Record-breaking attendance at ADAA art fair - Front Page - Art Dealers Association of America

Art in America, April, 2004 by David Ebony

Each winter in New York some of the country's best art dealers get together to show off their prized possessions at "The Art Show," an exhibition hosted by the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA). This year's event, held at the Seventh Regiment Armory at Park Avenue and 67th Street, Feb. 18-23, drew a record 13,000 visitors. The show's preview, attended by some 2,500, raised $900,000 to benefit the Henry Street Settlement, one of the city's most venerable social services organizations. All 70 participating dealers reported brisk sales and enthusiastic responses to their offerings, which ranged from Rembrandt etchings (presented by David Tunick) to recent video works by Mary Lucier (on view at Lennon, Weinberg's booth).

At the Art Show entrance, visitors faced a striking display by David McKee, featuring a large pink-and-black Philip Guston painting, Division (1975), flanked by Francis Bacon's 1961 canvas Two Figures and small-scale but intense paintings by Vija Celmins and Harvey Quaytman. Another late Guston, Dark Room (1978), was the centerpiece of Richard Gray's nearby booth. Guston's work was echoed in the series of drawings by Mexican-born artist Enrique Chagoya, Poor George (After PG), 2004, shown at George Adams; the politically charged images blasting Bush policies were modeled after Guston's Nixon-era "Poor Richard" series.

Among other outstanding presentations, at Marian Goodman's booth, a haunting Juan Munoz painted-bronze figure about 4 feet high (cast in 2003), Louisiana #1, stood before a large yellow-and-white-striped painting by Daniel Buren, T11-332 (1966). Matthew Marks showed an unusually shaped untitled 2001 pastel-on-paper tondo by Jasper Johns alongside Ellsworth Kelly's large canvas Yellow/White (1961). At Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art's space a pair of self-portraits by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera hung near Shooting Star, a classic 1944 painting by Wifredo Lam.

A number of galleries devoted their booths to solo exhibitions. Sperone Westwater, for instance, presented works by Argentine painter Guillermo Kuitca; and Tasende Gallery showed bronzes by the late British sculptor Lynn Chadwick. PaceWildenstein's booth was filled with recent small sculptures by John Chamberlain. Glittering brightly, all were sold within three hours of the preview's opening. Michael Werner presented a survey of paintings and sculptures by Per Kirkeby, while CRG once again devoted its booth to early ceramic works by Lucio Fontana.

Several galleries featured two-person exhibitions. Jill Newhouse showed works on paper by Bonnard and Vuillard; and Brent Sikkema presented one of the Art Show's best displays, pairing small and medium-size sculptures by St. Clair Cemin with recent, scaled-up canvases by Shahzia Sikander.

There were some dazzling individual pieces scattered throughout the exhibition. James Goodman, for example, brought a rare early Mondrian portrait, Zeeland Girl (1909-10). An extraordinarily large (4 by 4 feet) Charles Burchfield watercolor, Backyards in Golden Sunlight (1946-66), radiated from the Kennedy Galleries booth. Robert Miller presented a 1964 Pop-art gem by Tom Wesselmann, Landscape #3, a painted-panel work with collaged rubber elements showing a young couple seated in a red convertible; the piece had never before been exhibited.

At DC Moore's booth, a stone carving by William Edmondson, Two Birds (1939), had a kind of wistful charm, while Jason McCoy's display was punctuated by a vibrant abstract painting by Cora Cohen, A Condition of Nature (2004). A highlight of June Kelly's booth was Embrace (2003), a tall wood totemlike abstract sculpture by Jane Schneider; a large colorful digital photograph of a row of books, by Victor Schrager, was a standout at Edwynn Houk's booth.

L.A. Louver presented recent figurative paintings by Rebecca Campbell, and James Graham & Sons showed those by Duncan Hannah, along with abstract compositions by Nancy Lorenz, whose surfaces are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Ameringer & Yohe brought along recent small stripe paintings by Kenneth Noland, and at Forum, a 2004 portrait study by Odd Nerdrum hung near one of Charles Matton's boxlike constructions containing a tiny video. A key attraction at Zabriskie's booth was 64 in 46, a wall-hung chessboard with peglike pieces and a small wooden mannequin attached near the top. A 1946 collaboration between Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, 64 in 46 is the kind of exceptional work that each year helps make the Art Show one of the season's most engaging events.