Follow our weekly column on contemporary art guest-curated by Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre.
We are delighted to share some enjoyable insights on contemporary art that design aficionados and collectors will appreciate. We asked our friend Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre to join us and highlight for us a selection of relevant art events on her watchlist as they happen.
Here is this week’s Art-Pick, Enjoy!
“I am excited to share with you my Picks from FRIEZE. There was so much beautiful art, it was very difficult to narrow it down. But these are the six works that stayed in my mind long after I left.
DO HO SUH at Lehmann Maupin Art Gallery:
‘There’s no place like home’
I was very drawn to Do Ho Suh’s bold representation of a house. The Korean American artist (b. 1962) is well known for the diaphanous architectural structures that he has been making since 1998. This work depicts the interior of a place that he’s occupied, the carefully measured room rendered with exactitude in pink polyester. As I looked through the gauze, these features multiply to create a dream-like, virtual space that invites the eye to move through it simultaneously in all dimensions. ‘The space I’m interested in,’ he has said, ‘is not only a physical one, but an intangible, metaphorical and psychological one.’
JOHN BAEDER at Waddington Custot Art Gallery:
I came across John Baeder’s photorealist paintings at Waddington Custot’s booth. In each work he has expressed the ways that each diner or eatery was at the heart of a community. A skill far more important than simply recording the transitory details of roadside subjects, which differentiates him from his photo-realist contemporaries and makes him important to American art history.
MINJUNG KIM at Patrick Heide Art Gallery:
Minjung Kim’s work was also a real highlight for me. Kim is a contemporary Korean artist best known for her subtle formal compositions on layered paper. Committed to re-interpreting traditional Korean aesthetics, her works are often colorful with an effect of staccato. She describes her calligraphic work in emotional terms: “The movement, the colours, they are so calm and peaceful,” she says. “They are my state of mind.” Meditative amongst the business of the fair.
MOHAMMED SAMI at Patrick Heide Art Gallery:
A new interest for me was Mohammed Sami: he approaches painting as an allegorical representation against the striking image of conflict and violence. His paintings explore belated memories triggered by common everyday objects and trivia, from when he immigrated to Sweden as a refugee from his native Iraq.
JOHN GIORNO at Almine Rech Art Gallery:
Having just seen his works shown at Almine Rech, Giorno’s works still massively stood out for me! The words popped out into the fair! Giorno is recognized today as one of the most influential poets of his generation. His words transform to images in his Poem Paintings which are short excerpts from his writings, phrases that have continually haunted him. At the crossroads between poetry, visual arts, music and performance, Giorno’s work directs itself toward a broad public, redefining the capabilities of poetry and linguistic form.
WALTON FORD at Max Hetzler Art Gallery:
Walton Ford’s energetic depiction of swans kept me at Max Hetzler’s booth for a long time. This monumental watercolour expanded upon the visual language and narrative scope of traditional natural history painting, mediating on the often violent and bizarre moments that lie on the intersection of human culture and the natural world. The effect of humans is applied in this busy, but utterly stunning scene.
