Airport, please! Sarah Sze: Night into Day reopens at the Fondation Cartier in Paris

Sarah Sze
Night Into Day
Fondation Cartier

As an artist, I think about the effort, desire, and continual longing we’ve had over the years to make meaning of the world around us through materials. And to try and locate a kind of wonder, but also a kind of futility that lies in that very fragile pursuit. 

Sarah Sze

In 1994, after ten years in the town of Jouy-en-Josas near Versailles, the Fondation Cartier moved into the airy glass and steel building in central Paris designed especially by Jean Nouvel, who is also the creator of the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Musée du Quai Branly buildings. Famous in France and internationally for his unique way of dematerializing architecture, his challenge for Cartier was to harmoniously bring together 12,000 square feet of exhibition space and six stories of offices on the boulevard Raspail.

For her second solo exhibition at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, internationally renowned artist Sarah Sze presents a fully immersive installation that transforms the visitor’s experience of Jean Nouvel’s glass building. The exhibit had to close due to the pandemic but is reopening on May 19th. A genius of architecture, Jean Nouvel, has created the perfect aesthetic environment for the genius of Sarah Sze’s installations.

Sarah Sze, who represented the United States at the 2013 Venice Biennale, presents two immersive installations in the gallery spaces of Jean Nouvel’s iconic building. Commissioned by the Fondation Cartier, her new works explore how the proliferation of images—printed in magazines, gleaned from the Web, intercepted from outer space—fundamentally changes our relation to physical objects, memories, and time. The works also engages with the materiality and history of Nouvel’s structure and its surrounding garden. Enveloping the architecture, these sculptures will alter the visitor’s sense of gravity, scale, and time, confusing the boundaries between inside and outside, mirage and reality, past and present.

Sarah Sze
Night Into Day
Fondation Cartier

Twice Twilight and Tracing Fallen Sky, created specifically for this exhibition, are the latest works from Sze’s Timekeeper series, begun in 2015. This series investigates the image and the increasing overlaps in our experience of the virtual and material worlds. The planetarium and the pendulum, age-old scientific tools designed to map the cosmos and trace the earth’s rotation, inspire the structure of these sculptures. Sze has long been interested in scientific models as tools to measure time and space and to explain the natural world.

With dramatic shifts in scale—from the vast trajectory of the sun, to the minute action of lighting a match—the artist conveys the mystery and complexity inherent in our constant attempts to measure and model time and space. In contemplating the essence of these concepts, Sze reveals both the wonder and the futility behind our efforts to understand what will always remain just beyond our grasp.

Sarah Sze
Timekeeper Series

SARAH SZE: TIMEKEEPER SERIES

For over 20 years, Sarah Sze has produced celebrated works of art, synthesizing a near boundless range of everyday materials into intricate constructions that are both delicate and overwhelming. Sze’s monumental site-specific installation Timekeeper, originally presented at the Rose Art Museum and now in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum, combines sculpture, video and installation into a sprawling experiential work that approaches some of the most complex themes of her career: time’s passage and its marking in mechanical and biological forms. Iterations of the work have also been exhibited at the Copenhagen Contemporary Museum in Denmark, The High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Timekeeper
Sarah Sze

The Timekeeper installation was a catalyst for a book which explores major new ideas in Sze’s work and practice. This ambitious work is extensively documented here alongside significant new texts by noted scholars on Sze and the themes that inform—and are informed by—her art, including the experience of time. In addition to the scholarly texts and abundant photographs of the work, the Timekeeper catalogue includes a section designed by Sze that function as a flip book to demonstrate the movement of time.

https://www.amazon.com/Sarah-Sze-Timekeeper/dp/1941366139

Sarah Sze

SARAH SZE

Sarah Sze was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1969. Sze builds her installations and intricate sculptures from the minutiae of everyday life, imbuing mundane materials, marks, and processes with surprising significance. Combining domestic detritus and office supplies into fantastical miniatures, she builds her works, fractal-like, on an architectural scale.

Often incorporating electric lights and fans, water systems, and houseplants, Sze’s installations balance whimsy with ecological themes of interconnectivity and sustainability. Whether adapting to a venue or altering the urban fabric, Sze’s patchwork compositions seem to mirror the improvisational quality of cities, labor, and everyday life. On the edge between life and art, her work is alive with a mutable quality—as if anything could happen, or not.

