the vitrine is more Calder jewelry—bracelets, brooches and a men’s pocket pin in the upper right.
L to R.: Exhibiting Gallerist Alexander Gray and his friend Valerie Cassel Oliver; Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She purchased her necklace last year at the Cape Town Art Fair.
One of the many beautiful paintings by Joan Semmel on view at Alexander Gray Associates.
Joan Semmel (born October 19, 1932) is an American feminist painter, professor, and writer. She is best known for painting large scale, realistic nudes of her own body as seen from her perspective in an effort to question the objectification of women’s bodies.
Rahsaan Gandy — self-described “cultural conductor of the arts!”

Text and photographs © by Jill Krementz: all rights reserved. Contact Jill Krementz here.

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