Dan's Papers - July 17, 2009 - Deconstructing ArtHamptons

The atmosphere of ArtHamptons is strange - fair-like in its outdoor field location, yet professional and clinical with its enclosed white walls and controlled air temperature. The tents took days to assemble and are magnificent architectural structures in themselves. Though over 60 galleries are represented in only four tents, there is still space for the work to spread out and assume its historic, untouchable status. The feeling of walking through the tents is similar to the feeling of visiting a museum - the main difference being, of course, that everything at ArtHamptons is for sale.

According to a post-event press release, sales were healthy throughout the four-day event. Peter Marcelle Gallery holds the highest on-site sale for 2009 with an Andrew Wyeth landscape sold at $975,000, but founder Rick Friedman anticipates other big sales post-show. Many galleries reported more than $100,000 in sales. Also unlike many museums, ArtHamptons is able to offer visitors a wide survey of national and international ultra-current art in a relatively small amount of space. It functions as an excellent (and speedy) introduction to contemporary art practice.

What was most striking, however, was how often works sidestepped a century, or in some cases, centuries, of art history. After decades of breaking barriers and widening beyond measure the boundaries of "art," many contemporary artists have picked up the thread of dialogue from well before these battlegrounds were won. The pieces become more interesting, of course, when one considers the artists' tacit recognition and conscious decision to ignore milestones like R. Mutt's "Urinal."

The erasure of history is partly interesting because it forces us to consider that, however much the superficial look of our world has changed, the fundamentals remain constant. A landscape by Eric Forstmann presented by Eckert Fine Art, Inc. borrows stylistic elements from Edward Hopper and looking even further back, the Hudson River School painters. The painting depicts a rural-suburban scene after dark and immediately after a rainfall. The isolation and desolation of a Hopper painting from the '30s are conveyed partly stylistically - the loose approach to realism, the dark palette - and partly in his choice of subject matter. The loneliness of chain store signs shining brightly after hours mirrors the emptiness of pieces like "Nighthawks." Forstmann's approach to the Northeast landscape also shares a tenderness for his subject with early American painters. Despite years of developing, Forstmann manages to convey the beauty and wildness of the New World after a rainstorm in the same way Hudson River School painters once did before every town had a strip mall. The ugly, functional architecture feels small and somehow co-opted by the woods.

Portraiture was well represented throughout. Many pieces were done in oil paints and if not for the telltale contemporary clothing and facial structures, looked like they could have been painted four centuries ago. Presented by Eli Klein Fine Art in New York, Jiang Huan's portrait, "Nanna's Sunday," of an old woman lying on a couch with a Persian cat conveyed a sense of timeless fear and sadness. The richness of the colors and the hyper-realistic rendering of the cloth and the cat's fur could identify it as a Baroque painting were it not for the Mickey Mouse throw blanket. The old woman is at once an individual, alone and wide-eyed in the face of death, and also a symbol of a more universal fear. The particulars have changed, but the essentials remain the same.

Other artists looked back even further for inspiration. Charles Pfahl, though firmly planted in contemporary practice with florescent paints and Tim Burton-esque imagery, used the German Pieta of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as his subject for "The Offering" (presented by 101/exhibit from Miami). Some may consider the grotesque depiction of Mary and Jesus as irreverent - Mary is a faceless rag doll and Jesus is a rotting man-baby - but the style has its roots in a period of great religious fixation. The Pieta emerged during the height of Gothic sculpture and was meant to convey the innocence and suffering of Jesus after his crucifixion. Mary and Jesus are crudely carved - as a stylistic choice, rather than a lack of skill - to capture the attention of sinful laymen. A popular depiction of Jesus after the crucifixion during this time period shrinks him to the size of his infant-self but retains his 33-year-old man's body. The result is something deeply unsettling, meant to remind viewers of his child-like innocence and Mary's motherly mourning. Whatever Pfahl's intentions were, he achieves the same end, capturing viewers through our universal awe of the grotesque.

ArtHamptons offered many instances of "old is new" with digital photographers taking cues from early Surrealists like Magritte, video artists entering, literally, into nineteenth century paintings, and photographers paying homage to Warhol with luscious shots of household snack foods. The result was hopeful, presenting a contemporary art world where artists continue to respect and subvert the ancient and troubled history of art.