Bloomberg Not Buying at the ADAA, But Others Are

A sigh of relief seems to be sounding out across the booths of The Art Show, the 22nd Art Dealers Association of America, invite-only art fair held in the Park Avenue Armory building. And while Mayor Bloomberg may have quipped in his opening speech that he wasn't there to buy art but to discuss New York's cultural community, others certainly were, since sales had already been made. 55 New York galleries and 15 national dealers weathered the storm, as one gallerist expressed when discussing the last 14 months: "We made it through. We even managed to keep hold of all of our staff."
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It's In the Jeans

Whether filled with concrete or crotchless, the depiction of fabric in David Rimanelli's exhibition, "Denim," at New York University's 80WSE Gallery extends well beyond the bounds of the material. Using the blue jean as a platform to clothing as a uniform, as a means of expressing social or sexual identity, the exhibition also highlights our ability to rebrand ourselves depending on our attire. Complicating the reading of literal materiality with abstraction and metaphor, Rimanelli curates a show of artworks by 11 artists created over the last 40 years. Here he explains the bias against exhibitions on fashion, and how to get more action out of your pants:

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Onward: The First in 120 Months of New Exhibitions

January is not so much a re-set as an official half-time for international gallery openings. Collectors, one hopes, are back in business, rejuvenated and back in their home cities. Being as this spring marks the beginning of a new decade (and it couldn't have come at a better time!), the implications seem greater.
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A Discussion of the Light-Ness of Being

Star Trek, Caravaggio and Bataille were just three of the talking points at Friday night's panel talk at the Whitney Museum, featuring art historian Lytle Shaw, lighting designer Richard Renfro and artist Walead Beshty. Arranged by the artist Spencer Finch, his goal for the evening was to assess the difference between northern light and southern light, by discussing "how different people perceive that difference, how different practitioners deal with those differences and then how that difference can illuminate and inform, in an oblique way, Roni Horn and Georgia O'Keeffe's works (whose exhibitions are currently on view at the museum)." As in many discussions, what the panelists found was that what was different was read as inadequacy of perception.
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