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Fountain Press Kit
Artnet
Tossing in the Fountain by Paul H-O
February, 2007
Dazed Digital
NYC International Art Fair Season
March, 2007
Art Fairs International
Fountain 2007
February 2007
FlavorPill
Fountain NY 2007
February 2007
Art in America
"Miami Preview" by Roni Feinstein
December, 2006
Art News
"High Demand Fuels Buying Frenzy at Art Basel Miami and Spinoff Fairs"
December 2006
Miami Sun Post
"The Basel Effect" by Alfredo Triff
December 07, 2006
The Miami Herald
"There's an art to getting noticed" by Daniel Chang
December 03, 2006
Art Info
"At the Fountain Fair"
December 2006
City Link
"Fountain Miami"
December 2006
Artnet News
"Add 'Fountain' to Art Basel Map" by Walter Robinson
November 22, 2006
Time Out New York
"Painting the town" by Sarah Schmerler
Issue 545: March 9–15, 2006
Artnet News
"New Fair Exploits Whitney Chaos, Armory Shut-Out" by Walter Robinson
March 03, 2006
The Brooklyn Rail
"All’s Fair" by James Kalm
March 2006
DKS List
by Douglas Kelley
March, 2006
Juxtapoz Magazine
"Fountain" by Maia Lemur
March 2006
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TOSSING IN THE FOUNTAIN
by Paul H-O
Hard decision, watch the Oscars or write about the art
fairs I went to over the weekend. Hey, I’ll do both. Ellen
Degeneres has the thankless job of turning the annual
coronation of Hollywood royalty into an episode of a
daytime talk show. What a gig. But she’s got guts, more
than I saw elsewhere this weekend.
The entrance to Fountain New York
The Armory Show of today bears little resemblance to its
earliest incarnation, nine years ago, when it was located
in a downtown hotel famous for providing late-night
hospitality to rock ‘n’ roll bands. Known as the Gramercy
International Art Fair, that thing was "Artists Gone Wild,"
barely held together by the young dealers who babysat
it.
The anarchic esthetic was established by the East
Village veterans Colin De Land and Pat Hearn (both
now sadly deceased) along with other venturesome
galleries like Postmasters, the now-forgotten AC Project
The Glowlab crew at their booth, Room and Lisa Spellman’s 303 gallery, as well as future
customized by Swoon moguls like Matthew Marks and Jay Jopling of White
Cube, who one year brought along a charming young
artist named Tracey Emin to lounge about on the hotel
bed.
What was Nicole Kidman thinking with that unbelievably
bright red outfit? And that huge bow on her shoulder like
a second head? Who did that to her? That was way
more weird than most of the work in the Armory Show.
In 2007, the Armory Show is something else again, a
$20 ticket to art-market cool. The new pier is bright and
airy, gridded with a silvery carpet that stretches out
before you in all directions like a dream. Sure, the
Stephie Olszewski puts on another red
mercantile focus of the fair can be cold. You could even
dot on painting by R. Nicholas Kuszyk
call it Wal-Art, but you’d have to do something with the
"everyday low prices" slogan. How about, "A bargain at
any price"? In fact, for art collectors, the Armory Show is
the place to make an investment. In this kind of market,
forget about the penny stocks. Come to the Armory. Buy
into strength.
But you could see some high fashion at the art fair, too.
In fact, the idle stroll through art-fair aisles, eye-balling
the fresh new stuff on the walls and in the crowds, is as
close to delirium as a person can get in public these
Artist Greg Haberny and the Yum Yum days. Art fairs foster a kind of esthetic flirtation. "You can
Factory
have me," the artworks say, beckoning from their
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booths. "You can have me." It’s part of the erotics of the
art fair. It reminded me of why I got into art in the first
place. It’s sexy. It’s about what’s hot.
Did I see much sexy art? Well, the true heavyweight of
the fair, setting the tone for much of the art that caught
my eye, was Merle Laderman Ukeles’ mirrored garbage
truck, on view at the booth of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts.
A fierce take on the objet d’art, the massive work
measures human vanity via the garbage people leave
behind. It’s not for sale. Other exhibitors could only look
Paintings by Amy Hill at McCaig- on with envy, as did the fair visitors who sat in the
Welles adjoining café, which was positioned as if it were
Feldman’s patio, and drank Illycaffé, the official coffee of
the Armory Show, compliments of Artforum magazine.
