Photograph Art Fag City
14 Miami art fairs seemed like an awful lot last time around, but diligent viewers could still manage to see most if not all of it. The 24 fairs this year present problem to viewers because it not only becomes impossible to see all the art out there, but every viewing experience becomes mediated by the work you have just seen and what you plan to see. In short there’s too much art to properly focus on what’s in front of you.
Thomas Zipp, Geist Ueber Materie/Spirit Over Matter (Future Organ), 2006, Mixed Media with text, Photograph AFC
The Rubell Collection provides some relief to this, offering a museum setting that in large part manages to block out the deafening exterior noise of the fairs. Don’t expect a cheery walk in the park though, Euro-Centric Part 1 brings together some of the most darkest artistic expressions of contemporary culture I’ve seen to date. Thomas Zipp’s Geist Ueber Materie suggests the rumbling of an ominous presence; either a giant air conditioner, or an undefined presence or future much more sinister. In another gallery, a Jason Rhoades hanging neon light sculpture and cum covered pillow packs a strong punch it’s second season in a row (it was exhibited last year as well), pointing towards a material culture that is in and of itself pornographic. Nathalie Djurberg’s animated shorts and Franz West’s paper mache sculptures were also strong, as was Christian Boltanski’s unmonumentalesque sculpture Untitled Reserve, 1989 [pictured below.] As a whole, it’s hard to imagine a more convincingly bleak picture than the one presented here.
Christian Boltanski, Untitled Reserve, 1989, clothes, black and white photographs, and lights, 111 x 64 x 7 inches
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