There are a dozen art fairs taking place throughout the city this weekend, and examiner is here to give you the scoop on each and every one of them! Whether you have the opportunity to visit one, all, or none of them, this is where you can find the highlights from each. The most scandalous, the most beautiful, the most colorful, and the most thought-provoking artworks have all been captured for you here.
This third installment features the relative-newcomer SPRING/BREAK Art Show, known as “New York City’s curator-driven art fair.” In this art fair, curators show their own projects, collaborations with various artists based in the New York area. This year, SPRING/BREAK presented some of the edgiest, most unsettling, yet thought-provoking works. Although it wasn’t well-attended, at least on a Friday afternoon, the show should be gaining greater acceptance in the art world in future years, especially if it continues on the track it’s on now. This fair is creepy, experimental, and experiential.
The show took place in Old School, a four-story elementary school in NoLiTa. Every inch of the space is used, with art covering the classroom walls, blackboards, hallways, and even bathrooms. Admission was only $5 – a more than reasonable price to view some great art, especially since proceeds help to support future programming at Old School. What makes this show so gratifying to attend is the specific relationship between curator and artist, and the labels that accompany each work of art, identifying the reasoning behind the choices made by both curator and artist alike.
The final aspect of the fair that makes it stand out is its collaboration with auction house Paddle8:
“SPRING/BREAK Art Show has partnered with virtual auction house Paddle8, in an effort to compartmentalize the commercial element of the exhibition to an online space and to galvanize sales of the work by making it accessible to Paddle8’s global collector community.
Paddle8.com will handle all fair sales via a benefit auction of a majority of the 70+ works of art on display in the school – with a portion of sales going to the NYFA Emergency Relief Fund for individual artists affected by Hurricane Sandy. In addition, the auction will allocate a percentage of sales from artwork to Arts in the Armed Forces (AITAF) as well – whose founders, Joanne Tucker and Adam Driver, will be hosting a panel discussion in the school building during the New Museum’s IDEAS CITY Festival in May.
The SPRING/BREAK Art Show auction will be open for bidding from March 5 until March 10 at www.paddle8.com/auctions/springbreak.”
Every object on view at the fair is also available to view online.
Here’s what you missed from SPRING/BREAK:
• Z Behl, Wooden Army, 2013. Curated by Ted Barrow. Estimated value: $1500 apiece. These life-size wooden cutouts of various individuals almost seem real, as if there is an actual videographer at the end of the hall or a ballerina untying her hair right in front of you. Z Behl takes pride in her work, interacting with them as if they actually were human, photographing them not only in their installation but as they travel with her on their way to their intended destination. Z Behl’s works are also nautical-themed, works even including mermaids.
• Russell Tyler, Digital Sunset, 2013. Estimated value: $1200. Tyle’s use of the canvas is exceptional. With his thick, complementary-colored swathes of paint applied in an organized space, Tyle’s works leave the viewer with a feeling of calm. The canvases almost seem naturalistic in tone, although the artist notes that he takes his inspiration from digital graphics, especially old school video games and television. This digital dedication can be seen hidden underneath the multiple layers of paint.
• Grace Villamil, Myla Dalbesio, and Juliana Cerqueira Leite, alonetogether, 2013. Curated by Amanda Schmitt. Estimated value: $25,000. In a corner classroom on the second floor was housed an installation covered by a dark curtain. Inside was, well, a room of tinfoil. Covered, walls and ceiling. Colored lights bounce off the wrinkled tin, causing the visitor to feel not as if he’s at a disco club, minus the floor-thumping music. The point of the installation, according to the artists, is to provide a dedicated space for silent relaxation away from the constant noise of everyday life.
• Ambre Kelly, Masses, 2013. Curated by Andrew Gori. Estimated value: $4000. Kelly and Gori also happen to be the directors of the entire show and necessarily demand a second look at their art. Kelly is one artist who certainly understands how to use the space allotted to him. What looks like plastic gloves filled with sand are sprawled throughout the hallway, dripping down the walls and surrounding the school water fountain. The duo is dedicated to creating and presenting ground-breaking art of all audiences.
• David Alexander Flinn, 5 Sorelle di Silenzio, 2013. Curated by Jamie Sterns. Estimated value: $5000-$8000 apiece. Not even the bathrooms were left alone in the school’s installations. If a visitor were to wander into the men’s rooms, his attempts to utilize the urinals would be thwarted by 40-inch pieces of driftwood seemingly growing right out of the bathroom floor and sinks. This was certainly one of the more unique installations of the show.
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