ARTMKT RECAP – Janet Lehr
                    #NSFW:BODIES runs thru March 31st 2014.
A spectacular HOT HOT exhibition opened on the coldest day of the year at VERED GALLERY, EAST HAMPTON NY. Think again if you thought the Hamptons were for fun and sun from Memorial Day to Labor Day. That was the schedule in the DARK AGES of the Twentieth Century!! Vered Gallery is ‘full steam ahead’ year round.

 

Beginning at the BEGINNING. Open the door and this is the scene that greets you. A great MODERN WORK by WILLEM DE KOONING, a CONTEMPORARY WORK Of the Earth Of the City by ‘newbe’ artist ASHLEY MAXWELL and CLASSIC CONTEMPORARY FASHION PHOTOGRAPH by STEVEN KLEIN – Daphne Guiness in Alexander McQueen

ASHLEY MAXWELL Of the Earth Of the City Mixed media 2013 30x16x14inches (she graduates from art school this year!!)
STEVEN KLEIN Daphne Guinness 01 Inkjet print on dibond, 2014 Ed 1/7 40.5 x 60.25 inches

LOOK RIGHT AND YOUR BRAIN SIZZLES

 LOOK LEFT

JOHN GRAHAM Portrait of a Woman Oil on canvas, 1943 24.36 X 20 Inches
ERIC FISCHL Untitled Oil on Chromcoat, 1988 27×39 inches
ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE Italian Devil Ed. 1/10 Vintage Silver Print, 1988 in original Mapplethorpe frame 19.25 x 19.25 inches
ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE Lisa with Scorpion Vintage Silver print with pencil enhancement, 1981-83 7.8×7.7 inches

KEEP TURNING AROUND AND YOU MEET – MAN RAY’S MUSE OF THE MOMENT, NAME UNKNOWN

Provenance: Estate of the Artist; by descent to Estate of Juliet Man Ray; by descent to The Man Ray Trust; Sold at Man Ray Atelier Sale Sotheby’s London, March 22-23, 1995, lot #215; Janet Lehr Inc., NY; Private Collector, NY

BRIDGING GALLERY I and II
Up close and very personal, is Jessica Lichtenstein’s warm, wonderful, clearly erotic, playful MASTERPIECE-XOXO.
It’s so sexy it should be called SOS – SOS – SOS.

CONTINUING INTO GALLERY II
A MAJOR element of ‘great’ art is resonance. Art reflects it’s period, of course. Art reflects history; history of art, history of all manner of media, politics and hopefully, the joys of life. Larry Rivers Ochre Dance unites the work of three giants in the world of art; Henri Matisse, William de Kooning and Larry Rivers. Henri Matisse electrified the world with La Danse in1909. The painting is in the collection of MOMA in NYC. Its composition or arrangement of dancing figures reflected Blake’s watercolor "Oberon, Titania and Puck with fairies dancing" from 1786. The Matisse, purchased by Nelson Rockerfeller was gifted to MOMA in honor of their first director, Alfred H Barr, Jr.

In 1993, Kurt Varnedoe, Director of MOMA arranged a major Henry Matisse retrospective for the MUSEUM. There wasn’t an artist able to get to see the exhibition in NYC, that didn’t arrive at MOMA’s doorsteps, and drool.

But, the brilliance of Larry River’s Ochre Dance is not only it reference to Henri Matisse’s seminal work, but his reflection on the lines of the late, great William de Kooning paintings which had become fluid, lyric, flowing fields of color. The synthesis of Matisse and de Kooning flowed thru Rivers brush to create, Ochre Dance, 1993. I would recommend that art lovers, visit Vered Gallery, East Hampton and enjoy River’s Ochre Dance, and William de Kooning’s High Heeled Woman 1969-70, the lead in the exhibition. Though the de Kooning is outlined in black, not color, the viewer can ‘feel’ the brilliant relationship of this work to late de Kooning and Larry Rivers, Ochre Dance.

