LA Art Fair (in Manhattan)

Last month, a group of 16 galleries from Los Angeles inaugurated their own 3-day show in Manhattan—called LA Art—on the weekend of the Armory Show and other art fairs. At the time I visited (March 11th), there were only a handful of visitors. I hope things picked up, because the fair was worth seeing. At Q.E.D., I was fascinated by Daniel Pflumm’s 20-minute video, “Birds” (2006). Pflumm was born in Switzerland and lives in Berlin. The video, which almost looks high-definition but isn’t, begins by showing reptiles (photo above, taken from the artist's website) and proceeds to montage through clips from TV advertising, corporate logos, landscapes and cityscapes, and other imagery. The ad clips are seductive, with their bright colors, happy faces, and sophisticated animations that make products feel sensuous, magical, life-affirming. One thing that becomes apparent is the sheer speed at which TV ads register their message. A lot happens in just a few seconds.

Pflumm's personal website shows some stills from his videos. The site also includes an animated GIF that declares, “The internet is just another shopping mall.” But just to the right is a link to a Panasonic catalog, and there is even an ad-within-ad “Powered by Google” graphic. It's an ambiguous world we live in.

At Richard Heller, I saw a couple of interesting drawings by Brendan Monroe (photo above), who has a background in comics.

ACME had some good works on paper by artists such as Jennifer Guidi, Aaron Morse, and Tomory Dodge (wall photo above).

Angles Gallery had one of Linda Besemer's flat paintings that seem to bulge and are made entirely of acrylic paint with no support: “Multibulge Sheet #14” (photo above).

At Rosamund Felsen, one of Kaz Oshiro intriguing trompe l’oeil pieces was sitting casually on the floor (photos left and below of the front and back).
One of the strongest displays was at Daniel Weinberg, who had works by Paul Feeley, Thomas Nozkowski, James Siena, Chris Martin, and others. I forgot to take photos because I got into a conversation here. Inexplicably, the gallery doesn't have a website.