Ebony G. Patterson's …and the dew cracks the earth, in five acts of lamentation…between the cuts…beneath the leaves…below the soil…. (2020) Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery
Another day, another online viewing room. This time, Art Basels third virtual fair of the year, OVR:2020, which opens today until 26 September as a replacement for the Swiss fair that was postponed in June and then cancelled altogether due to Covid-19.
Fair organisers have fast learnt that the art is in the edit with online viewing rooms—less is more in the era of digital bombardment. With that in mind, for this version Art Basel has restricted all of the 100 galleries to showing only six works at a time, and all must have been made in 2020.
This year has been a steep virtual learning curve for Art Basel as it seeks to replace all three of its fairs with an online iteration. “We started off trying to recreate the real life fair, with 250 to 280 odd galleries,” says Marc Spiegler, Art Basels global director. But that is too sprawling and, frankly, dull online.
“It's more like a cross-pollination between a pop-up store, an auction and a streetwear drop.” Marc Spiegler, Art Basels global director
So the idea with this version is “to check whether something that is tighter in its focus is right for the market right now,” Spiegler says, adding: “Its also a lot shorter—three and a half days—so its less like an attempt to replicate the dynamics of a fair online and more like a cross-pollination between a pop-up store, an auction and a streetwear drop.”
This is the first time Art Basel has asked exhibitors to pay for doing an OVR, but there has been no resistance from galleries, Spiegler says: “No-one has said were not doing this because it costs $5,000. You dont need to sell much art to justify that small an amount. If the costs were the same as the big Art Basel booths, which would be tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, then I think people would really question it. But we deliberately priced it in a way that we thought was fair for an initial attempt with this sort of thing.” He adds: “People are adults about this, I dont think any galleries would expect us to perpetually do things for free and sling our entire VIP programme and marketing into action permanently for free.”
One new function to make the OVR experience more immediate is a live chat feature, so viewers can quickly inquire about a work and, Spiegler says, “as long as someone at the gallery is awake, they will respond right away.” He credits Alex Logsdail of Lisson Gallery with the line that “there needs to be more of a conversation and less of a correspondence” when it comes to virtual fairs.
Many galleries have chosen to dedicate their OVR to a single artist and The Art Newspaper team has chosen five solo "booth" highlights.
Ebony G. Patterson, Moniquemeloche[hhmc]
In March, the Jamaica-born artist Ebony G. Patterson's Chicago studio was shut down due to Covid-19. But that did not stop her working and when Monique Meloche visited Pattersons ad-hoc studio in May she “was surprised by a new series of smaller mixed-media works on paper taking over her apartment. I snapped pictures and asked how soon I could get the framer to pick them up (which had to wait since he too was shut down) and now two of these works are being included in a group show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago opening this November.” The others are being seen on OVR:2020 for the first time. Pattersons elaborate mixed-media gardens, although at first glance things of delicate beauty, address issues such as race, class, and social and political injustice, themes that have seemed more pressing than ever in the past few months. Prices range from $25,000 to $500,000. A.B.
Marilyn Minter's Aquafresh, 2020 Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York, NY. © Marilyn Minter
Marilyn Minter, Salon 94[hhmc]
For more than three decades, the US artist Marilyn Minter has delved into what she calls the “pathology of glamour” with her seductive, candy-coloured photographs of bits of womens bodies that hover between objectification and agency. In her latest suite of photographs, on show at Salon 94, Minter has jacked up her colour palette to reflect “the intensity of the moment”, according to the gallerys founder Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn. But—as titles including Penumbra, Static and Overcast suggest—a gloominess hangs over the works, a reference perhaps to our extended state of lockdown. Prices range from $10,000 to $25,000. A.S.
Rirkrit Tiravanija, Neugerriemschneider[hhmc]
If it is art world interaction you have been craving, Neugerriemschneiders presentation of a new two-part installation by the Argentina-born Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija provides just that. For the first element, the artist returns to the aphorism that recurs throughout his work: “Tomorrow is the question”—a phrase that feels more relevant than ever. Live streamed to the public, the text will be printed in nine languages across t-shirts which will then be piled on top of a polished box. The second element requires viewers to respond to the question: “If tomorrow is the question, what is the question?” Answers will be handwritten on the surface of a large-scale painting created from canvas-mounted newspapers reflecting various opinions on current socio-political events. Who said print is dead? Prices range from $100,000 to $250,000. A.S.
Jane (2020) by Ludovic Knoth, watercolour on paper Courtesy of the artist
Ludovic Nkoth, François Ghebaly Gallery[hhmc]
Los Angeles-based François GheRead More – Source
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