Boy, was Jerry Seinfeld pissy with the documentary film nominees or what? First he whined that
Comedian, the recent documentary about him, had not been nominated, and then complained
that the actual nominated films were depressing. That was good. I love it when a star actually
emotes bitterness.
The Armory Show did have its share of artists who seemed a little off their feed, as well. Thomas
Hirschhorn, the Swiss master of packing-tape dystopias, contributed an unbelievable shiny brown
sculpture, labelled "The Sound and the Fury," that put the "bio-mass" back into "biomorphic." And
Leo Koenig, Inc., was there to provide a timely reminder of how close we are to the beasts,
thanks to Tony Matelli’s lifelike rendition of a chimpanzee.
It seemed like it was animals all over, as Kelly Taxter, the 30-year-old co-director of Taxter &
Spengemann, described the fair as a hamster maze. But she was quite satisfied. Her hamsters
had cash, check or black credit cards, and her art was all sold, including a nice marble sculpture
by Lars Fisk of a plastic bag of some Oldenburg-style soft trash.
For an old beachcomber like me, I found my real art-fair inspiration a few blocks away at
something called Fountain. A little self-propelled garageband of an art fair located at 49th Street
off 12th Avenue, it was a mosh-pit of art installed salon-style, providing a bit of a reference to the
original 1913 Armory Show. This bunch of Brooklyn galleries and DIY artists showed true grit and
a laconic ability to think outside the taco, not only drawing its name and graphic logo from R.
Mutt’s famous urinal sculpture but even proudly installing its Porta-Potties on the sidewalk by the
front doors.
Though it was a tad nippy at 28 degrees, the outdoor amenities were more amenable than the
Armory restrooms, which had a line snaking down the corridor (I literally heard a woman screech,
"Is this the line?!"). Fountain presents nine different installations by galleries and artists -- Capla
Kesting, Ch'i Contemporary Fine Art, Front Room, Steven Gagnon, Glowlab, McCaig-Welles,
New Improved Art, Outrageous Look and Yum Yum Factory.
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Hey, look at old Ellen, pretending to vacuum the front row of seats at the Oscars and finding a
pack of rolling papers. Maybe she’s pulling this thing off after all.
I know where she’s coming from. At Fountain, I liked Steven Gagnon’s projection of a film of a
taxi ride on the inside of a real Yellow Cab, and I liked the kids at Glowlab, who had their booth
painted by the street artist Swoon. I liked the grid of tiny landscapes on fire by Pat Arnao at
Outrageous Look, and R. Nicholas Kuszyk’s graffiti-style robot paintings on plywood. I liked Amy
Hill’s finely painted, small-scale formal portraits of Star Wars-type beings, and I also admired Uri
Dowbenko, an artist who lives in Montana, for his likable chutzpah.
Likeability and chutzpah used to be what art was about. That, and a little guerrilla mentality, which
you had at Fountain in spades. This is the place where you reminisce about the good old days,
when you did it yourself, when inspiration and magic struck like a bolt from the blue. Here at
Fountain, the artists and dealers are hungry and they welcome all visitors warmly. They are
having fun and that’s the vibe. I felt like sitting down, having a beer, and hanging.
In my opinion, the corporate format smothers what scant spirit remains in a field that has gotten
too smart for the talent it handles, and too smoothly sells art as an unregulated commodity. I keep
my distance now from the art scene here. I still love art and the artists who make it, but today it
seems that the market establishes what is good and what is not. If your art sells, it’s good. If it
sells for seven figures, you’re great. To borrow a phrase from the Merry Pranksters, you’re either
on the bus or not on the bus. This bus, I’m not on.
PAUL HASEGAWA-OVERACKER (H-O) is presently in post-production on the feature
documentary, Guest of Cindy Sherman, written and directed by H-O and Tom Donahue, in
association with the Sundance Channel and represented by The Film Sales Co.
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NYC INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR SEASON
Posted on: 1st March February 2007 | Posted by:
Damien Bright
Taxi at Fountain
It's spring again, which means international art
fair season in New York and this year the wind
was blowing hard.
The fourteenth Armory Show spread 150 galleries
over 100,000 square feet. From Mapplethorpe
past museum-captioned Broodthaers to four
prints from the Whitney 75th Anniversary
Photography Portfolio in under twenty paces, it
was hard not to feel overwhelmed. Then there
was size: mural paintings, gargantuan sculptures,
larger-than-life C-prints and a giant mirror-covered garbage truck.
With heavy and happy sponsorship, resounding support from government and plenty of press,
The Armory Show is nothing short of an institution, and nowadays seems a far cry from the first
Armory Show of 1913 that introduced European Modernism to the USA.