WILLIAM KING  Standing Figure   Red Vinyl and wood  88 inches

STEVEN KLEIN Case Study #13 Image no.01 48 x 60 inches

Surrealism was at its peak in 1933 when Picasso created this legendary, joyous, spontaneous bit of Lewis Carroll surrealism. What reader would not have loved to be the ‘fly on the wall’ of that happy tea party on a beach?

Michael Dweck’s Mermaid Series is 1-and amazing feat of photography 2-exquisite females 3-everlasting Mermaid 4 is sheer poetry in motion. Dweck is a supreme colorist, and clearly a lover of the forms he loves to focus on; women.

McQueen’s Kingdom 01, dominates the viewer’s attention when entering Gallery II. It’s extreme fantasy elements, compliment the fantasy of Alexander McQueen’s costumes. The synergy between the two artists, Klein/fashion photographer extraordinaire and Alexander McQueen/couturier revives memories of great Avedon and Dior, Man Ray and Poiret – Fashion designers have their favorite photographers. Alexander McQueen and Steven Klein were a team, until Alexander McQueen’s untimely death in 2010.

COLIN CHRISTIAN Bat Girl Fiberglass and mixed media, 2014 35 x 22 x 25 inches
STEVEN KLEIN Case Study #13 Image no.01 48 x 60 inches
PABLO PICASSO Deux Femmes Etching, 1933 Printed by Frelaut, Paris Edition of 40 12.5 x 8.75 inches
MICHAEL DWECK Mermaid 4 C-print, 2007 Ed 3/5 30 x 35 inches

Works of Claude Lawrence are new to Vered Gallery – So a second and third look is expected. They are bold and they resonate confidence. Lawrence was a full time professional musician and now, a self taught full time professional artist painting with the lust and abandonment of a man in a hurry to make his mark. Lawrence is a colorist, often compared to Matisse. His forms are at once romantic, and easily boldly contemporary. As only G-d creates the tree, only G-d creates the artist.

LARRY RIVERS The Ochre Dance Oil on canvas mounted on sculpted foamboard 1993 47 x 67.875 x 2.5 inches

WILLIAM KING Standing Figure Red Vinyl and wood 88 inches. William King is the undisputed artist of human gesture. In his long and vastly successful career – with some 200 large sculptures in public places; airports, arenas and parks, William King’s works suit themselves to their environment, inform the space and invite the viewer to enjoy that space with both excitement and harmony.

Raoul Higuera is the ‘young Turk’ in the field of fashion photography. Reaching his first goal of photographing for Vogue Latin America while still in his mid twenties, he is reaching a level of reknown. His signature devises, playing the soft of billowing fabric against the solidarity of architectural elements as shown in Blue Dress, have begun to set a new style in fashion shoots.

JOHN GRAHAM Portrait of a Woman Oil on canvas, Curators and private collectors alike are actively looking for John Graham works of art. If you are interested in acquiring John Graham’s works or other works in this exhibition, please write me.)
ADAM HANDLER Margarita Tartare Acrylic on inkjet print, 2011 60 x 40 inches. Adam Handler is one of Vered Gallery’s rising contemporary luminaries. His painted photographs are edgy is a very contemporary manner and, Adam is as well a painter in the grand sweeping manner of late great abstract expressionist ‘action painting’. Vered Gallery show the full range of Handler’s work.
WILLIAM KING Fred Vinyl and wood, 1994 71 x 34 x 21 inches
LARRY RIVERS Berdie with Cat Oil on canvas 1952 50 x 40 inches Signed titled and dated twice on verso.

Like the John Graham and Larry Rivers Ochre Dance, River’s Berdie with Cat is a genuinely a museum quality work. All the other known Larry Rivers portraits of Berdie painted in the 1950 are in Museum collections; The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Mellon Museum of Art and The Guild Hall Museum to name a few. The San Francisco Museum of Art recently acquired one of the costliest Larry River’s painting sold to date.