Sarah Sze
Venice Biennale, 2013

Sarah Sze received a BA from Yale University (1991) and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts (1997). She has received many awards, including a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship (2005); John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2003); Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (1999); and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Award (1997).

Major exhibitions of her work have appeared at the Asia Society Museum, New York (2011); 10th Biennale de Lyon (2010); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art (2009); Malmö Konsthall (2006); Whitney Museum of Amerian Art (2003); Walker Art Center (2002); São Paulo Bienal (2002); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1999), and Foundation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (1999), the Carnegie International (1999), and the 48th Venice Biennale (1999). Sarah Sze lives and works in New York City.

2013 Venice Biennale

2013 VENICE BIENNALE

Her works manipulate the space, be it a gallery, domestic interior or public space. In 2013, she represented the United States of America at the 55th International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia in Venice, Italy. Her exhibition Triple Point featured installations inside and outside the Pavilion building. Much of Sarah Sze’s solo show evolved on-site over a three-month installation period. For Triple Point, the artist used elements from the urban landscape of Venice such as photographs of stone, leaves from the Giardini, tickets from the Vaporetto.

In many ways, the work of Sarah Sze is, to the LRFA blog, an important predecessor of the new NFT cryptoart that is commanding so much attention.

Stay tuned!

A unique position in gallery management with Kristen Becker of Marianne Boesky Gallery

Julie Dault
Maker’s Mark 2015
Installation View
Marianne Boesky Gallery New York
Photo credit: Jason Wyche

BOTH THE NON-PROFIT AND COMMERCIAL SPACES IN THE CONTEMPORARY ART WORLD SHARE MANY COMMON GOALS: BOTH ARE ON A MISSION TO CURATE EXHIBITIONS OF QUALITY AND CRITICAL SIGNIFICANCE THAT DRAW ATTENTION AND SUPPORT OF   THE ARTIST’S WORK, TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC AND TO ACT AS A CULTURAL RESOURCE FOR THE VISUAL ARTS. THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NON-PROFIT AND FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS IS OBVIOUS. A COMMERCIAL GALLERY DERIVES ITS CONTINUITY AND EXPANSION FROM SALES REVENUE, THE LIFE BLOOD OF ANY BUSINESS, WHILE NON-PROFIT MUSEUMS AND EXHIBITION SPACES RELY ON GRANTS, DONORS AND VOLUNTEERS. KRISTEN BECKER EMBRACES THE COMMUNALITY OF INTEREST BETWEEN THE TWO IN HER UNIQUE POSITION IN MUSEUM ENGAGEMENT AT MARIANNE BOESKY GALLERY.

KRISTEN, WHEN DID YOU JOIN MARIANNE BOESKY AND WHAT PROMPTED YOUR DECISION?

In March of 2014 I went on a trip to Marfa, TX with my friend Ricky Manne who is a director at Marianne Boesky Gallery. He and I had discussed doing a bit of a road trip to the art mecca, and while we were there I mentioned to him how I wanted to find a way of incorporating my Museum Studies background (which focused on non-profit administration) with my existing career in the commercial gallery world. At Luhring Augustine I had initiated a few trips to smaller museums that perhaps didn’t have the travel budget to come to New York often. I visited these institutions, saw the exhibition spaces, met with the curators, listened to programming ideas, and was able to make some interesting headway in terms of placing wonderful artworks in their collections and getting some of the less visible gallery artists some exposure. It was a win-win-win! I wanted to find a way to have that mutually beneficial pursuit become a larger part of my job, and Ricky suggested I sit down with Marianne to find out whether she’d be interested in having me on staff in this rather unorthodox position.

Sarah Sze
“Triple Point”
55th Venice Biennale U.S. Pavilion

MARIANNE HAS ALWAYS HAD AN EXTREMELY ACUTE ABILITY TO RECOGNIZE SIGNIFICANT TALENT IN EMERGING ARTISTS. WHO ARE SOME OF THE LUMINARIES THAT BEGAN THEIR CAREERS AT THE GALLERY?

Marianne is quite well-known for being instrumental in the careers of Sarah Sze and Lisa Yuskavage as well as Yoshitomo Nara and Takashi Murakami. With Nara and Murakami she truly opened the door to a new aesthetic world by giving those artists exposure in the U.S. and encouraging collectors to see the value in this rich perspective. http://www.marianneboeskygallery.com/

Takashi Murakami
Mr. Pointy
Brooklyn Museum

There are always periods of growth and the early 2000s was a great time period for us – we continue to represent a number of artists who have a long history with the gallery.

