VOLTA Fares Better Than Expected

by Art Fag City on March 11, 2010 · 6 comments Events

POST BY PADDY JOHNSON

Cameron Platter, Installation detail, Whatiftheworld Gallery

I’m not going to beat around the bush: The VOLTA art fair New York is not as strong this year. It lost too many high profile emerging galleries to the Armory for any other result. It was not however, a total disaster, which was my fear. Yes, the fair had more vampire paintings and skulls in fish tanks than was good for it, but it could have been a lot worse — it could have looked like Pulse.

I’ve written a lot on the subject of fairs over the past week, so this post will likely be a little shorter than a few of my others. Reserved highlights and lowlights after the jump.


Cameron Platter, Installation detail, Whatiftheworld Gallery (?)

I believe this print may have been of Cameron Platter’s installation for whatiftheworld gallery, but the attribution is shaky on this one. This minimal German black and white lithograph was amongst some of the highlights we spotted at VOLTA this year. Mostly I enjoy the clean, strong graphic look to this work.


Amy Simon at Andrea Meislin Gallery

Amy Simon’s installation is a little precious for my liking, but not without its moments. A small pink drawing of a ribbon is picked up in a photograph, and a still life of plants and bottles on the back wall, is charming in its mundane-ness. It’s not going to get a full stamp of approval from me, but it looks good in this show.


Rafael Rozendaal, Onestar press.

onestar press earned our seal of approval last year for their Lawrence Weiner bookshelf at VOLTA Basel, but Rafael Rozendaal‘s domain names receive only a thumbs to the side from us. It’s a fun idea, but most of the urls bought are only moderately clever. Professionals like Antony Van Couvering have far more invested in domain names, and frankly are working on more interesting projects. Also, the non-commercial, 2009 permutation of this project, a twitter account maintained by artist Oliver Laric titled “Still Available” is much better. Rozendaal’s “Flaming cursor” (.com .net .org) simply doesn’t hold a candle to guesshiscock.com, variationism.com, and my favorite, itrope.com.


Valerie Blass, Parisian Laundry

I’m not sure this is great art, but I applaud the ingenuity involved in shoeing a mossy ladder thing.

{ 6 comments }

noname March 12, 2010 at 3:26 pm

Sorry, Volta was just as much a tragedy as Pulse. Both fairs had brief moments, but YIKES.

noname March 12, 2010 at 11:26 am

Sorry, Volta was just as much a tragedy as Pulse. Both fairs had brief moments, but YIKES.

Art Fag City March 12, 2010 at 3:32 pm

They both sucked. Maybe I just take vampires and penis sculptures over the zoo…but I think it’s a little more than that. Volta is smaller so there’s less space for damage to be done.

Art Fag City March 12, 2010 at 11:32 am

They both sucked. Maybe I just take vampires and penis sculptures over the zoo…but I think it’s a little more than that. Volta is smaller so there’s less space for damage to be done.

noname March 13, 2010 at 3:46 am

Yes, true, and its arms are attached to a very well known body.

noname March 12, 2010 at 11:46 pm

Yes, true, and its arms are attached to a very well known body.

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