State of the Art

Last week, an estimated 65,000 game-faced critics, buyers and spectators flooded NYC’s Midtown and the West Side Highway for their annual (over)dose of art at The Armory Show. Identified below are three of the most prominent art trends on display at the fair, for serious and aspiring collectors alike—because, if crowds and red stickers are any indication, the art market is back with a vengeance.

Currency: The use of money as a sculptural medium (Lourival Cuquinha) classically conditions buyers to whip out their checkbooks—especially when money is literally the ground beneath one’s feet. The theme was sometimes origami-based (Dan Tague), usually a political statement (Colectivo Aninat & Swinburn), and often a grievance about life in Manhattan (Reed Seifer). Process and participatory art were also in the mix, particularly in a piece by Peter Liversidge in which viewers were asked to give a dollar bill to the gallerist, who then embossed it with the words “Will History Be Kind?” In one piece by Mexican-born artist Erika Harrsch, folks competed for an original work inside a wind-driven money booth. How’s that for economic incentive?

Light: With Dan Flavin and Joseph Kosuth as leading forces, the use of neon and fluorescent bulbs has enlightened installation art since the dawn of Minimalism. This year saw a complete revamping of that deep affection (Kira Kim) for light. There were numerous Tracy Emin-esque witty appropriators of text—namely, by Cerith Wyn Evans, Jeppe Hein and Kamen Stoyanov, the last of whose piece (in another meta-nod to the art market) read, “Forget it, we can’t afford this.” Contained geometrical abstractions from artists like Keith Sonnier and Heather Carson were also prominent, but it was the more grandiose works that really stood out, such as a trippy forest of neon and a luminescent picket fence represented by Paul Kasmin Gallery.

Intricate Craft: The arts and crafts movement is very much still alive, but now it’s laden with very clear historical influences. Jacob Hashimoto’s “SST” hearkens back to Old World Japan, while Wim Delvoye’s dump truck/cathedral hybrid evokes Victorian steampunk. A less-arty-more-crafty aesthetic emerged in Frances Goodman’s needlepoint and in Nick Cave’s famed use of crochet and antique noise makers. There were sundry instances of obsessive pattern work through bizarre materials (confetti from Lara Favaretto, acrylic paper from Mindy Shapero, beads from Farhad Moshiri, nickel-coated gungroos from Vibha Galhotra, and beetles’ wings from Jan Fabre), but our vote for “most sophisticated intricacy” goes to Jill Sylvia who painstakingly cut individual cells from old inventory sheets, then recomposed them in a tight grid.