The ADAA Art Show was first out of the New York art fair gate last night, opening at the Park Avenue Armory to VIPs and press. Many dealers featured carefully organized one- and two-person displays—a full Picabia show at Michael Werner, early Cindy Sherman works at Metro Pictures and 1970s Baldessaris at L&M. Among those tony displays, though, there were quite a few nice surprises. In the slide show at left, 11 favorites.
Greene Naftali's booth has collages by Richard Hawkins (just like those on view at the Whitney Biennial), a new Rachel Harrison sculpture and two Michael Krebber paintings—classy work from a classy roster. Tucked over in one corner, though, is this curious little abstraction by Paul Thek (1933–1988). It's about the size of a sheet of paper and comes complete with its own light.
This woman in a police uniform is missing an arm, and the title, the gallery notes in a booklet produced for the fair, is a "pun in the manner of adolescent humor." Yet it's still manages to be insanely beautiful—ivory white like a Florine Stettheimer, ornamented with neon sores. It's hard to believe that it was made with just pencils.
Feigen has this stunning Neel on the outside of its booth, clearly hoping it will lure people inside (if people can tear themselves away). It's compendium of abstract patterns—stripes on Bill White's chair, shirt and tie—that coalesce into an effervescent portrait. Who wouldn't want him in a living room, urging guests on in a night of revelry?
Peter Freeman's booth is devoted to the Belgian proto-Surrealist James Ensor (1860–1949), but leaning in one corner is one of André Cadere's segment sculptures, filled with 21 rungs in black, red and yellow—the colors of the flag of Belgium, as Mr. Freeman kindly noted.
The retrospective of the late post minimalist Bill Bollinger (1939–1988) that has been touring Europe lately is coming to SculptureCenter next month. This work was painted on paper. It's a sort of trippier take on a Morris Louis pour piece. Colors cluster together in the center and fade away like smoke at the edges.
Markey also has this elegant little drawing by Jo Baer, who uses some of the trademark colors of her bracingly minimal canvases to make these precise renderings of a bridge. Not a line is wasted. Interestingly, Gagosian is showing her work in Geneva later this month.
Most of the work at the ADAA is from the 20th and 21st centuries. Those seeking a break from the modern and contemporary can head to Hirschl & Adler to see works by Homer, Hassam and this noble marble by Hiram Powers, best known for his Greek Slave (1841–43), the first fully nude life-size sculpture of a woman ever shown in America.
First shown at the Grand Central Moderns Gallery in New York in 1962, this work by Fluxus purveyor Robert Watts (1923–88) offers just what its name suggests: the tools for committing suicide. "I included a telephone in case you want to back out as well as a bandaid and a bottle of alcohol," Watts said in an interview that the gallery has excerpted for an explanatory label at its booth.
Brooke Alexander, who long worked with Ken Price (1935-2012), has this haunting piece by the late sculptor at its booth, the void at is center offering a chilling contrast to its extroverted interior.
Though best known for his collage work, Bearden (1911–1988) worked on abstractions beginning in the 1940s. Most of the works in DC Moore's booth come from around 1960. According to a catalogue available there, he often worked on unstretched canvas, painting layers and then working on them with turpentine. Some of the works border on psychedelia, and perhaps even prefigure work by young abstractionists like Ryan Sullivan (now showing at Maccarone) and Alex Hubbard.
This supremely weird metal sculpture comes from the late, great German artist Martin Kippenberger (1953–97).