 STEVEN KLEIN Dolce 1 and Dolce 2 (each) Color C print mounted on aluminum, 2007 70 x 50 inches Edition of 5
The Dolce series of photographs was created for Dolce Gabana and published in VOX in 2007*
BERT STERN MARILYN 4xs SMILES Color C-print, 2006 Edition 6 of 18 64 x 74 inches
FRANK GALLO Quiet Nude Painted resin, 1966 32.1 x 26 x 16 inches
STEVEN KLEIN FOREMOST AMERICAN FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER. In blending pop culture with fine art, STEVEN KLEIN has transformed magazines into ad hoc gallery spaces, radically reimagining the role of fashion and celebrity photography in the public sphere. Among the magazines that have published his images, often in massive, uninterrupted cinematic portfolios that can number in the dozens of pages or occupy the entire magazine are: American Vogue, L’Uomo Vogue, W, and Arena Hommes+. Notably, when Klein’s first Brad Pitt portfolio for W appeared in the summer of 1999, Village Voice photography critic Vince Aletti cited it as one of the must-see exhibitions of the season. Today, the publication of Klein ‘portfolios’ are often regarded as signal "events" that electrify the fashion and art worlds, as well as mass audiences.

Works by Steven Klein are in the permanent collection of the Gemeente Museum, The Hague and The National Portrait Gallery, London [They purchased Davie Bowie 02 from the exhibition.]. His works have been featured in American Vogue, British Vogue, Italian Vogue (L’Uomo Vogue), W Magazine, WWD-Women’s Wear Daily, Image Magazine; ArtReview International; German Max; POP Magazine; Film Comment; ArtReview International Ed. V1 N10; Film Comment; Vox Magaine and Another Magazine among others.

The Vered exhibtion #NFSW: BODIES continues thru the rest of the gallery space. It is a very large and entirely compelling exhibition.
MILTON AVERY

MILTON AVERY Coney Island Oil on canvas, 1931 32×40 inches
Coney Island 1931 is a symphonic work in its complexity and the number of problems it lays out, and solves. The cacophony of ‘problems’ and number of solutions never again seems to palpable in any of Milton Avery’s works. Coney Island is the Tabula Rasa for Avery’s future career. Painted after only five years of exhibiting professionally as an artist, Avery grapples with issues of Modernism transiting into color field, the area that concerned him throughout his long career. Avery never side stepped into Abstract Expressionism as did most artist of his generation. He held firmly to his belief in the ‘push-pull’ of color and form, retaining figuration until his last paintings in 1964.

ADAM HANDLER "Baby You" Acrylic and oil stick on inkjet print, 2013 41 x 61 inches
PAUL RESIKA got slicedin ½ (will need have a rephotograph of this wall)
ADAM MILLER Apollo and Daphne Oil on canvas, 2014 72 x 48 inches
ADAM MILLER Apollo and Daphne Oil on canvas, 2014 72 x 48 inches

ADAM MILLER From the depths Oil on canvas, 2013 68 x 42 inches
WEEGEE Composite of 4 Marilyn’s Suite of 4 works. The original ‘shot’ + 3 distortions Vintage silver gelatin prints, c. 1950 13.5 x 11.5 each
TAYLOR PILOTE Slabside slide Fiberglass, reproduction tail light, car tire and automotive paint, 2013 60 x 36 x 80 inches
(detail)

RAY CAESAR Aria Archival chromogenic print mounted on Dibond, 2014 Ed 6/20 30 x 30 inches

RAY CAESAR The Collector Archival chromogenic print mounted on Dibond, 2014 Ed 11/20 30 x 40 inches

STEVEN KLEIN McQueen Tank Inkjet print on Dibond, 2014 Ed 1/7 40.5 x 62 inches

The range of price on the contemporary work is quite modest. The classics are, the classics, and worthy of those interested in considering art as serious assets. They are all super. Of course I have my favorites – On the modern, the de Kooning, Rivers, Grahams are fantastic. On the contemporary side, Klein’s is always a favorite. I’ve waited years for him to print these works. As you can see, they’ve not been offered before, these prints are editioned 1/7. Steven had a very special relationship with Alexander McQueen. He resisted and resisted printing these works for sale. The three Klein/McQueen are the first in their editions – at $20,000/ they are modestly priced. They will scale up to $40,000 as the series sells out. They are well worth the $20,000.

Janet Lehr: THEATERARTS Art correspondent
JanetLehr@JanetLehrInc.com

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