Yet some displays read fresh, such as that of New York's Artist's Space. "We have maintained a
commitment to showcasing rising talent in the contemporary art world," says Deputy Director
Chris Politan. Non-standard Armory fare perhaps, but an encouraging display nonetheless.
At 25,000 square feet, SCOPE New York was smaller in scale and with a different agenda, "to
hunt down that most endangered of species: the emerging artist." With 65 artists in a crosshair of
gallery booths, a sculpture garden, audio-visual events and performance art, it felt more like a
happening than an institution.
Visitors were met by a sprawled silver figure supporting an oversized headdress-pedestal-
parachute-creation. The untitled living installation by Gabriel Martinez set the scene: vitality,
spunk, and human endurance. Yet SCOPE sat well with this brazen mix of the tragic and the
theatrical: "Performance is completely suitable to this format of art-viewing, given the spectacular
aspect of things which is part of the allure and both completely crazy and overwhelming,"
Martinez observes.
For a more diminutive affair there was Fountain New York, often called "the anti-Armory" but
preferring the title "guerilla-style art fair." Named after Duchamp's seminal urinal ready-made from
the 1917 Armory Show, Fountain read truer to the spirit of the avant-garde. No gallery booths or
press passes lined the 5000 square space and the only large-scale installation was a New York
cab glibly tagged "Life Size." Organized by nine Brookyln-based galleries, community and
intimacy were the flavour, though professionalism wasn't lacking. "Every time we do it, we do it a
little bit bigger, a little bit better," says David Kesting of Capla Kesting Fine Art, one of the event's
organizers.
Carefully crafted by galleries, promoters and artists alike, support is swelling for art fairs brash
and slight. Indeed, were it not for the nature of Armory, Fountain wouldn't have its verve and so
too SCOPE would read differently. The question is not who came first or which legacy is truer, but
of an encouraging multiplicity in contemporary art.
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Fountain 2007
February 21st, 2007
In 1917, at the un-juried Society of Artists exhibition,
Marcel Duchamp unveiled the world’s most famous ready-
made art object: Fountain. By using an image not shaped
by the hands of an artist, Duchamp shifted the art world’s
focus from artistic craft to intellectual interpretation. The
creation of Fountain brought the observer into contact with
an original that, although still an original, also exists in an
altered state through the observer’s perception of the
object. It is a work of art that transcends a form, but that is
also intelligible, an object that strikes down an idea while
allowing it to spring up stronger.
In this same spirit Fountain New York transcends the
traditional art fair by providing an opportunity for smaller
independent galleries, artists and non-profit organizations
to present their unfiltered, uncouth and enterprising
viewpoints. This guerrilla-style art fair features the edgier
young Brooklyn-based galleries showcasing fresh work
without the posturing of official booth spaces, or selection
by committee juries. In form and spirit, the artwork shown truly reflects the avant-garde and in-
your-face attitude equated with Duchamp and the Dada movement. The members of Fountain
New York work as a community to offer a forum for mid career artists and collectives to display
their edge, not dictate an aesthetic. The collaboration of Brooklyn’s most forward-thinking
galleries: Capla Kesting Fine Art, Ch’I Contemporary Fine Art, McCaig-Welles, Front Room,
Glowlab, Yum Yum Factory, New Improved Art, Steve Gagnon and Outrageous Look will be on
display for five full days this winter. In addition to the galleries, Fountain New York will have
display tables for smaller independent publications and not-for-profits including Fractured Atlas,
Nurture Art, Williamsburg Gallery Association, Brooklyn Arts Council, WagMag, L Magazine, and
M: The New York Art World. Fountain New York, now in its second year, will make its mark again
in the massive 5000 square foot space at 660 12th Avenue, a few blocks from the Armory Show
at Pier 94. This exceptional space is easily accessible through multiple street level entrances
facing the West Side Highway and can be viewed through its full block of windows directly from
the street. Expect floor-to-ceiling displays of brand new works, bold installations, impromptu
performance events and the best parties of the weekend.
Working to galvanize support for the small independent avant-garde galleries and associations,
Fountain in the last year has produced two extremely successful art fairs in New York and Miami.
Fountain New York averaged 700 visitors a day and boasted commentary from ARTnews, Time
Out New York, The Brooklyn Rail, Juxtapoz Magazine and Douglas Kelley Show List. Each
gallery involved not only sold several artworks but also built relationships with collectors who
continue to buy from them.
