Choice Cuts: A Dallas Art Fair Preview

The second Dallas Art Fair opens tomorrow at F.I.G., and they let us media types in today to check it out. I’ll share some thoughts and images if you jump with me.

(Photo: The window looking into The Public Trust’s space at the Dallas Art Fair.)

The fair is a good deal larger than it was last year – 17 additional galleries, to be exact. The result is a pretty diverse show that still isn’t so big and crazy that it’s overwhelming. There are two floors with exhibitor space, and the space flows relatively freely. There are a few spaces that feel tucked out of the way, and unfortunately London’s Timothy Taylor Gallery is one of them.

This year’s edition is a coup for Dallas galleries. Last year there were three Dallas galleries in the show, four if you count Artspace 111 in Fort Worth. This year the list has expanded to include most of CADD. Conduit, Marty Walker, The Public Trust, Kristy Stubbs, Holly Johnson, Dunn and Brown, Barry Whistler, Valley House, and Artspace 111 all represent. What is doubly exciting is that their stuff more than stacks-up with the out-of-towners. At left: one of The Public Trust artist Stephen Hopwood’s little people.

William Siegal Gallery out of Sante Fe has a collection of Native American artifacts, some over 5,000 years old. I was struck by this textile, which dates to the fifteenth century. Would love to see it next to an Anges Martin.

What’s up with Ed Ruscha? Every time I turned a corner there was an Ed Ruscha. There’s a nice piece of his right at the top of the stairs onto the second level. It seems this one (Cold Beer, Beautiful Girls, 2000 – Richard Levy Gallery) was trying to help me get my priorities straight.

I spent a good deal of time in Pace Prints’s space. And if anyone has an extra $20K, you could tell your friends you own a Matisse. If I had the cash, I’d be stuck between the Robert Ryman (Conversion, 2003), below left, and the Kiki Smith (Butterfly, Bat, Turtle (Set of Three), 2000 (Detail)), below right.

Bumped into the owners of Colton and Farb Gallery out of Houston while getting lost in the piece (at left) by their artist Molly Gochman. They said some folks down in Houston had a fairly typical Texas reaction to last year’s Dallas Art Fair: “let’s do one in Houston that’s bigger and better than that thing up in Dallas.” The Colton and Farb people said they’d rather see Texas galleries from across the state throw their support behind the Dallas Art Fair so that it becomes known as the major art fair for Texas galleries.

Timothy Taylor Gallery was in from London, which is bit of a score for the Dallas Fair. They are here, to a large extent, thanks to British artist Richard Patterson, who now lives in Dallas. I bumped into Patterson earlier this week, and he said he was burning the midnight oil trying to finish up some new work for the fair. As of noon-ish today, the Timothy Taylor booth had nice empty white space on the wall next to their Warhol that looked like it was waiting for Patterson’s painting. If Patterson’s piece is there when you go be careful, it may still be wet.

I have a special place in my heart for masochistic creations. The dimensions on the work below is about eight-feet by six-feet, and all that blue comes from a simple ball point pen (apologize for the glare in the photo). The piece, BL-119, 2009, is by Il Lee, who is represented by the Gerbert Contemporary out of Sante Fe. According to the gallery, Lee will have a show at the Crow Collection this May.

Not to bore you with the personal back story, but I’ve had a pretty special last few days: water heater broke, dishwasher broke, both kids got sick – and all in time for the parents’ fist visit to visit in three years which happens to come the weekend before we launch D’s new web-based arts section (more on that Monday). For some reason, Erick Swenson’s Ebre White, 2007, in Dunne and Brown’s space, was just what I needed to see.

And this one is in the post because it is just stinking gorgeous: Untitled Unique Collage, 2009 (detail) by Judy Pfaff. Via Tandem Press.