Art Chicago: Carl Hammer Gallery, from Chicago, sold a Martín Ramírez for $100,000, and Russell Bowman Art Advisory, also from Chicago, sold a 1971 Jim Nutt painting for six figures to a private collector. Jerald Melberg Gallery, of Charlotte, North Carolina, sold a six-figure piece as well, among other sales. Chicago’s Carrie Secrist Gallery said it had several museums interested in The Hadal Project, an 11- by 24-foot photo print by Angelo Musco (which will be featured in this year’s Venice Biennale), priced at $115,000. A roughly 4- by 8-foot version of the same piece sold out multiple editions for $16,000, one to Kansas City’s Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the even-smaller version, priced at $4,000, sold out too.
“The best part,” said Secrist, “was that no one asked for a discount.”
In general, Chicago galleries seemed to fare particularly well. G.R. N’Namdi Gallery sold four pieces by the fair’s second day to both new and existing clients, and Kavi Gupta, an organizer of and exhibitor at sister show Next, almost completely sold out his booth, which included works by German artist Ulf Puder, among them Mobilien, an oil on canvas for $8,500. Stephen Daiter Gallery, with photos by Wayne Miller, Art Shay, Helmut Newton, and Paul D’Amato, saw steady traffic throughout the fair's run.

Gregory Coates at Art Chicago

Photos: Ilona Pawlak at GR Namdi Gallery - Art Chicago

SURFACE LIBRARY GALLERY hosts TEXTURES
by guest curator Lynn Dunham

June 25 – July 26th
Opening Reception: Saturday June 27th

SURFACE LIBRARY Gallery will host “TEXTURES”, an exhibition of artists as alchemists surveying aesthetic significance from unexpected and repurposed materials. In celebration, SURFACE LIBRARY will host an opening reception on Saturday, June 27th from 6 – 8pm. Guest curator Lynn Dunham of Art Rent & Lease has assembled a group of artists who find unexpected beauty in unusual materials with an emphasis on texture.
Participating artists include international and local artists whose work is currently on rotation with Art Rent and Lease – a cyber-gallery that rents, leases and sells fine art to business and residential clients, including eco-friendly Green Art. Lynn Dunham brings her unique art-acquiring concept to SURFACE LIBRARY in support of emerging and established artists and to promote sustainable, green and environmentally friendly art.

Guest curator Lynn Dunham has chosen works by David M. Mitchell, Vincent Romaniello, Gregory Coates, Matuschka, Gabriel Schuldiner, Roger Thomas Justice, James Kennedy, Lori Glavin and Tanya Bell – all of whom explore texture with unconventional materials. Site-specific work by Lori Glavin and Gregory Coates are relevant to the Art Rent and Lease "green" certification, whereby works are created with re-purposed materials.

SURFACE LIBRARY is an atelier and gallery, co-founded by Irish abstract painter, James Kennedy and potter, Bob Bachler, to create and present their art and design work. The gallery is also proud to present exhibits featuring new artists in multi media.

It is located at 845 Springs Fireplace Road, East Hampton (opposite the Pollock-Krasner House in the Springs District). Gallery hours are Thursday to Sunday from 1pm to 7pm, and by appointment. For more information, please call 631.291.9061, e-mail at info@surfacelibrary.com or visit: http://www.surfacelibrary.com/

Science and Art coming together

Wainscott Artist, Steve Miller's name has come into converstion twice this week in two completely different settings and then on Twitter. So I am thinking there is a reason and I am no longer asleep at the wheel. How could I have missed this New Art TV segment. Great stuff!
For more about Steve Miller go to his website,

Film trailer of a 27 minute documentary on Michael Flomen and his photography. World Premiere: Thursday 26 March 2009 at 9 pm Cinéma ONF, 1564 Saint-Denis, Montréal, Québec

Represented by Hasted Hunt, NY 529 West 20th Street, 3rd Floor New York, NY 10011

TEL 212-627-0006

Michael Thompson, Woman with White Mask,
New York City, 1998. Digital C-print,
60 x 76 inches. HASTED HUNT

The AIPAD Photography Show - NY March 26-29, 2009 at the Park Avenue Armory

MarchHasted Hunt is one of over 70 dealers exhibiting at one of the most important international photography events, The AIPAD Photography Show New York , presented by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) from March 26-29, 2009. At the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street and Park Avenue in New York City.

The 29th edition of The AIPAD Photography Show New York will open with a Gala Preview on March 25 to benefit the John Szarkowski Fund, an endowment for photography acquisitions at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The AIPAD Photography Show New York is the longest running and foremost exhibition of fine art photography. View the Show press release.

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park AvenueNew York, NY 10065212 616-3930 http://www.armoryonpark.org/

Map and directions.

