Thursday, April 28, 2005

Chicago Has Caught A Fever-

ART FEVER!

The Chicago art scene is like a school full of excited and frightened elementary schoolers in a blizzard that will either send everyone home early or force them to spend the night in the gymn.

Paul Klein’s bloggofab ArtLetter today is unusually perceptive and intelligent. Klein weighs in on what is the hot topic of the moment-the art fairs, of course. As usual, though, it spirals out of control into megalomania. The gist: “All you art fairs just give up, cos me and the Klein-ites are starting a Chicago-centric art museum.” Also, he may want to proofread a little more carefully instead of putting useless links all over the place.

At any rate, the scathing take down of Chicago Contemporary & Classic is classic and ballsy:
    “The Chicago Contemporary and Classic Art Fair, at Navy Pier, pushed me to words I’ve never used for art: despicable, drek, and horrendous. This show is an insult to taste, aesthetics, quality, commerce and common sense.“

Thomas Blackman doesn’t fair much better, though:
    “...[T]his is a decent fair, despite Thomas Blackman Associates’ best efforts to further ruin what was once the best art fair in the land.”

In other art fair news, Artnet reports that Kavi Gupta has partnered up with Friedrich Loock and Ulrich Voges to start a third art fair in Basel called VOLTAshow01. It is a “nonprofit, dealer-run enterprise,” which is a statement where someone has taken the meaning out of all the words, stomped on them and then shoved them back in. But it is also right in step with the NADA art fair.

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