We had a great time on Friday night at Dagny & Barstow for Frieze Week cocktails. Emily, Meredith and Jess Hodin from the Winston Group were wonderful hosts and we celebrated with exceptional cocktails by Saint Germaine. Their summer spritizer is our new fave!  Thanks to all who stopped by and we hope everyone enjoyed the fairs and isn't too exhausted!

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Thanks to all who joined us on Monday at Soho House NYC for a great discussion about art, technology and the future of 3D printing. Matt Griffin, Community Manager for Makerbot was jointed by artists Micah Ganske and Marius Watz who presented on their work and their move into the world of 3D scuplture. They were joined on a panel by me, Grace, from ArtStar to contribute an art world perspective. It was a great night and thanks to Micah, Matt and Marius as well as to the audience for their great questions!

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JOIN US for a special Frieze Week Art Party

Hosted by: ArtStar, Dagny & Barstow and Jess Hodin from The Winston Art Group

Sponsored by St Germain

Friday May 4th, 6-9 pm

Join ArtStar, Dagny & Barstow and Jess Hodin on Friday May 4th from 6-9 PM at Dagny & Barstow on the Bowery for a cocktail celebration of the inaugural edition of the Frieze New York art fair as well as the PULSE and NADA fairs with a special focus on the art on the Lower East Side. Featuring cocktails by Saint Germain. No rsvp required.

Dagny & Barstow: 264 Bowery, just south of Houston.

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Dagny & Barstow is pleased to offer 15% off purchases during the party.

Winston Art Group is the nation's largest independent art advisory and appraisal's firm advising clients on acquisitions and disposal of all areas of fine art.  For more information, or to begin collecting or selling, please contact Jess Hodin at Hodin@WinstonArtGroup.com

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Shay Kun, The Bride, 2012.

Tonight we'll be checking out the second solo show by Shay Kun at Benrimon Contemporary in NYC entitled, Be First, Be Better, or Cheat. The show runs from April 26 - June 9 and we're so excited to see Shay's new work! We're also very proud to offer 3 exclusive limited edition prints by Shay on ArtStar and we couldn't be happier for his recent success. Go Shay!

About the show:

“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.” – Francisco de Goya

Benrimon Contemporary is pleased to announce Be First, Be Smarter or Cheat, Shay Kun’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, which will feature an installation of eleven new paintings.

Shay Kun’s paintings push viewers to challenge their philosophical and aesthetic limitations.
While the paintings in this exhibition use appropriated images from the internet, glossy magazines and daily life, they question where fantasy begins and reality ends. Our dreams and thoughts are capable of taking us on journeys beyond reality, but when do we actually cross that threshold? Could we have actually experienced scenes as we remember them?

Each piece in the exhibition explores fantasy and escapism not only with evocative imagery, but also with a variety of source materials and methods of display. In Brief Encounter, Kun proffers a film noir still of a car driving into the depths of a rainy night and invites onlookers to remember not only familiar films with similar atmospheres, but their own experiences with departure and loss. Kun also manipulates the foreground into a complex, dramatic tableau; the foreground presents an almost surrealist puddle without the literal interference of a window. Condensation from precipitation, however, is reserved for the background; the scenario is physically impossible, and the painting teases the mind to understand its dissonance.

Objects like ropes, hot air balloons and old-fashioned cars accrue an almost satirical element with their nostalgic references to a pleasant past and childhood. These idyllic environments are predominately kept in the background of these pieces, but the masterfully painted objects feel at once fresh with their photo-realistic qualities. These are contemporary works that challenge the effectiveness of memory and suggest that nostalgia shapes and colors our interpretations of the past. Kun’s paintings for this exhibition whisper that with time, recollections of reality can include measures of fantasy.

Shay Kun is an Israeli-born and New York-based artist. He earned his B.F.A. at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and proceeded to earn his M.F.A. from Goldsmiths College in London, England. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include “Animamix,” The Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum, China (2009); “Exfoliations,” Benrimon Contemporary, New York (2010); “The Law of the Jungle,” Lehman Maupin Gallery, New York (2010); “Overcast,” Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel-Aviv, Israel (2010); “Update Your Realty,” Alexander Ochs Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2011); “Rebreather,” Lamontagne Gallery, Boston, MA (2011); “Figuration Y?,” Galerie Favardin & De Verneuil, Paris, France (2012); Linda Warren Gallery, Chicago, IL (2012).

Benrimon Contemporary is located at 514 West 24th Street, 2E, New York, NY 10011 between 10th and 11th Avenues. Our hours are Monday to Saturday 10am to 6pm and Sunday by appointment.

Shay Kun, Born on Ice, 2012.

Here are some snaps from what we've seen at the Armory so far. There is so much to see and do that we're still digesting but we'll have more thoughts for you soon! The preview night at the Armory show was packed but we saw some really strong work in the Nordic section and some excellent, unexpected photography coming out of the Korean galleries - definitely worth a return visit and with a pared down exhibitor list, better lighting, and more seating, the visiting experience was much more enjoyable. Overall, however, the Armory felt a little tame.