Barnaby Furnas
First Morning (Installation View)
Marian Boesky Gallery, 2015
Photo credit: Bill Orcutt

Barnaby Furnas opened his sixth exhibition at the gallery on September 10^th, Donald Moffett will have a fifth solo show this spring at both our Chelsea and Lower East Side locations, and Rachel Feinstein has shown with us for almost fifteen years.

DONALD MOFFETT
Oil on linen with wood panel support
Photo credit: Christopher Burke

Around 2008 we added to the program again with artists like Jay Heikes and Anthony Pearson, and I love being involved with a gallery history that is consistent but also progressive.

DEAN LEVIN
Surface Support (ISO), 2015
UV curable ink on mirror polished steel and accompanying drawing
Diptych, each panel: 93 x 45 inches 177.8 x 101.6 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York

WHO ARE SOME OF THE EMERGING ARTISTS THAT THE GALLERY HAS RECENTLY ACCEPTED AND WHAT ARE THE PROJECTS IN WHICH THEY ARE INVOLVED?

Dean Levin joined the gallery a year and a half ago and I am enjoying watching his practice evolve. He has a background in architecture and became known for creating these incredibly seductive convex paintings- they speak to an American history of painting while also giving visual winks and nods to the artist’s hand and its inherently beautiful flaws.

Installation view:
The Armory Show 2014, Barricade I, August 7 – September 12, 2014
Marianne Boesky Gallery Booth, New York, New York

Serge Alain Nitegeka is another artist whose work is incredibly physical and quite architectural in nature. His paintings, sculptures, and installations stem from a personal history of forced migration. Transgressing borders, crossing lines, and negotiating spaces all play a significant role in how he approaches the studio. He just had a solo exhibition at the Savannah College of Art and Design and is currently included in the South African pavilion in the 56^th Venice Biennale. We will have a solo show of new work in Chelsea in March of this year.

Julie Dault
Maker’s Mark
Installation View
February – March 2015
Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
Photo credit: Jason Wyche

WHOSE WORK, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE NEWER ROSTER IN THE GALLERY, PARTICULARLY RESONATES WITH YOU AND WHY?

Julia Dault’s show this past February serves as a highlight for me as I was a big fan of her work before being hired by Marianne. One of my first weeks at the gallery I put together a small internal reference publication of her show at the Power Plant, a fantastic contemporary art museum in Toronto (the show later traveled to the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver). Julia’s work is textural in so many ways and studying the install shots and understanding the layers of each piece built my enthusiasm even more. That show was incredible in terms of layout, install, and pacing- there was so much kinetic energy.

The Power Plant
Toronto, Canada

 

THE GALLERY HAS TWO ADDITIONAL SPACES, EACH WITH A DISTINCT CHARACTER AND PURPOSE OF ITS OWN, ONE UPTOWN DEDICATED TO EXHIBITIONS THAT PROVIDE AN HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR THE GALLERY ROSTER OF ARTISTS AND A NEW LOCATION ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE FOR PROJECTS, INSTALLATIONS AND CUTTING-EDGE EXHIBITIONS.

IN THE NEXT LRFA BLOG, KRISTEN WILL DETAIL THE HISTORY AND DIRECTION OF BOESKY UPTOWN AND  BOESKY EAST.

LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS!

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery: contemporary art in the global marketplace

Mark DION
Trichechus manatus latirostris
2013
plastic skeleton, tar, found objects in steel and glass case
72 x 40 x 176 inches

 

INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE IS CRUCIAL FOR ARTISTS IN OUR GLOBAL CONTEMPORARY ART MARKET. MANY GALLERIES NOW SUPPORT MULTIPLE VENUES, MAINTAINING SPACES WITH STAFF AND YEAR ROUND EXHIBITION SCHEDULES NOT ONLY IN NEW YORK BUT ALSO IN LONDON, HONG KONG, BEIJING,  PARIS AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL CITIES TO REACH THE SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF GLOBE-TROTTING CONTEMPORARY COLLECTORS WORLDWIDE , TO EDUCATE THE ART COLLECTING PUBLIC AND TO INTRODUCE THEM TO THE WORK OF NEW AS WELL AS ESTABLISHED ARTISTS.

