Thursday December 7, 2006
Images from Art Basel 2006, pt 2
Never have so many different people found so many different reasons to dislike a single painting. Commercial, San Juan. This gallery also had a 1970’s GMS custom van in their booth, all arted out with log-cabin wood paneling, hippie furniture interior, and cute girls hanging out inside.
Paul McCarthy plasters his head and one arm into a wall, a piece from 1973. I hope you can see it in this size, because it’s pretty crazy.
Alison Elizabeth Taylor. Super-elaborate inlaid wood job. No paint was used in the making of this artwork, just some shellac.
A perfectly lovely little photograph by John Riddy.
This piece, by Cornelia Parker, appears to be a hologram of a dress, but it turns out to be an actual nightgown in a lightbox, and the nightgown turns out to be the one that Mia Farrow wore in Rosemary’s Baby.
Chris Burden. This image emphasizes a much more subtle use of crappy reflections.
No information on this one, but I’m including it to once again show the prevalence of neon handwriting (“badly organized” — HA!) and cast brass, in this case fluorescent tubes. Elsewhere, there was a life-sized shipping palette, and of course yesterday’s Judd.
A massive dyptic, maybe 8 or 10 feet tall. This was listed as “camera obscura unique print,” which turns out to mean this: The artist brought a pinhole camera the size of the final print to site with the photo paper in it, and opened the hole. The exposure was probably days or weeks, then the pinhole gets closed, and the whole thing gets transported to a light-tight location for removal of the paper, unless the location could be completely darkened to allow someone to enter the pinhole without letting in any light. Since there is no negative, the image itself is reversed. My friends, this is photography at its most hardcore. The subject is a piece of mining equipment, probably about 20 stories tall. You can see something similar driving down the Turnpike by the Rinker facility. The small object in the lower part of the right side is a bulldozer.
Like I said, very little video art. We did get serenaded by this CGI fish, though.
Tomas Wesselman. Anything old was selling for major bucks — this piece is $150,000, but other little paintings on the same wall were three times as much (one of the few booths that included prices on wall labels).
Chrome furniture by Vito Acconci.
Installation by Shintaro Miyake, including painted wood pieces, photographs (of a performance), drawings, sculpture, and stuffed plush animals.
In the same booth, a lovely Hideaki Kawashima painting.
A video installation, from a single overhead camera. Various wild animals wander around from screen to screen. Diana Thater.
Roni Horn. This is a fairly huge piece of cast glass, maybe about the size of a bulldozer tire. The sides and bottom are as cast, rough and naturally frosted; the top has been melted with a blowtorch and allowed to cool, for a perfectly smooth surface.
Elizabeth Peyton.
A painting of a Jesus bust lamp encountering a black and white photograph of a Mickey Mouse toy.
OK, this reproduction came out particularly terrible, which is unfortunate. It’s a photograph of two groups of skiers on some sort of cross-country ski race, possibly taken from a helicopter. It loomed over me — look, you can see reflections of people’s heads about halfway up. The only new Gursky I saw yesterday (?!) so I’m including it despite not having a decent image.
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Is it generally ok to take pictures of the work, or do you need to have a media credential, or ask someone? I wanted to take photos at Art Positions, but I just wasn’t sure.
Great job, Alesh!
thanks for posting images. i wasn’t able to make it back home, so it’s nice to feel connected. post more, if you can.
thanks,
lara
The last picture of the skiers in Austria was one of the best pictures exposed at Art Basel. Too bad the reproduction deas not make justice but thanks for reminding this great 6” high super clear and spectacular image.