“In the most valiant effort category: The Fountain Show. Three of Williamsburg’s most dynamic
galleries took on the ‘Blue Chips’ and produced an alternative ‘fair’ right across 12th Avenue from
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the big boys. It was fresh and in their faces, a perfect example of avant-garde energetics.”
—The Brooklyn Rail, March 2006.
Riding on the momentum of Fountain New York, Fountain Miami attracted additional galleries and
artists as it garnered further international acclaim in a 5000 square foot space opposite Scope
and down the block from Pulse art fair. Fountain Miami was mentioned in Art in America’s
December preview, The Miami Herald, ARTnews, City Link, The Sun Post and Art Info. Not only
was the salon-style presentation well received, but several of the more unconventional displays
garnered commentary including Daniel Edwards’ life size sculpture of Britney Spears giving birth
on a bear skin rug and Steve Gagnon’s Model T refit with video projections of Miami from the 30s.
Another of the show features was the performance orchestrated by Brooklyn artists known as the
Organizers. Their complex piece titled The Sams incorporated performance, technology, humor
and concepts of identity. Actors impersonating Art Basel Director, Sam Keller, were dispatched
throughout the city on the Thursday and Friday Art Basel event nights to attend parties as Sam.
In addition to the positive recognition by publications, Fountain Miami was also a huge
commercial success for several of the galleries and individuals involved.
Looking to push the boundaries further, Fountain sets a precedent for independent art fairs and
looks to expand its influence throughout the art world. Fountain will again have presence in Miami
for Art Basel and is currently investigating opportunities in Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago. The
possibility of exposing more collectors to the smaller, more cutting edge galleries and artists
continues to expand as Fountain gains recognition and momentum.
FLAVORPILL
Fountain Art Fair
when: Thur 2.22 (5pm-midnight)
where: 660 12th Ave
price: FREE
details:Event Info
Marcel Duchamp's upturned urinal Fountain serves as the namesake for this alternative art fair
set up across the Westside Highway and just south of the Armory Show. A majority of the
galleries hail from Brooklyn and share a preference for an informal style that thumbs its nose at
the moneyed Chelsea scene. The Yum Yum Factory, a secretive group organized by Greg
Haberny, presents an ironic, slapdash installation incorporating a collage of pop-culture objects;
Steven Gagnon, a self-representing artist, presents a new video of his conversations with cabbies,
inside an actual taxi; and Capla Kesting's Brian Leo shows a small, deliberately messy painting of
Kim Jong-il kissing what appear to be Angelina Jolie's lips.
- HGM
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Fountain Art Fair – fountainexhibit.com – 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
High Demand Fuels Buying Frenzy at Art Basel Miami and Spinoff
Fairs
MIAMI BEACH—With more than 40,000 visitors and 100 museum delegations in attendance, Art Basel
Miami Beach boasted another year of superlative success. A need for crowd control was the only basis for
complaint as collectors streamed into the Miami Beach Convention Center at noon on Dec. 7 and packed
the hall for the next three days.
Spillover from the fair filled a baker’s dozen of other expositions happening simultaneously in the Miami
area—with Aqua Art Miami, Bridge Art Fair, Design Miami, DiVA Miami, Flow, Fountain, Ink Miami
2006, NADA Fair, PooL, Photo Miami, Pulse Miami, Scope Miami and Zones Contemporary Art Fair
offering more modestly priced artworks for those who flinched at some of Art Basel Miami Beach’s sky-high
price tags.
Dealers with works by Andy Warhol were the fair’s key beneficiaries, leading with Jeffrey Deitch’s sale of
a collaborative painting by Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dos Cabezas, 1982, for $5.5 million.
Besides Art Basel, there are exhibitors of international prestige, such as NADA (82 galleries from
20 countries), -scope Miami (95 galleries from 40 countries with 25 special projects) and Pulse
Miami (60 smaller contemporary galleries). Important art enclaves throughout the nation are
represented, such as Chicago’s Bridge Art Fair, Aqua Art Miami (with 40 galleries in a show
organized by Seattle artists and dealers), Fountain (with the best of the Brooklyn art scene) and
Miami’s Zones Contemporary Art Fair (organized by Charo Oquet and David Vardi) over at the
World Arts Building in Wynwood.
Fountain Art Fair – fountainexhibit.com – 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
For a pair of Brooklyn artists known as The Organizers, their project would not exist outside the social
context of Art Basel.
The duo have conjured a complex piece titled The Sams that will incorporate performance, technology,
humor and heady ideas about identity and memory.
