Monday, March 7, 2011
Art Armory Week 2011: Wrapping Things Up at Pulse
Posted by Benjamin Sutton on Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 1:29 PM
- « Live Forever » (2010) by Tim Etchells at the Jenkins Johnson Gallery’s booth at Pulse.
It’s been a fun/crazy/exhausting week of art overload biking around town between fairs, so let’s end with one of those that pulled off the best quantity-quality ratios (not quite so good as the Independent, but better than the Armory Show), Pulse New York, which took over the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street with 65 galleries and non-profits, conventional booths on the ground floor and one-artist installations upstairs. There was some great and some awful; here’s a little of both…
- This huge, DIY version of St. Louis’s Gateway Arch, crossed with a swing set, greeted Scope visitors (alongside a Powerhouse Arena pop-up shop).
- David Ryan’s « Seeking Bassist and Drummer Who Enjoy Husker Du and Peter, Paul and Mary » (2009) at the Davidson Contemporary booth.
- This Greg Allen-Muller sculpture at the Galerie Roepke booth looked like a Linda Benglis in a floating frame from straight ahead, but from the side if turned out to be a hot pink portrait in profile.
- Paul Villinski’s spectacularly kitschy « Fable » (2011) at Morgan Lehman.
- Remixes of Lichtensteinian Pop art were a big trend at Pulse, here’s one: a portrait with shading done with gold-painted nails by Alexis Peskine at Galerie Zidoun’s booth.
- A veiled Lichtenstein by Arian Valizadeh at the M+B booth.
- Speech bubbles! This is Greely Myatt’s « Speak Volumes » (2011) at the David Lusk Gallery booth.
- Two pieces by Julian Opie (who was present, it seemed, at almost every fair) in Jenkins Johnson’s booth.
- Chinese terra-cotta warriors-style sculptures of pop culture characters by Lizabeth Eva Rossof in Charlie James Gallery’s booth.
- Skulls made from broken bottles by Andres Basurto at the Antena Estudio booth.
- Mark Shoening’s explosive abstracts at the Blythe Projects booth.
- Another by Mark Shoening, this one an incredible dreamcatcher-like medalion of string.
- Joseph Burwell’s « School of the Viking Spaniard: Reconstruction of the Garage » (2009) installation at the Miyako Yoshinaga Art Prospects booth.
- Really enjoyed Damien Stamer’s stylistic mashup paintings at the Freight + Volume booth.
- An installation by David Ellis at the Joshua Liner booth.
- And to end on a very high note, Catherine Bolduc’s delirious sculptures at Montreal’s Galerie SAS booth were blinking, baroque visions of excess.
- Another couple of pieces by Catherine Bolduc.
And that’ll be the end of our 2011 Armory Week coverage. Thanks for arting!
Catherine Bolduc 