The AFC Liste Awards!

Simone Gilges, Installation view, Foxy Production at Liste

If one collector’s prized chandelier navigation system represents another’s cold sweat, why not make everyone’s lives a little easier and aim for consistency in fair programming?  Of course, nobody can fully anticipate the quality of a booth in advance, but certainly a few of Liste’s galleries might have been eliminated from the get go.  Others deserve a different space altogether in which to hold their own, superior art fair.

Given the word real estate already devoted to Liste, this post simply means to sum up the fair highlights and low lights.  Compiled and edited with the help of Karen Archey.

BEST IN SHOW

Simone Gilges, Image detail, Foxy Production at Liste

Much of Simone Gilges’ work takes on a domestic theatricality, often pairing beauty with uniquely awkward or ugly forms.  The sculpture above brilliantly employs the like; its hippie blanket and weird ceramic crown sandwich elegantly simple cubes.  The work would be almost too carefully calculated, were its gaucheness not quite so charming.

THE GOLD PRIZE

Elad Lassry, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles

Elad Lassry, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles

Something is awry with these images, but they’re so well put together it’s hard to see past their production.  Employing the language of advertisements to create work that only occasionally sells an object, Lassry reveals the invisible pull of marketing.   While the allure of the above lipstick may seem obvious, its pairing with a glamorized skunk certainly suggests an element of criticality.

ARTWORK BEST VIEWED AT NIGHT

Artist unknown, Myto Gallery

Who needs headlights when you’ve got a candelabra?  Special thanks to Myto Gallery for consistently providing  the most absurd art in any given fair.  In 2007, the gallery presented a red car hemorrhaging red smoke at NADA Miami.

Artist unknown, graffiti artist sleeping, Andreiana Mihail Gallery

All tuckered out from smashing the state?

OBJECT MOST RESEMBLING CONTEMPORARY ART

Tanja Roscle, Sun demon (2), Freymond-Guth & Co. Fine Arts at Liste.

A drag version of Cousin It meets a paper shredder.