The Sams is a reference to Art Basel Director Samuel Keller, a seemingly omnipresent figure at the fair's
numerous openings, gallery and museum events, and parties.
For the project, The Organizers intend to gather 50 to 100 actors -- all of them bald -- to impersonate Keller,
who also is bald.
The actors will be dispatched Thursday night and Friday to Art Basel events and parties, wearing T-shirts
with The Sams logo and mimicking Keller, like improv actors.
`PERFORMANCE ART'
''It is a type of performance art,'' says one of The Organizers, who insist on anonymity until after they launch
the project Thursday at Fountain Miami, one of the dozen or so smaller, independent fairs that run
concurrently with Art Basel this year.
''In this concept,'' he says, ``the artists are organizing and facilitating and essentially creating a framework
for other people to play or perform.''
The Organizers say they will sell T-shirts and other mementos about the project, but they insist that their
motives are more about art than profit.
''It's not so much about selling,'' one Organizer says. ``It's more about just living this experience and
developing it.''
The Organizers were inspired to create The Sams after one of them visited Art Basel last year.
AN INSPIRATION
''I had come down to Art Basel for the first time, just to observe, and I'd known about Sam,'' he says.
'Everyone knows about Sam. I was at one party and I saw Sam, but I wasn't sure. All I knew of him was a
picture in a magazine. I sort of wondered, `Is it Sam? I don't know.' . . . At that point, it triggered the concept
of creating experiences like that for other people -- experiences of speculation, confusion, recognition of
celebrity within a context.''
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At the Fountain Fair
Across the street from Pulse’s spacious tent, a handful of New York galleries and collectives and a couple of
Miami-based artists crowded into 5,000 feet of raw space for the Fountain fair. Brooklyn-based Capla Kesting
Fine Art was the organizer of the expo, which debuted during last spring’s Armory Show and sports a Marcel
Duchamp-esque urinal as its logo.
“We’re appealing to the young collector with affordable work,” said Dave Kesting, professing his penchant for
illustration, figurative work and political and social commentary. (Kesting’s gallery generated plenty of
commentary earlier this year when it displayed a nude sculpture of Britney Spears giving birth and a bronze
replica of Suri Cruise’s first poop.)
While the small works hung salon-style at Fountain left an unpolished impression, Steven Gagnon’s Time
Machine made the trip worthwhile.
The artist’s video sculpture grounded the Art Basel experience in local history through letters written to his
grandmother in Massachusetts in 1936 by his grandfather, who was working in Miami Beach as an auto
mechanic. In the artwork, the letters are read aloud on an audio track while images of the documents, inter-cut
with period footage provided by the Louis K. Wolfson Moving Image Archives, flickers on the windows of a
shiny, black 1930 Ford Model A.
Soon it will be moving to the home of a collector who bought it for $60,000.
Fountain Miami
This guerrilla-style event was created to garner support for independent galleries
overlooked by corporate-sponsored art fairs. The artwork on view will reflect the
avant-garde and in-your-face attitude equated with the Dada movement. Noon-6
p.m. Friday through Monday at 2825 N.W. Second Ave., in Miami. Call 917/650-3760
or visit Fountainexhibit.com.
Fountain Art Fair – fountainexhibit.com – 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
ARTNET NEWS
Nov. 22, 2006
ADD "FOUNTAIN" TO ART BASEL MAP
Add still another stop to the madness of Art Basel Miami Beach -- "Fountain," the mini-fair
with a guerilla spirit started by a league of Williamsburg galleries to coincide with the Armory
Show earlier this year [see Artnet News, Mar. 2, 2006] is set to join the fray in Miami, and has
secured a spot at 2825 NW 2nd Ave in the Wynwood Arts District, Dec. 7–11, 2006. Galleries
participating are Capla Kesting Fine Art, Front Room Gallery, Glowlab, Janet
Kurnatowski, McCaig-Welles Gallery, Myth of EKTE, Neil Stevenson Gallery and Steve
Gagnon. Organizers promise, among other things, to launch a viral art project to infiltrate the
other fairs, taking off from Fountain headquarters, courtesy of an anonymous Brooklyn/San
Francisco artist known only as The Sams. See www.fountainexhibit.com for details.
