Sunday marked the closing of another successful Armory Week in New York. Following the trend of Art Basel in Miami, the aisles were teeming with enthusiasts, artists, collectors, and dealers who seemed not to be aware in the least about our turbulent economic climate. Damien Hirst prints had five and six stickers next to them, denoting sales. It truly was a collector’s fair.

Photo by Stacy Kimball

Made up of the Park Avenue Armory show, Scope, Fountain, and Piers 92 and 94, this was the most important week in New York for collectors and gallery-owners alike.

Mike Bevilacqua

James Casebere

James Nares

It seems to be a good rule of thumb to not expect to meet any artists when making your way around art fairs. As one fantastic art—who will remain nameless—told me: “Why do I want to walk around an art show? I’m just going to get frustrated looking at all the crap that’s selling and wonder why mine isn’t up there. It’s very hard to get inspired that way.” As I’ve come to understand it, art fairs are another way for big-budget galleries to boast to one another about who has the most fabulous pieces in their collections and who has the biggest artists in their respective stables. Deitch is always certain to have at least a few Warhols, Basquaits, Harings, Barry McGee installations, ad infinitum. Tony Shafrazi usually counters back with a fantastic collection of David LaChapelle, Dennis Hopper, and Jasper Johns. Expect to see Richard Prince, Picasso, Ed Ruscha, and a handful of other A-listers at Larry Gagosian’s monolithic booth.

Regardless of what you think about the fanfare behind the art fairs, they’re enjoyable to peruse. Until December’s Basel in Miami, stay tuned for more about these cultural instigators.

Photo by Stacy Kimball

Photo by Stacy Kimball

Photo by Stacy Kimball

Sven'tgolle Sven'tolle. Photo by Stacy Kimball.

Photo by Stacy Kimball

Mel Bochner. Photo by Stacy Kimball

Jacob Hashimoto. Photo by Stacy Kimball

]]> http://www.spreadartculture.com/2010/03/10/new-york-armory-week-2010/feed/ 0 http://www.spreadartculture.com/2010/02/11/cultural-instigator-alexander-mcqueen-found-dead/ http://www.spreadartculture.com/2010/02/11/cultural-instigator-alexander-mcqueen-found-dead/#comments Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:54:45 +0000 Jonathan http://www.spreadartculture.com/?p=1153

"Alexander McQueen" by David LaChapelle

Fashion visionary Lee McQueen, creative director and founder of the Alexander McQueen label, was found dead in his home in London Thursday morning. The former creative director of the famous House of Givenchy and Gucci was mourned in the Lincoln Center Tents during the first day of Spring 2010’s Fashion Week.

Editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, commented: “Lee McQueen influenced a whole generation of designers. His brilliant imagination knew no bounds as he conjured up collection after collection of extraordinary designs.

“At one level he was a master of the fantastic, creating astounding fashion shows that mixed design, technology and performance and on another he was a modern-day genius whose gothic aesthetic was adopted by women the world over. His death is the hugest loss to anyone who knew him and for very many who didn’t.”

His visions graced numerous red carpets in recent years, most recently by Lady Gaga.

Alexander McQueen from Paris Fashion Week, Fall 2009

McQueen was a master at calling fashion’s bluff; inevitably being courted by under-zealous contemporaries who called him one of fashion’s greatest influencers. Cindy Weber Cleary, Fashion director for InStyle, said of McQueen: “He was a huge talent, a master of tailoring and always willing to push the envelope. He was forward thinking.”

An example of such forward-thinking fashion would have to be his runway littered with broken mirrors and shredded Givenchy “little black dresses” during Paris’s Fall 2009 Fashion Week.

SPREAD chooses not to speculate on the details surrounding Lee McQueen’s death, but bids farewell to a true cultural instigator who made a noticeable impact during his relatively short career.

SPREAD ArtCulture caught up with George Horner, an administrator at New York’s Tony Shafrazi Gallery, at Art Basel and talked about David LaChapelle and Dennis Hopper’s new exhibitions.

SPREAD ArtCulture: When did these new LaChapelle images come about?

George Horner: These images were shot in Hawaii recently because David has a lot of land there. It was actually once a nudist colony that he bought years ago. He flew in Michael Jackson impersonators and look-a-likes for this shoot. He was a huge Michael fan and was really affected by his death. The look-a-likes go through real pains in this series, in order to be as genuine as possible.

