Pulse NYC 2011
April 5, 2011
Three or four art fairs in two days – everything begins to blur. As I recall, Pulse was the show for adults with paintings, sculpture and photography for people who had developed their taste in art beyond Hello Kitty, beyond comic book drawings – or what do we call them now, graphic novels? Still, this wasn’t the show for artistic revelations, beyond a piece or two.. Perhaps there are simply too many shows, with good, interesting art spread too thinly especially since work is again selling.
As always, there was an outstanding gallery booth. This year it was Morgan Lehman. They curated this year’s presentation very carefully as there wasn’t a single weak piece. Paul Villinski’s sculpture “Fable” was singularly elegant and outstanding.
Also wonderful at Morgan Lehman were Laura Ball’s and Emily Clark’s watercolors.
It was exciting to again see Matthias Meyer’s paintings at Galerie Andreas Binder, one of only a few German galleries this year. Meyer’s abstractions of landscapes with their zen-like ambiguity and beautiful colors are quite special. I don’t understand the gallery’s reference to this work being just short of kitsch. Meyer’s unique quality of imbuing dreams with reality is compelling and certainly not cute. His work is compelling with a wonderful quality of otherworldliness.
Gallery Joe showed a special piece by Christine Hiebert. Not a fan of drawing in general, I’m a fan of Hiebert’s charcoal and ink pieces. Hiebert is a Swiss-born artist, trained in the US. She has shown extensively and is in many museum collections. Hiebert’s work is this year’s revelation.
The final outstanding work was by David Antonio Cruz, showing at Praxis International Art. His pieces are ebullient and bouncy, and just simply fun.