Fountain Art Fair – fountainexhibit.com – 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
Time Out New York / Issue 545: March 9–15, 2006
Painting the town
Loren Munk in “Fountain”
Fair play If all goes well, Williamsburg will roll out the red carpet for Manhattan’s international art fair, the
Armory Show (Fri 10 to Mon 13). The four-block-long carpet that begins at the Bedford Street L-train stop
will be part of a performance piece by 26-year-old Indian artist Nikhil Chopra, sponsored by neighborhood
gallery Jack the Pelican Presents as one of several events organized by members of the Williamsburg
Gallery Association (WGA). (At press time, the logistics of Chopra’s piece were still being ironed out—not
with the carpet, mind you, but with the artist’s visa.) On Saturday 11, more than 40 members of the WGA will
keep their doors open until 11pm; following are a few of the one-time-only performances and parties that are
also in the works.—Sarah Schmerler
Thursday 9
Tonight, while VIPs are sipping champagne at the Armory Show’s opening party (the cheapest ticket is $250,
but proceeds benefit MoMA), Billyburg is staging its first party—not in Brooklyn, but right across the street
from Pier 90 in a 5,000-square-foot space at 660 Twelfth Avenue. Three galleries (McCaig-Welles, Capla
Kesting, and The Front Room) will host their own salon des refusés, titled “Fountain,” after the infamous
urinal Marcel Duchamp entered in the Armory Show of 1913. The show opens at 5pm and DJs will spin from
9pm on. Look for Loren Munk’s eight-foot paintings documenting the Brooklyn and Manhattan art scenes in
the front windows. (“Fountain” runs through Sunday 12. See www.fountainexhibit.com for details.)
Fountain Art Fair – fountainexhibit.com – 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
ARTNET NEWS
Mar. 3, 2006
NEW FAIR EXPLOITS WHITNEY CHAOS, ARMORY SHUT-OUT
Every silver lining has its cloud. More than one art lover with an invitation to the opening party
for "Day for Night: Whitney Biennial 2006" at the Whitney Museum of American Art on
Wednesday, March 1, 2006, waited for hours in line for admission -- incredibly, the queue
extended almost all the way around the block -- only to be turned away without getting in to
see the show.
One promoter took advantage of the jam-up, however, handing out cards advertising a new
art fair. Fountain, as the mini-exhibition is dubbed, is put on by three scrappy Williamsburg
galleries -- Capla Kesting Fine Art, Front Room Gallery and McCaig-Welles Gallery -- and goes
up Mar. 9-12, 2006, at a warehouse space at 660 12th Avenue, across West Street from the
Armory Show. Fountain proudly purports to feature contemporary art in the spirit of Marcel
Duchamp’s contribution of a urinal to the 1913 Armory Show. In keeping with its from-the-
streets approach to marketing itself, the Fountain website exhorts viewers to "see advanced
art as it was meant to be seen, without blinders, without ‘taste merchants’, straight from the
source."
All’s Fair
by James Kalm
An abbreviated commentary on the Armory Show,
SCOPE, the LA Art Fair, PULSE, DIVA and Fountain
First a disclaimer: I had works presented (under an alias) at both the Scope and Fountain shows, but I won’t review
myself; however, I did get to see the backstage action and hear some juicy gossip. Though I generally love visiting art
fairs and believe that they, in some ways, provide a truer picture of contemporary art than institutional extravaganzas
like the Whitney Biennial (which will be covered extensively elsewhere in this issue), it is virtually impossible for even
the most hardcore art observer to take in over 300 gallery displays in four days. That said, some of us are stupid enough
to try.
Here is a short list of my awards for outstanding or dubious achievements. In the unbridled capitalism category: the
Armory Show. As the world’s most expensive fair, exhibitors get less for their money than just about anywhere else; no
catalogue, union control of all work on premise (even to hang the paintings) and expensive entrance fees. For the best
catalogue: SCOPE. Hell, they had the only catalogue; PULSE, the Armory and LA Art Fair should learn from the
producers of “Basel” the value and need of collectors and critics for this kind of documentation. In the most valiant
Fountain Art Fair – fountainexhibit.com – 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
effort category: The Fountain Show. Three of Williamsburg’s most dymamic galleries took on the “Blue Chips” and
produced and alternative “fair” right across 12th Avenue from the big boys. It was fresh and in their faces, a perfect
example of avant-energetics. The most obscure fair award goes to: DIVA. This digital and video event was housed 60
blocks south in the hard to find Embassy Suites Hotel. Though not a fan of “hotel fairs,” the darkened rooms and banks
of video screens in front of comfy couches and chairs seemed a natural fit for displaying “New Media.” Most widely
represented artist award goes to: Alex Katz, who had his large, flat figurative paintings displayed in at least four
different booths, with the runner-up award going to: Jonathan Lasker, who had a several paintings from the early
nineties vying for sales from European dealers.