He’s certainly not poking fun at Michael; he has complete reverence for him, almost to the point of absurdity. Mr. LaChapelle, who never photographed Mr. Jackson, said he wanted to depict the singer as a “martyr crucified by the media.” These photographs are kind of like the three different stages of Michael: Michael in the eighties with the curly hair, then Michael of about two thousand or so, with the light skin, straight hair, and the extreme nose job and chin implants that he claimed he never got. At the end, where he’s actually dead, the glove has fallen off. We’re selling it as a triptych because it’s almost like an altarpiece. Mr. Shafrazi has an incredible eye for installation.

SAC: What of this new Dennis Hopper work?

GH: The photographs are photographs that Dennis took from about 1960 to 1967. Taschen just put out a new book all about the photographs. It was incredible the circles Dennis was privy to, he was a really privileged character, being a movie star. He was an artist then and he’s an artist now. It’s not like this is new work, like he’s decided to take some photographs now. These photographs are forty-five years old. And, you know, he’s a collector. He’s been a collector his whole life and he’s been an artist his whole life. He was one of the first people to buy Warhol, and Lichtenstein, and Jasper Johns, and Rauschenberg. He was a real champion of pop art. It spoke to him somehow.

SAC: Why billboards?

GH: So, an early inspiration of the pop artist were billboards. Rosenquist was a billboard artist. A lot of the photographs are of billboards. A number of years ago, Dennis had this idea that he wanted to go full-circle: he had the billboards and he took photos of the billboards and the billboards become photographs and then you take those photographs and you turn them into billboards again. It’s like the full journey. He employs billboard painters to paint them. It’s not that he couldn’t or I don’t know if he has that in him—that’s not the point. It’s really more like paying homage to the old school and to the original inspiration to a lot of these pop people and kind of paying homage to a dying art. There’s fewer and fewer companies that still hand-paint. Everything’s digital now. These particular ones were done by a company we found in Brooklyn called Colossal and they did a fantastic job. Of course Dennis was there every step of the way, it’s not like “Do this, I’m going to walk away.” It wasn’t like that at all. He was really there and worked with them and Mr. Shafrazi did, too. They’re really beautiful.

Tina Turner, Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles, California October, 1985. Photo by Henry Diltz.

October 30th marked the opening of “Who Shot Rock and Roll” at the Brooklyn Museum, the first major museum exhibition that focuses on the photographers who have been chronicling the genre’s ascension over the past six decades. The exhibit thrusts those behind the lens out into the limelight to acknowledge their creative and collaborative role in  the history of rock music. From the first days of rock and roll photography, these artists have helped to romanticize and immortalize the musicians they were capturing, creating a visual identity that eventually blended into a revolution and a culture.

The exhibit features some of the industry’s paramount talents (Richard Avedon, David LaChapelle, Bob Gruen, Chris Stein, Albert Watson) and is a very adept representation of the many different spectrums inside the world of rock and roll. The exhibition is in six sections: rare and revealing images taken behind the scenes; tender snapshots of young musicians at the beginnings of their careers; photographs of live performances that display the passion, style, and sex appeal of the band on stage; powerful images of the crowds and fans; portraits revealing the soul and creativity, rather than the surface and celebrity, of the musicians; and conceptual images and album covers highlighting the collaborative efforts between the image makers and the musicians.

Madonna, Danceteria, New York City 1983. Photo by Maripol.

The exhibition is accompanied, as most exhibitions are, by a show catalog, this one in particular released by Knoph. Author Gail Buckland, who also curated the show at the Brooklyn Museum, brings the images to life with visceral narration, though in most cases the photos speak for themselves and need no introduction or explanation. Perhaps more surprising than this supposed-monograph’s profusion of text is the small trim size (10.5 x 9.8). As a show catalog, this book is very effective, providing readers with a substantial amount of background information about photographers that they may or may not be previously familiar with. However, as the first book of its kind to act as a definitive guide to the history of rock and roll photography, while calling to attention the impressive body of work of some of photography’s most-talented artists, it falls short of antecedent expectations.

Grace Jones performing at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London October 10, 1981. Photo by David Corio.

“Who Shot Rock and Roll” is on display at the Brooklyn Museum until January 31, 2010. Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present is now available from Alfred A. Knoph for $40.