Art for When the Conversation Gets Interesting
Artworks you don’t immediately agree with, but that make you sit up and question
Good morning! Before we dive into my latest pondering that what’s missing right now in the art world isn’t access to art, it’s guidance on how to live with contemporary art over time, here are some very important highlights:
Today at 2:00pm ET, I am moderating a panel for NADA Collects! You can sign up to join here and listen to me ask questions about art collecting fundamentals to our esteemed gallery panelists: Nicelle Beauchene, Megan Bradley, and Alex Nazari
Also today at 1:00pm ET, there is a Brooklyn Rail Zoom conversation between artist Alex Kwartler (featured in today’s newsletter) and Rail contributor Will Heinrich
Tomorrow morning, the third episode of Viewing Rooms drops with a guest appearance by the artist Ang Ziqi Zhang (featured in today’s newsletter)
Everyone in Mexico City, please go to Feria Material and stop by Situations gallery booth to see the Heather Benjamin works (also featured in today’s newsletter) and tell me all about them (ask for Jackie!)
Please also stop by murmurs gallery’s booth at in the curated Ejes section at Zona Maco and talk about my obsession with Y. Malik Jalal who will have a solo booth with them at Frieze LA later this month (ask for Morgan!)
In full transparency, I write these newsletters on weekends with coffee (or a Negroni, if it’s Negroni O’Clock), combing through an inbox of gallery previews to find compelling and interesting artwork around the 10,000-dollar price point. Once I make my selections, I confirm the artworks’ availability on Tuesday, and sometimes the works still sell faster than a hockey puck hits the net (sadly, not looking at you, New York Rangers).
It’s clear that contemporary art no longer arrives in one neat place; it comes in fragments: exhibitions, feeds, books, conversations, dinners, screens, often out of sequence and rarely with much guidance on how it all fits together.
One of my first obsessions in college was Andy Warhol and his question of what happens to the meaning and value of an image when it’s repeated over and over. The projects I work on, whether at luxury hospitality spaces, through this newsletter, or in advisory contexts, are all shaped by that question:
How do we create conditions for discernment instead of just churning out top 10 lists? I want spaces to talk about relevance that lasts and why, and I think this is where discernment starts to matter more than access.
I hope you enjoy today’s discerned selections and reply with lots of “why?” questions!