Staring into Amnesia 3: Private collection / Courtesy of Boers-Li Gallery and ArtShortCut

Opened February at Arken Museum of Modern Art's unique exhibition space The Art Axis. It's a journey into a jumble of memories of China's past and pondering of the good life. In the 1960s and '70s this train ran in northeastern China transporting ordinary Chinese people to and from work, visits and journeys. Now at ARKEN's Art Axis, its purpose is to make museum visitors think about the dreams and values in our society. "Starring into Amnesia by Qui Anxiong is the first installation in a series of exhibitions in the museum's UTOPIA project. It opened on February the 6th. UTOPIA exhibition is the first of three exhibitions of contemporary art shown in ARKEN's Art Axis in the period 2009-2011 - one per year. Each exhibition will feature a significant, international contemporary artist in exploration of "the good life." The first artist is the Chinese Qui Anxiong (b. 1972). Qui Anxiong has converted this train car into a multi media work, Staring into Amnesia (2007). Viewers are expected to interact by boarding the train, sit down and be transported through China's history. Video clips of documentary and propaganda films from China from 1910 until today pass by the windows as fragments of memories alternating with silhouettes a la Kara Walker, of ordinary scenes. What is is juxtaposed with what was and what will be in this artistic metaphor for passage of time. Will it lead to Utopia? With its 6,000 drawings - one movie and the interaction of the masses, Staring into Amnesia is the principal work of the UTOPIA exhibition.

View fine art photography blog by Marcus Bunyan at his artblart blog with a multitude of info and links concerning fine art photography. And more Bunyan work at his website.

“Sounds of Complexity”

Concerning criticism some artists may have of those utilizing modern technology as a means to an end, the following supports my theory that technology is a current, contemporary tool and to ignore it would be counter evolutionary. Art, technology and also science can comingle and if Leonardo da Vinci were alive, he would not only be using computer technology, he would be inventing it! There is absolutely no question in my mind that photographers who choose not to take advantage of digital and computer technology are no more artists than those choosing to embrace the tools of the 21st century. So for the elite purists, I am posting “Sounds of Complexity” which validates my premise that audio visual digital technology and science can be synchronized to achieve fine art. Classic photography is no more art than that which is manipulated. It takes great artistic prowess to know just exactly how much or how little to incorporate technological enhancement.

"Sounds of Complexity" is an artistic project that moves from the field of cognitive science and neurosciences. It's an audiovisual performance in which the sound materials and the visual mappings are the consequence of very complex and stratified processes that hardly can be represented with symbolic forms in our world. It's an attempt to make audible and visible the dynamics and the interactions that for their richness, variety and complexity are unheard and invisible.

The audio material of the performance derives from the analogic recording of cerebral activities through an analogic elettroencephalograph (EEG) and corresponds to the discharges of billions of neurons situated in the sixth layer of human cerebral cortex, disposed vertically respect to the scalp.

The crude sound of brain is translated in an audible frequencies through techniques of pitch shifting; such material is then processed digitally in real time and the corresponding frequencies transformed in a Cartesian space to form visual trajectories projected on four screens that react dynamically; "it has to be considered in the first place the possibility offered by such sounds to represent the oscillatory phenomena, cyclical and rhythmic that govern our cerebral life, whose function is to synchronize periodically the activities of approximately 1000000000000 neurons, in order to allow the emergence of advanced phenomena like consciousness. The most part of cerebral oscillators are in the range between 10 Hz (alpha rhythm) and 40 Hz (gamma rhythm)." More on the digital art revolution.

ART FOR ART'S SAKE

Every artist should view these for inspiration and every collector and curator should look at these to disconnect from the market mentallity and let go of the notion of art as commodity.

Jonas Mekas has made excellent observations which spaek to all artists - not only filmakers. I urge you to stick with these two videos where he speaks about his retrospective but more importantly the process and value of art making. It has given me renewed energy to continue work in foam whether anyone will show it or buy it! I hope it fuels others in forward motion despite the gloomy economy.

Jonas Mekas on Underground Cinema Whitney Retrospective - Part 1

Jonas Mekas on Underground Cinema Whitney Retrospective - Part 2

A vist to the Castle of the Marquis de Sade & the Studio of Cezzane.

Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol avant-garde approaches to filmmaking helped established film as an art form before and during the Fluxus movement.As early as the 1950’s, leading avant-garde filmmaker and diarist Jonas Mekas was experimenting with new technologies, developing his signature approach and in-camera style of editing ( illustrated in this video). Decades later, he has continued to be at the forefront of digital innovation (see http://www.jonasmekas.com/). His 365 film project on his web site is testament to his commitment to the art of film. Incorporating archival and new footage, he released one film each day throughout 2007. This work was exhibited in 2008 at Mary Stendahl Gallery “From Fluxus to Media Art” one year ago.

