Artscope Magazine

New England's Culture Magazine

Artscope Magazine | November/December 2019

Subscribe to the Magazine

A vibrant, dynamic magazine with arts news, reviews and info you can use, delivered right to your door!

Subscribe now

Sign up for our Email Blasts!

Special Artscope updates in your inbox every two weeks!

Sign up

Art Basel Miami Beach

Play on a Play: Cattelan does Beckett

// Art Basel Miami Beach, Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

The most talked about installation of the day at Art Basel Miami Beach 2019, was Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” (2019, banana, duct tape, paper with text instructions) tacked to the wall of Galerie Perrotin’s booth with grey duct tape including instructions for installing it. Bought by Sarah Andelman, founder of recently closed Parisian concept store, Colette, it is accompanied by a certificate along with the banana and duct tape, including instructions for installing it. Publications from the print edition of the New York Post to the online Art Daily announced the trail of this new work from exhibition to sale (for $120,000 on December 4, during the private days of Art Basel). With Andelman saying, “It really reflects our time” reported by the New York Times on December 4, she and we neglect to acknowledge that this makes all of us artists, furthering the egalitarianism of a buyer … [Read more...] about Play on a Play: Cattelan does Beckett

ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2019 & ART WEEK MIAMI DAY TWO: INSPIRED ARTISTS ADDRESS A THREATENED WORLD

// Art Basel Miami Beach, Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

Our second day dawned bright and early on Miami Beach, the morning chill warming up as the day and the dizzying flow of art as we went from one place to another kept the dynamic duo going. It would also hold our first view of the main event, Art Basel Miami 2019, the lollapalooza of art fairs, during its First Choice VIP Preview. Pace Gallery had some great work on display including Fred Wilson’s “Oh! Monstuosa Culpa,” 2013, constructed of Murano glass and light bulbs, that could have been a ringer for Gerhard Richter’s black chandelier painting; an amazing relief sculpture/painting by Loie Hollowell, “Standing in Water,” 2019, oil, acrylic, medium and high density foam on linen over panel; and Lydia Benglis’ “Calypso,” 2017, cast, pigmented polyurethane, looking like a cracked sun that only added to the gothic and sense of impending climatic doom as Venice stands in water and … [Read more...] about ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2019 & ART WEEK MIAMI DAY TWO: INSPIRED ARTISTS ADDRESS A THREATENED WORLD

ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2019 DAY ONE: A SHOW FOR THOUGHT AND CONSIDERATION

// Art Basel Miami Beach, Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by NANCY NESVET

Kaveh Mojtabai, Nancy Nesvet and friends escaped the snowy north to land in chilly South Beach for a week of art gazing, talks and shows at Art Basel Miami Beach 2019 and the shows of Miami Art Week 2019. “The Art of Listening: Under Water,” sponsored by Audemars Piquet, maker of fine watches, featured the sound installation of Jana Winderen, a Norwegian environmental artist. In a large circular space, the quiet crowd listened intently for the sounds underneath Arctic Waters, disturbed by the dripping noise of glaciers melting and their gradual cracking. Fish swimming underwater, inundated by crashing ice into the Barents Sea, juxtaposed the sounds of underwater life recorded in the Miami Harbor, underlining the diverse places suffering the effects of climate change. The absence of visual stimuli only led to a more concentrated listening experience never experienced before, and a … [Read more...] about ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2019 DAY ONE: A SHOW FOR THOUGHT AND CONSIDERATION

ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2019 PREVIEW

// Art Basel Miami Beach, Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

Artscope Magazine’s presence at Art Basel Miami Beach 2019 is not the only enterprise growing there this year. Our growth to a booth in the magazine sector mimics that of the international art fair itself. Its latest addition is Meridians, the new sector located in the Grand Ballroom of the Miami Beach Convention Center, Art Basel Miami Beach’s home. With 33 monumental works inside and one outside, Meridians was created to house large-scale installations that Art Basel’s website admits, “can only fit in a museum or art warehouse.” Having reported for Artscope on Art Basels in Miami Beach and Switzerland for the past three years, on the last two Venice Biennales and the Cleveland Biennale, I agree that most collectors do not have room for these large works, so they must go to museums or art warehouses awaiting new owners, governmental or private. Because art collectors and museum … [Read more...] about ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2019 PREVIEW

(Clockwise from top left): Jean Dubuffet, “Passe train (5681,” 1965, acrylic on paper mounted to canvas, 19 ¼” x 25 5/8”; Henry Moore, “Two Seated Women and a Child,” 1945, bronze, edition of 7, 6 ¾” x 4 ¾” x 2 ¾”; Fernand Léger, “Les trois femmes au bouquet,” 1922, oil on canvas, 25 5/8” x 36”, all at Landau Contemporary.

ART MIAMI — IF YOU CAN, BUY IT NOW: MIAMI ART WEEK 2018: PART FOUR

// Art Basel Miami Beach, Artscope Online, News

by Nancy Nesvet

Wynwood Miami, FL - Art Miami proved an embarrassment of riches. If you always wanted it, now is the time to buy it, because it’s available. Magnificent Fernand Léger paintings, the best of which is “Les trois femmes au bouquet,” 1922, oil on canvas, at Landau Contemporary. Six Henry Moore macquets of bronze, “Two Seats Women and a Child,” 1945, from an edition of seven also at Landau Contemporary, and a full-size, “Mother and Child, Black Seat” (1983-84) at Landau Contemporary of bronze with brown patina literally rounded out this display. That patina is the patina of age and undisputed elegance of line and form. You have seen these in the best museum gardens, and they are available now because we no longer live in mansions with gardens appropriate to accommodate them, so if you can… Clearly, Landau Contemporary had the best work at Art Miami, all on the secondary market. Jean … [Read more...] about ART MIAMI — IF YOU CAN, BUY IT NOW: MIAMI ART WEEK 2018: PART FOUR

Clockwise from top left: Alexandre Montoya, “The Choice,” oil on canvas, 51” x 39”, Peimbert Art; Cecile Plaisance, “Alex smoking burqa,” 2017, lenticular print, wood frame, 49” x 37”, Galerie K+Y; Bernard Rancillac, “Enfer Paradis,” acrylic on canvas, 90 ½” x 196 4/5”, Galerie Sebastien Adrien.

GUTSY, SUBTLE WORK ABOUNDED AT SCOPE: MIAMI ART WEEK 2018 PART THREE

// Art Basel Miami Beach, Artscope Online, News

by Nancy Nesvet

Miami Beach, FL - Scope, a satellite show during Miami Art Week showed brighter colors, more direct political messages, but still backgrounded the images with images of flora and fauna. Mirroring the Miami Beach vibe, gold, primary colors, flowers and greens dominated this fair, while the work clearly messaged rules were on hold, and all political bents were represented and questioned. French artist Jacques Bosser’s Argentic photograph on Cibachrome, “Wax Spirit (MOBA)” at Galerie Sebastien Adrien showed images of black Congolese President Kabila with an ivory-white woman between them in Congolese flowered dress and turban. The flower motif continues in French artist Bernard Rancillac’s “Enfer Paradis,” an acrylic on canvas shown by Galerie Sebastien Adrien. A central flower separates the worlds of fascists; Nazis, Osama bin Laden, and a church official consuming a human leg with … [Read more...] about GUTSY, SUBTLE WORK ABOUNDED AT SCOPE: MIAMI ART WEEK 2018 PART THREE