The Funk-a-Dellic-Grungemaster award goes to: SCOPE. This fair really distinguished itself from the other
“commercial” fairs with its rugged industrial locale, wacky projects department and almost infantile exuberance. What
could be closer to the essence of today’s art scene? In the biggest irony category: the LA Art Fair. Is it just me, or is the
fact that the Daniel Weinberg booth, which had just about the best work anywhere, was showing mostly New York
artists including Chris Martin, Steven DiBenedetto, Carroll Dunham and Bruce Pearson? Best art karma award goes to:
PULSE. They had the brilliant idea to actually have a show on the site of the original “Amory Show” of 1913, while
the current Armory Show was across town on a pier nowhere near an armory. Confusing, but that’s New York. Finally,
the greatest pleasure award goes to: Irving Sandler, with whom I finally had a chance to chat about his latest book, A
Sweeper-Up After Artists. It did my soul good to speak with this esteemed explorer of the art world, even if we did have
to dodge go-carts with boom boxes that were drag racing up the aisles at SCOPE.
On a serious note, the overall feeling of the Armory show was a bit tacky. Yes, this is the preeminent fair, but there
really ought to have been more attention paid to things like the café, public facilities and project areas where something
besides sales would be happening. Generally I’d hoped to see more A-list works from the likes of Lichtenstein,
Rauschenberg, Hurst, Kiefer, Polke or Baselitz, but no. I had to wait for PULSE to see some of the Germans. There
were a few nice surprises, like Jonathan Schipper’s “215 Points of View,” a five-foot sphere of small video monitors
connected to surveillance cameras, as well as some beautiful drawings by Daniel Zeller and Ward Shelley at the Pierogi
booth. I’d first seen the British painter Philip Allen’s works a couple of years ago at PS1; here at the Kirlin Gallery
booth they were just as startling with their textural fracture between images of smooth neo-geometric abstraction,
edged with tumerous clumps of withering oil paint. It was good to see a brilliant new Elizabeth Murray piece at Pace
Wildenstein, and to hear of her continuing feistiness. With 153 galleries on two piers vying for your attention, what
seems to remain in memory are shared sensibilities or trends rather than individual offerings.
Walking the three blocks from the Armory Show to SCOPE, many visitors paused for a gander at the “Fountain” show.
Highlights included Tom Broadbent’s wacky travel cases, Sean Hemmerle’s photos of war-torn Iraq, and Kate Vance’s
miniature waterways at Front Room. Next door at Capla Kesting, small funky paintings by Brian Leo and a large
hanging piece by Anthony Zito caught my eye, as did the collages by Greg Lamarche and the “Goldmine Shit House”
boys at McCaig-Welles.
Entering SCOPE was like being admitted to a nursery for the artistically incorrigible. The large booths were
interspersed with scrappy installations that looked as if they were built out of whatever these kids could scrounge on
the street. Notable projects included: The New York City Museum of Complaint; a paint-ball shooting range with live
artists as targets by Jesse Bercowetz and Matt Bua; a scary Goth-themed tableau of gun wielding Punks and exotic
dancers by Carol Riot Kane at 31 Grand, and the elegant “Sketch of a Field of Grass” by Ryan Wolf at Dam,
Stuhltrager. Interesting paintings included the Canadian Kim Borland’s slashing, chunky, expressionistic figures in
landscapes at Angell Gallery, and Sebastian Gögel’s Boschian monsters at Galerie Adler.
After nearly an hour of biking around the Battery I finally located DIVA at the Embassy Suites. From the French
receptionists to the proliferation of Japanese, German and Spanish exhibitors, DIVA exudes a continental ambiance and
laidback elegance. While the hotel room setting limited the format of the presentations somewhat, I found some
Claymation, stop-action and montage pieces that made me pause for a moment. Susane Brügger’s series of dancing
girls on several monitors at TZR Gallerie was engrossing with a hint of the erotic. Gallery Boreas presented Peter
Finnemore’s “Project Jedi” in a room covered in the artist’s signature camouflaged tarps.
Meanwhile uptown at the Altman Building on West 18th Street, the LA Art/New York fair was humming along. The
Frank Lloyd Gallery, specializing in fine crafts, presented beautiful examples of work by Peter Voulkas and Adrian
Saxe. Garden hoses were fashioned by Lynn Aldrich into unique wall sculptures at Carl Berg Gallery. Punchy Neo-Pop
paintings of collaged lettering by Andrew Falkowsky presented at Rosamund Felson put me in mind of Heidi Cody’s
“American Alphabet” and seemed to sum up the sunny bright, lightweight attitude of much of the LA scene.
