AADA and the Henry Street Settlement

Every year, actually for the past 21 years, the Henry Street Settlement in conjunction with the Art Dealers Association of America put on an art show at the Armory to raise money to support their programs. 

There are roughly 70 art dealers from across the country who come and show.  I went up there with Jessica this evening, didn't exactly turn out as planned but we did go see the show.  I have gone a few times in the past and considering the present economy it was interesting to check out the crowd, the art and the prices.

Keep in mind that most of these galleries have been around for awhile so the art that they are showing is mostly from artists that are mid-career or older, not many artists are just starting out.  Certainly there might be some emerging art but based on that price points that I
saw, I am not so sure about that. 

I had a few favorites.  This is of the phone booth which I thought was just hysterical if anything.  Not a piece I see someone splurging on today.  I didn't even ask the price. It is completely real and huge!

One that I really loved was from a Roman artist named Pizza Cannella who shows at
Barbara Mathes Gallery.  He did a series on chandeliers.  There is something very warm, soothing and elegant about this piece.  A cool $65K.  Could be my fave.

I did enjoy seeing the photos of the Highline prior to any of the construction that has been done.  Joel Sternfeld was given access to the Highline to document everything.  The photos, to me, are more interesting in their historical value than the beauty.  Those photos are going for $25K a piece and there are only 7 available per shot.  They are shown at the Luhring Augustine Gallery. 

 

There other piece that I really liked was of Abe Lincoln.  The artist had painted other Presidents, flowers, torsos and ice cream sundaes.  I checked it out on line when I got home.  The gallery representing the artist, Aaron Fink, is the Alpha Gallery out of Boston.  What was kind of cool is that his parents own the gallery.  I like the way the paint appears to be dripping off the canvas but after looking at his other work (on line), I am not so much into his work as I am into this one particular piece.  Maybe it has to do with the subject matter.  Price $21K

Last painting I took a picture of is the series of paintings called Blah, Blah, Blah.  One woman held up the postcard they were giving out and wanted to know if she should just hold this up at a meeting.  I thought it was pretty funny.  The artist is Mel Bochner and his work is at the Peter Freeman gallery.  Clever and certainly a conversation starter but not at $90K. 

Now of course, I really have no idea what the

worth of any of these pieces are based on the age of the artist, the collections they are in, or even museums, etc., but I will note that a few years back when I went to the event more than 80% of the pieces had little red dots on the side meaning sold.  In some cases, galleries were completely sold out.  This year, I was looking for the red dots and there were very few.