I love weekends like this past one in NY. There was so much going on! On Saturday I went to the 17th Annual Outsider Art Fair, curious to see the turnout now that a lot of galleries are beginning to suffer, and art fairs are being put to the test (e.g., the Asian Art Fair cancelled its March show). Prior to going, I checked out the Outsider Art Fair website, and found this message (click on message from Sanford Smith) from the fair organizer, which is an attempt to calm exhibitors anxieties and ensure them that there are buyers still out there. That further fueled my interest, as a former art fair organizer myself, and I headed off to the fair.
With a surprisingly expensive entrance fee ($20!?) the fair was experiencing great foot traffic on this cold and snowy day. Maybe because it offered access to 34 galleries, several from NY, though not too many internationally. While this fair is not exactly my cup of tea – it focuses on “outsider” or self-taught artists, and is very heavy on the folk art – it does have a certain clientele, and they were out in droves! The price range was huge – there were pieces for $90 and pieces for over $30,000, but from what I could tell, those that were selling the most were somewhere around $1,000 – $2,000. And selling they were! So much for the struggling art market – in this price range, there were people there to buy. I heard numerous deals being made, and saw plenty of red dots signaling sold works.
I walked around looking for little gems, and actually found a few. The delicate details of this piece,
Untitled
Untitled, by Japanese artist Hiroyuki Doi, caught my eye. The ink and paper drawing is 14” x 17” at Phyllis Kind Gallery in NY.
I also liked this
beautiful graphite and gold pen piece at Cavin-Morris Gallery (another NY gallery). The 44”x31.5” piece, called YWC, was completed in 2008 by artist Chris Hipkiss and sells for $30,000. Stopping by Edlin Art Gallery I saw several fun items that were more affordable and smaller so they would actually fit in a NYC apartment! But they also had a huge piece – another ink drawing (guess I’m digging that look right now). New York n’existe pas by Jean-Pierre Nadau depicted macabre scenes in which area of NY were either being attacked, or were somehow suffering or altered.
Detail
The piece is 59”x246” and was selling for $33,000. While the subject was upsetting the detail was amazing.
At Henry Boxer Gallery, from the UK, pieces by artist George Wildener were selling out, again, these were ink on paper, and every time I walked by, a crowd was gathered.
At another time I might have considered buying the piece at Phyllis Kind, though it was great just to get out and see what was being exhibited. You can read some of the press coverage of the fair if you go to their website, but you can also read Roberta Smith’s (NY Times art critic) article here.