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We also checked out the Volta Show where galleries spotlight one artist per booth. There were strong showings from Matt Rich at Samson gallery (Boston) and exciting 3D pieces from Aakash Nihalani at Carmichael Gallery (LA). Monumental portrait painting from Janet Werner was a highlight at Parisian Laundry from Montreal, a consistently strong Canadian gallery.

Aakash Nihalani

Janet Werner

Matt Rich

Thursday afternoon we also stopped by the Independent Art Fair, which has vertiginous stairs (if you're afraid of heights, bring a buddy and hold their hand!) but an otherwise beautiful space in Chelsea. Galleries are more experimental and feature more installation and object-based work and its a pleasure to wander around the different floors. Our favorites included small geometric wooden sculptures by Lucy Skaer at Murray Guy Gallery and collages by Oliver Payne at Herald Street Gallery. Today - the Pool Art Fair, Moving Image and a reception at the Norwegian Consulate (we can't wait to see the nibbles!). More to come!

Oliver Payne

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The ArtStar wall featuring (from left) Prada Marfa by Noel Kerns, Shower by Peter Gates, 1976 and 1980 by Sophie Crumb,  & XOXO by Roni Feldman

We just helped our friends at Dagny and Barstow install a whole wall of ArtStar pieces in their new boutique on the Bowery and it looks fantastic! Emily made us lovely almond milk coffees to stave off the chill and we also perused some of their new collection. We're particularly coveting hats for spring from Satya Twena (the green one pls!) and Rawandan precious metal bracelets by Kora.

Candlelight by Roni Feldman

Guenter Knop's Mannequin next to some accessories that we would very much like to own.

The new shop on Bowery between Houston and Prince.

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We spied John Waters at the opening for the Cindy Sherman retrospective at MoMA on Tuesday night (along with Michael Stipe, Martha Stewart, Chuck Close and lots of other fun people), and we couldn't resist posting one of his pieces as a bit of daily inspiration. The piece may be a little tongue-in-cheek but we love Waters and the genuine passion and support he shows for boundary pushing art and the avant-garde  (is that a Comme des Garcons jacket he's wearing?).

Michael Stipe and John Waters. Photo via Artlog.

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On Monday  we're excited to check out a talk at Parsons by ArtStar's own Langdon Graves and Michael Schall as well as artist Charlotte Schulz on "Drawing the Narrative" and the role of drawing both in the artists' work and in contemporary art. Langdon and Michael both work in an incredibly refined and labor-intensive drawing technique and we can't wait for them to speak more about their process and recent works. If you haven't seen Michael and Langdon's work in person, this is an ideal opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of their craft and to hear them speak, particularly given the current revival in drawing practice. We'll be there and will post photos on the blog following the talk.

Drawing the Narrative

Monday Febuary 13th, 1-4

Wolman Hall, Eugene Lang Building, 65 West 11th Street

Hoover Dam by Michael Schall.

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We can't wait to catch this opening on Thursday featuring ArtStar's own John Grande in BLING! at Jim Kempner Fine Art in Chelsea. We're suckers for shiny things and this show featuring Marilyn Minter, Kehinde Wiley and Mikalene Thomas, among others is bound to be glitzy and wonderful. Check out the press release, below.

Jon Kessler at Salon 94

On Saturday the ArtStar team and friends joined Artlog for their 5th annual Art Crawl through the Lower East Side and the Bowery. We were very excited to be on our our turf (we're practically roomies with the New Museum) and to check out some of the amazing galleries in our neighborhood including: Gallery nine5, Jen Bekman Gallery, Sperone Westwater, Charles Bank Gallery, Salon 94, DODGE Gallery, Lehmann Maupin, Sue Scott Gallery, Mulherin + Pollard Gallery, Hendershot Gallery, The Hole, Christopher Henry Gallery, Lambert Fine Arts and the New Museum. Highlights included Jon Kessler's installation at Salon 94 (try arriving late and finding your party among the life sized cutout "art viewers" and video screens), Malcolm Morley's monoprints at Sue Scott Gallery and the exceptional show focused on sculpture in white marble at Sperone Westwater which included ancient roman busts to godzilla as Saint John the Baptist.

Things wrapped up at Gallery Bar on Orchard Street with a super fun after party. Thanks to Artlog for organizing such a great event!

The Director of Gallery nine5 speaking to art crawlers

At Charles Bank Gallery

The ArtStar team at Sue Scott Gallery with a painting by Malcolm Mowery.

Hendershot Gallery has a really fun show called "Come & Get It!" that opens this Friday.

A resin purse at Hendershot Gallery by Ted Noten

Sandro Kopp's skype portraits at Lehmann Maupin were eerie and contemplative

Sperone Westwater's show Marble Sculpture form 350 BC to Last Week was a standout.

A Carl Andre piece at Sperone Westwater

Chrissy Crawford in front of a painting by Matt Jones at The Hole.

The Hole's "..." show on abstraction was lively and fun.

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