For the exhibition, Mekas personally selected films from this collection to document creative impulses of important Fluxus artists. Appearances by George Maciunas, Shigeko Kubota, Nam June Paik, Ben Vautier and Andy Warhol were featured.His recent 9-monitor video installation “Fluxus and Warhol” (2008), premiered at this exhibition. The monitors featured the latest innovation in Wetsinghouse digital technologies. Edited between frames, Mekas’ inserted text making comparisons between Maciunas and Warhol.

Also at this exhibition were 40 film stills entitled “Warhol Series #1”. The collection examined the career of Andy Warhol. Produced in edition of 10, these still images recorded Warhol during the early days of his Factory with Baby Jane Holzer, vacationing at his estate in Montauk, Long Island with friends Lee Radziwill, and the 1971 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art when Warhol covered the walls with his novelty cow wallpaper.

SO GO SHOOT SOME HORSE SHIT

AND MAKE IT LOOK BEAUTIFUL...

Lester Hayes, a pioneer of abstract photography who took photographs of ordinary things, using a sheet of mylar plastic shimmering in the breeze, to produce stunning images, and he did it all with the Kodak Instamatic. Kodak awarded his ingenuity with a major one man exhibition in New York City, but became disinchanted when Hayes discovered a tiny flaw in the camera that ultimately contributed to its demise. It was good for 1000 shots and then it self distructed!

Here's a recent shot off my phone:

David M. Mitchell: Friday

David M. Mitchell: Thursday

David M. Mitchell: Wednesday

A photograph captures a memory or documents a moment in time. When we look at photo albums of our past we can begin to wonder if we really remember the moment or is it just the snap shot we now remember from having viewed it repeatedly? We are all memory collectors with our cameras and are not inhibited by the medium. It doesn’t come with the same daunting strings attached as a paint brush and paint for the non artist. But behind the lens there are photographers with cameras and there are artists with cameras. Undeniably when David M. Mitchell is behind the lens, he is an artist. His emotive work doesn’t merely document a moment in time. It captures the essence of time passing and sometimes a complete disconnect or suspension in time beguiling the viewer with a gift of serenity. Through his metaphoric alluring imagery he engages the senses beyond sight. The work could even be described as sonic – if audible the sound would be ambient.

It is not the literal world we envision through the artist’s eyes or lens, but what we experience through his introspective mind. He transports us to a realm of contrasts which lie between definition and uncertainty; past and present; reality and the imaginary; even life and death. In his work these opposites coexist in a paranormal state as we are transported to a limbo where the unreal becomes real, the subliminal becomes obvious and audio disturbance becomes ambient sound. In this semi-conscious disconnect he imposes; the amorphous becomes a crystal clear tranquil reality.

I was in Philadelphia this weekend and
discovered one of the city’s Fine Art treasures:

GALLERY 339
339 South 21st Street

Philadelphia, PA 19103

215.731.1530

Martin McNamara is director and part owner of Gallery 339,
Philadelphia's only art gallery dedicated to photography.
Mr. McNamara began developing the business five years ago,
and the gallery opened with its first exhibition in April 2005. The focus of the gallery is
contemporary photography, exhibiting a mix of local work as well as photography from around the world. McNamara's interest in photography developed as a collector and he is not partial to one specific area of photography.

Now exhibiting “Extended Views”
An exhibit of recent panoramic landscape photography by
Tetsugo Hyakutake and Daniel Lobdell.
Both artists, although working in a panoramic format,
embody a unique language of their own while examining
our historical and cultural relationship to the urban landscape.

Brian Eno Interview Part I - 77 Million Paintings

Brian Eno Interview Part 2 - 77 Million Paintings

This may be old news but still worth a look. Read this article about the artist's relationship with the MAC. And more articles here.

Have your images printed on the

Epson Stylus Pro 9800 by a professional:

Artist Jane Martin offers archival inks and papers (a range of Epson and Hahnemuhle papers - and other papers and canvas for significant orders). Print size: up to 44 inches wide by length of your choice. Bring your file (300 dpi suggested) on a CD and leave with a perfect print. Same day printing available. Color-correcting and Photoshop.

email: janewmartin@mac.com or call 324-7179.

Reasonable rates

Springs location.

Melancholia: James Elaine and William Basinski

William Basinski is a classically trained musician and composer who has been working in experimental media for over 25 years in NYC. His haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of liferesounding with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic 4-disc masterwork, TheDisintegration Loops received international critical acclaim and was chosen as one of the top 50 albums of2004 by Pitchfork Media. Art Forum selected The River, his transcendental 2-disc shortwave music experimenton Raster-Noton, Germany as one of the top ten albumsof 2003. Installations and films made in collaboration with artist-filmmaker, James Elaine have been presented internationally, most recently at Cite de la Musique, Paris, and REDCAT at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles for The Museum of Contemporary Art’s VISUAL MUSIC Exhibition. Basinski’s new album,the Garden of Brokenness, was released in January 2006 on 2062/USA and is distributed internationally. Listen to William Basinski and similar artists here.