TANYA BONAKDAR GALLERY, WHILE LOCATED IN CHELSEA IN AN EXPANSIVE DUPLEX GALLERY SPACE AT 521 West 21st STREET, HAS ESTABLISHED, IN ITS TWENTY YEAR HISTORY, AN IMPRESSIVE TRACK RECORD FOR BRINGING THE WORK OF THEIR ARTISTS TO INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCES AND INSTITUTIONS AROUND THE WORLD. http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/

FOR EXAMPLE, ERNESTO NETO WAS SELECTED TO REPRESENT BRAZIL AT THE 49^th VENICE BIENNALE IN 2001, SARAH SZE’S TRIPLE POINT INSTALLATION DOMINATED THE U.S. PAVILION AT THE 2013 55th VENICE BIENNALE, TOMAS SARACENO PRESENTED A MAJOR INSTALLATION AT THE 53^rd VENICE BIENNALE IN 2009 AS PART OF THE GROUP EXHIBITION, Fari Mondi/Making Worlds, AND MORE RECENTLY CREATED A SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATION FOR THE ROOF OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, WHILE OLAFUR ELIASSON CREATED THE NEW YORK CITY WATERFALLS IN 2008, A MAJOR PUBLIC ART PROJECT THAT TRANSFORMED THE BRIDGES THAT SURROUND THE CITY.  THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF THE MANY INTERNATIONAL HONORS AND AWARDS THAT THE GALLERY ARTISTS RECEIVES.

Sarah Sze
360 (Portable Planetarium)
2010
mixed media, wood, paper, string, jeans, rocks
162 x 136 x 185 inches; 411.5 x 345.4 x 469.9 cm
Gallery Installation

TODAY, GALLERY DIRECTOR, RENEE COPPOLA, SHARES HER PERSPECTIVE ON THE GALLERY’S INTERNATIONAL SCOPE AND INFORMS US OF A WONDERFUL NEW EDUCATIONAL VENTURE THAT TANYA BONAKDAR INITIATED THIS YEAR.

RENEE, HOW DOES THE GALLERY SUPPORT AND SUSTAIN SUCH A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF ATTENTION FOR THEIR ARTISTS WITH A RELATIVELY SMALL STAFF THAT INSTALLS AND OVERSEES TEN EXHIBITIONS A YEAR IN NEW YORK WHILE EXHIBITING AT THE NUMEROUS ART FAIRS THAT PROVIDE PIVOTAL EXPOSURE FOR THE GALLERY ARTISTS IN THE CURRENT ART MARKET?

Although we have many very active artists who show internationally, as mentioned the 35 artists are divided between four gallery directors.  This helps to lighten the load when dealing with major exhibitions.  Plus, most of these very significant shows like the Venice Biennale or the rooftop installation at the Metropolitan are years in the making so the planning is slower than that of a gallery exhibition or art fair.  But the great strength of the gallery’s staff is its collaborative nature and teamwork.  All of us, from our Preparators and Registrar to our Archivist and the Gallery Assistant work on the art fairs and the exhibitions together, so if one director is particularly focused on a major exhibition, the others help to balance out the workload.  This flexibility is a plus.  Not to mention, after 20 years, Tanya has a very streamlined system at work.  The yearly schedule is generally understood in advance and well considered. 

CHARLES LONG
UP LAND
Gallery 1
September 11 – October 18, 2014

THE GALLERY RECENTLY INITIATED A SERIES OF DISCUSSIONS TO COINCIDE WITH ITS EXHIBITION SCHEDULE WITH THE GOAL OF EDUCATIONAL AUDIENCE ENRICHMENT. TELL US ABOUT THIS PROGRAM, HOW IT CAME INTO BEING AND WHAT IS INVOLVED?

E/I: Saturday Discussions is a year long series of talks between gallery artists, curators, critics, artists, writers, and intellectuals.  The series takes its title from communications industry parlance, in which E/I stands for “educational and informative.” On Saturday mornings, the Federal Communications Commission mandates that commercial broadcast stations meet a quota of E/I programming, with the goal of educational audience enrichment.  Like their namesake, the E/I talks at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery provides the public with an opportunity to hear more from the artist whose show is currently on view as they discuss and debate the ideas behind their new work.  In general, the artist lectures are held on the first (and sometimes second) Saturday morning after the opening. http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/talks/

Charles LONG
Aue
2014
patina on bronze
78 x 23 x 23 inches

IN REVIEWING THE GALLERY NEWS ON THE WEBSITE, AT LEAST 15 OF THE 30+ ARTISTS YOU REPRESENT ARE CURRENTLY EXHIBITING AT MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES AROUND THE WORLD. THIS ALSO ENTAILS A GREAT DEAL OF COMMUNICATION AND PLANNING WITH MUSEUM CURATORS AND REGISTRARS. HOW IS THE GALLERY STRUCTURED IN TERMS OF HANDLING THE GALLERY EXHIBITIONS AS WELL AS ALL THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS THAT ARE ALSO TAKING PLACE. WHAT IS THE EXHIBITION SCHEDULE FOR THE YEAR AHEAD?