Fountain Art Fair – fountainexhibit.com – 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
Both LA Art and PULSE appeared to be mere extensions of the Armory’s slick, sales-driven approach to art fairs. This
was PULSE’s first appearance in New York and they’d done their homework. Having only read about the “Armory
Show” it was great to finally visit the actual site. At 60 galleries from 12 countries, PULSE was just about the right size
for an afternoon stroll. With rain dripping from the 100-foot high ceiling, there were a few physical problems with the
location but for all the historical associations one can make adjustments. Jennifer Dalton was the featured artist at Plus
Ultra’s space; her “The Collector-ibles” was composed of five glass-fronted cases lined with figurines representing the
200 biggest art collectors from the Art News list. These individual pieces could be used for a massive art-monopoly
game. Simon Linke was a new discovery. His thickly encrusted paintings at London’s One in the Other Gallery parody
works by Brice Marden and Julian Opie and display amazing dexterity and paint handling considering their mass. A
portrait of Karl Marx collaged from cut-up dollar bills by Mark Wagner was an eye catcher at Pavel Zoubok, typifying
the conundrum that “revolutionary” artists face within our capitalistic system. Finally, Freight Volume showed a
selection of paintings by Peter Gallo that contained all the authentic crappy inartistic skuzz that to me heralds a true
punk outsider: references to Kant and Nietzsche are rendered on the backs of used flea market canvases, and a limited
palette echoing dung and bubble-gum sets the tone.
At some juncture the idea of the art fair will reach the point of diminishing returns. How many fairs can there be in one
place at one time before you oversaturate the Market? Perhaps now we know.
Douglas Kelley Show List
Fountain: Capla Kesting Fine Art, Front Room Gallery, and McCaig-Welles
Gallery Fountain, 660 12th Avenue, 5-10pm The avant-garde has always laid
claim to history through its challenges and victories over the status quo. In
a spacious street level special-event hall across 12th Avenue from
Pier 90, in direct confrontation with, and running for the entire
duration of the Armory Show and in the spirit of New York’s first Armory
Show in 1913, three of Williamsburg’s most brash and cutting-edge galleries have
collaborated to mount “Fountain” their own “Salon de Refuse.” “Fountain” (after
Duchamp's title for his “ready-made” urinal) is the perfect moniker for this
independent, experimental, mini art fair with its Duchampian spirit of
philosophic irony. Come and experience the unfiltered, uncouth and
enterprising excitement of “Fountain.” See advanced art as it was meant to be
seen, without blinders, without “taste merchants,” straight from the source.
Capla Kesting Fine Art- Lincoln Capla, Dan Edwards, Christopher Gwyn, Margret
Inga, David Kesting, Martina Kubinyi, Brian Leo, Ric Librizzi, Travis Lindquist,
Brielle Maxwell, Morgan Russell, Jennifer Sanchez, Antony Zito The Front Room
Gallery -Thomas Broadbent, Erik Guzman, Sean Hemmerle, Loren Munk, Melissa
Pokorny, Emily Roz, Sante Scardillo, Patricia Smith, and Kathleen Vance.
McCaig-Welles Gallery- Shepard Fairey, Doze Green, Greg Lamarche, Andrew
Schoultz, David Stoupakis, The Goldmine Shithouse, Trevor Guthrie, BYOB
(across the street from the Armory
clothespins or email us here
show at Pier 90.) Thursday March 9th—Sunday March
12th, Hours 12-9pm
Fountain Art Fair – fountainexhibit.com – 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865
Fountain
Monday, 13 March 2006
Photos from Fountain; Brooklyn art galleries set up an independent, experimental, mini art fair across from
The Armory in NYC.
photos by Maia Lemur
Capla Kesting Fine Art, Front Room Gallery, and McCaig-Welles Gallery came together to put on Fountain.
Three of Williamsburg’s most brash and cutting-edge galleries, Capla Kesting, Front Room, and McCaig-Wells
collaborated to mount "Fountain", their own "Salon de Refuse." They selected a spacious street level
special-event hall across Twelfth Avenue from Pier 90 in direct confrontation with, and running for the entire
duration of the Armory Show. Our NYC correspondent Maia Lemur went to the show and brought back some photos.
Fountain Art Fair – fountainexhibit.com – 917-650-3760 / 917-292-8865