What is it these days with all these artists and art dealers with high cheekbones? These were the this author’s sentiments as he wafted through the thronged crowds that flocked the private opening to the 2010 NY Armory Show last night. With the elite of the art world splashing their plastic champagne glasses and those European accents (Ok- those Berlin accents if you want to be exact…) one could be forgiven for thinking that the real art wasn’t what was hanging on the makeshift walls but the genteel crowd doing their very best to affect stoic and VOGUE editorial dispositions. That said this is the art world and whether one publicly acknowledges it one’s faux presentation has now just become as important as the actual work on display- in short a teazer.
Now the work itself. At the risk of being recriminated by the organizers I am loathe to say the work on display did not sufficiently pique this author’s or from what I was overhearing the general consensus expectations. More often than not most of the work was meandering, lack luster in spirit and heavily dull in provocative terrain. That is not to say there wasn’t work that was contemplative or inspiring, there was, it just may well, with the malaise in the art world has come a malaise in the standards of the work that has to show, but for now we’ll hold off on a harsh assessment until we see what happens when the art world makes it’s trek to the Frieze Fair in Europe and Art Basil, Switzerland…
In any event for those of you game, this author encourages you to set out and take in a whole day of Art, the festival goes on until Sunday and tickets will set back you $30, the champagne on the other hand a mere $15…
cheers to that! i felt the same way. the people were more interesting than the art. Bizarre creatures.