As mentioned, it is helpful that museum exhibitions have a long planning schedule, which provides a lot of room for discussion and research about the best artwork for the show. Our upcoming gallery exhibitions include:

Tomas Saraceno [Galleries 1 & 2]

March 26 – May 2, 2015 

Rivane Neuenschwander [Galleries 1 & 2]

May 9 – June 20, 2015

IN WHICH FAIRS DOES THE GALLERY PARTICIPATE? HOW DOES THE GALLERY DECIDE WHAT TO EXHIBIT IN AN INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR BOOTH AS OPPOSED TO A SOLO GALLERY EXHIBITION?

Because of the number of artists that the gallery represents, we generally mount a solo exhibition of an artist’s work roughly every 2 years.  Within that time, the artists are naturally working on other projects, starting new bodies of work, exploring new ideas.  Art fairs give us the opportunity to show the most recent work by these artists, whether or not they have had an exhibition at our gallery that year.  

RENEE, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CONTRIBUTING TO THE LRFA BLOG AND SHARING THE MANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE GALLERY ARTISTS WITH US.

PROFESSIONAL APPRAISAL OF FINE ART AND DECORATIVE ART IS A CRUCIAL COMPONENT IN SO MANY ASPECTS OF COLLECTING AND DONATING ART. APPRAISERS WORK WITH PRIVATE AND CORPORATE ART COLLECTIONS AND PARTNER WITH COLLECTORS, ATTORNEYS, ACCOUNTANTS, MUSEUMS, FAMILY FOUNDATIONS AND INSURANCE CARRIER TO PROVIDE ESSENTIAL INFORMATION AND EVALUATION OF ARTWORKS THAT SPAN CENTURIES AND MEDIUMS.

IN OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG, I AM VERY PLEASED TO INTRODUCE BETTY KRULIK IN HER CAPACITY AS PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN APPRAISERS ASSOCIATION.  BETTY IS A SEASONED DEALER WHO HAS CONTRIBUTED HER EXPERTISE ON AMERICAN ART IN AN EARLIER LRFA BLOG AND NOW HAS GENEROUSLY AGREED TO DISCUSS THE ART OF ART APPRAISAL.

WE WELCOME ALL COMMENTS AND INQUIRIES. I LOOK FORWARD TO POSTING THE AAA BLOGS AND TO HEARING FROM YOU.

MANY THANKS!

 

Renee Coppola, Director of Tanya Bonakdar, introduces the newest gallery artists

 

Agnieszka Kurant
Untitled , 2014
Conveyor belt and mirror

IN 2oo6, TANYA BONAKDAR GALLERY UNDERWENT A MAJOR RENOVATION, DOUBLING ITS SIZE  AND SCALE, ADDING 5,000 SQUARE FEET OF GROUND FLOOR SPACE.  THE GALLERY HAS ALWAYS ENJOYED A STELLAR REPUTATION FOR SUPPORTING THE MORE THAN THIRTY ARTISTS IT REPRESENTS WORLDWIDE SUCH AS SARAH SZE, WHO REPRESENTED THE UNITED STATES AT THE LAST 55th VENICE BIENNALE  WITH AN LARGE-SCALED, SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATION, TRIPLE POINT.  THE GALLERY CONTINUALLY MAKES AN IMPRESSIVE COMMITMENT TO PRESENTING WORKS IN ALL MEDIA, HOWEVER DEMANDING THE SCALE, SCOPE AND AMBITION OF THE WORK. THE PHYSICAL EXPANSION ONLY SERVED TO UNDERLINE ITS DEDICATION TO THEIR CONTEMPORARY PROGRAM AND EXHIBITION CAPABILITIES. http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/gallery

