I have just come back from a jam-packed long weekend in New York. There were three priorities - check out
PINTA, catch up with friends, and do a little
stock sourcing for my
online boutique.
A couple of hours after I arrived I had to be at The Americas Society on Park Avenue for the PINTA launch party. I spotted a couple of familiar faces but left after listening to the panel discussion between artist
Pablo Vargas Lugo and curator Jasmil Raymond. Before escaping I had a quick look at the
current exhibition, a fabulous show demonstrating how Mexican modernist painters have influenced contemporary artists.
The following morning I went to Gagosian to see the new
John Currin show. One of my favourite contemporary painters, Currin creates subversive portraits that take influence from Old Masters and 20th century pin-ups. Below:
Hot Pants, 2010.
I also poked my nose in at the Picasso show downstairs (which transferred from Britannia St earlier this year) and
Mark Tansey's small but impressive exhibition. I then walked to the Met to see the John Baldessari show,
Pure Beauty... which was slightly underwhelming. It's quite brave to call a show that when David's
Death of Socrates hangs in the room next door! I wandered around the
Jan Gossart exhibition and then through the Greek & Roman sculpture rooms on my way out.
After a bumpy cross-town drive I arrived at Pier 92 for the PINTA preview. This was a new location for the fair and I thought the quasi-industrial space worked really well. The fair roughly coincides with Latin American art sales at the the bigger auction houses and the evening reception was packed out, perhaps boosted by the strong results from the sales the week before.
Argentinian Manuel Ameztoy (represented by Ginocchio & Vautier Projects) filled the far end of the hall with his acrylic-on-mylar suspended sculptures. As soon as my eyes had adjusted to these technicolour mobiles I was dazzled all over again by Bolivian Sonia Falcone's light installation at
Salar Galería on the other side of the room.
There was a beautiful work by Uruguayan Marco Maggi at
Josée Bienvenu Gallery (
The Window, 2010, above) made from nearly 300 slide mounts cut with surgical precision. One of the more exciting discoveries, for me, was the Paris-based
Galerie A.L.F.A, run by the very beautiful and charming Aude Lamorelle, whose stand was filled with drawings by Uruguayan
Ricardo Lanzarini, including
Recorrido, below, made from ink and pencil shavings.
London-based
Pablo Leon de la Barra supervised the selected projects booths. An excellent public program kicked off on Thursday afternoon, including a fascinating panel with Carlos Basualdo of
Philadelphia Museum of Art discussing museum strategies for collecting. I had a interesting chat with art advisor
Ana Sokoloff afterwards - a connection enabled by my tutor at Essex,
Professor Valerie Fraser. It turns out Ana had spoken at one of the university's Latin American art symposia in the past... Colchester to Manhattan... the world's getting smaller!
This wrapped up my time at PINTA and left me the weekend free to catch up with friends. During a shuffle around SoHo on Saturday morning, I came across one of the most beautiful boutiques I have ever seen:
De Vera. Owned by Federico de Vera, the space feels like a jewellery designer has taken over the
Sir John Soane museum. Necklaces, earrings and bracelets are made from coral, Tahitian pearls, Indian beads, Venetian glass and Victorian jet - and the results are breathtaking.
