#cheimandreadgallery

The light in the tent at the Frieze Art Fair on Randel’s Island was so bright that several dealers took to their sunglasses. You know if that's the first sentence of a review, the fair had to be less than wonderful, and so it is. To be fair, Frieze is strongly contemporary so unlike the Armory show or Basel, there is no modern section and thus very little blue chip material. Yes there are blue chip contemporary work, but they were few and far between at Frieze. One exception was an extraordinary painting by Louise Fishman at Cheim and Read.

When Fishman hits her stride, as she has done in this painting, she gives the big boy Ab Exes a run for their money. 

Ever since her appearance in the last Whitney Biennial, she has been on a roll.

There is no shortage of abstract painting at the fair as dealers seem to want to take advantage of the buzz. I can't imagine that this trend will last very long as more and more artists seem to be jumping on this bandwagon.

One particular painting at Lehmann Maupin, by Angel Otero, got to the art historian in me because of the string of associations that blossomed in my mind.

First is Picasso’s "Girl Before a Mirror”.  Otero has captured the way that Picasso bisected his work to show the 2 sides of his girl. and notice how similar the palettes in the 2 paintings are.

Next is the Jackson Pollock work based on the Picasso that was done about a decade later, “"Moon Womn Cuts the Circle”.

And finally the Otero has to be seen in the context of Jasper Johns.

Whereas Picasso and Pollock have used the striations as background, more or less, and Johns has made the background the subject of the painitng, Otero has integrated the striations into the fabric of his work. I sure have placed him in good company.

I was quite taken by the painting at the Stevenson Gallery booth from S. Africa of the young Zimbabwe artist, Portia Zvavahera. Her symbolic use of color demonstrates a maturity in her work that speaks to her life experience. Her figures are painted so as to communicate an other worldly pathos. 

I remember having a similar reaction when first seeing the work of Marlene Dumas

And also the paintings of Thordis Adelsteibsdottir

The way that her figures meld into one another so that their bodies become indistuishable raise associations to a famous kiss

While you are at Frieze, you will notice that there are several small, what I'll call tabletop, sculptures by Sarah Sze. Mostly Sarah has become famous for her over the top installations utilizing the most mundane everyday materials. These small works are refined and complete within themselves.