I A M DELIGHTED TO HAVE GALLERY DIRECTOR, RENEE COPPOLA, DISCUSS THE CURRENT PROGRAM AT THE GALLERY  AND SOME OF THE NEWER ARTISTS IT REPRESENTS. THE CURRENT SOLO EXHIBITION BY ANALIA SABAN IS A GREAT PLACE TO START! PRESENTED ON BOTH FLOORS OF THE GALLERY, SABAN INVITES US INTO A METAPHORICAL BACKYARD IN WHICH THE OBJECTS AND PAINTINGS SHE HAS CREATED DISRUPT OUR TRADITIONAL IDEAS ABOUT THE PROPERTIES OF MATERIALS SUCH AS WOOD, MARBLE, PIGMENTS AND ENCAUSTIC. http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/exhibitions/analia-saban-backyard

Meschac GABA
Bureau d’échange [Exchange Office]: Cotton, 2014
wood table, metal umbrella frame, assorted banknotes, clothespins, cotton stocks

RENEE, WHO ARE SOME OF THE ARTISTS THAT HAVE RECENTLY BEEN INTRODUCED TO THE ART WORLD BY THE GALLERY AND WHAT IS YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON THEIR WORK?

Some of our newest artists include Agneiszka Kurant, Meschac Gaba, and Analia Saban.  Agnieszka’s first exhibition at the gallery was in September 2014, and she is an artist whose work is very technological and future-minded.  Kurant weaves together ideas about collective intelligence, hybrid authorship, immaterial labor, and virtual capital in stunning installations and sculptures.  Her show was fascinating, as it touched on the complex relationships between value, authorship, production, and circulation. African artist Meschac Gaba is another new artist whose work also addresses capital by looking at constructions of identity in relation to systems of trade, notably between Africa and Western countries.

Meschac GABA
Bankivi: Agriculture Bank
2014
Wood, plexiglas, assorted coins

Also, Analia Saban is one of our new artists.  

Born in Argentina and living in New York, her work has a subtle and playful irony, as she challenges perceived boundaries between artistic disciplines.  Her work responds to art historical tropes by experimenting with materials and exploring the link between art and domestic space.  

Analia Saban
Bathroom Sink Template (Jade Marble)
2014
marble
74 5/8 x 44 inches

Saban’s newest work is currently on view at the gallery and was recently shown at the New Orleans biennial “Prospect 3” at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center.

 

Analia Saban
Bulge #4
2014
Encaustic on walnut stretcher bars

THE GALLERY SHOWS WORK OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY OF ARTISTS WITH, THANKS TO THE GALLERY SUPPORT, INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION. IN MY VIEW, THE WORK IS EXTREMELY DIVERSE, NOT ONLY IN TERMS OF MEDIUM, BUT ALSO IN TERMS OF AESTHETIC. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE UNDERLYING CONNECTION BETWEEN THEM, IF THERE IS ONE?

If there is an underlying connection, it is that the artists in Tanya’s roster are visionaries, continually exploring new ground, while actively participating in the contemporary dialogue of art, as well as other disciplines like ecology, politics, psychology, etc.  Some of this is most apparent in the work of artists who are interested in literal ideas about the future, and how our growing population will organize and relate to each other, as well as the environment, in the years ahead.  Tomas Saraceno is one of those artists.  His work explores the possibility of a future airborne existence, a literal city in the clouds, and is informed by natural sciences, architecture, engineering, and art.  His sculptures adapt geometries of the natural world in order to envision new ways of living.  In this way, he is connected to other visionary thinkers like Buckminster Fuller, architect Yona Friedman, and other inventors and explorers.

Tomas SARACENO
Cosmos 1
2013
inkjet print
set of 6 prints mounted and framed in white wooden frame

Other artists at the gallery who I would group in this particular category are Ernesto Neto, Olafur Eliasson, Mark Dion, and Charles Long to name a few.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ASPECT OF GALLERY MANAGEMENT? IS THERE A PARTICULAR MEDIUM OR AESTHETIC TO WHICH YOU RESPOND THE MOST STRONGLY?

My favorite part of gallery management happens on the last day of an installation, when the work is polished, placed, and ready for opening day.  I think of this day as an important transitional moment, as the artist essentially hands over months, maybe years, of work to the gallery – entrusting us to take it to the next level and present these pieces to the world.  I find this to be a very positive moment and appreciate our role in shaping the understanding of new artwork in the eyes of the public, collectors, curators, and other arts enthusiasts.

OUR NEXT LRFA BLOG WILL RECAP SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TWENTY YEAR HISTORY OF THE GALLERY.  WE WELCOME QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS!

I APPRECIATE YOUR READERSHIP AND SUPPORT.