Courtesy of Mr. Schachter. 

What is your morning routine?

Coffee, coffee, coffee, and the following 6 websites:

http://www.artsjournal.com/category/visual

https://www.artnews.com

http://theartnewspaper.com

https://news.artnet.com

http://www.vulture.com/art/#

https://www.artmarketmonitor.com

Tell us about yourself. Where are you from originally and when did art first enter your life?

I am from Long Island, NY. I studied law but never attended classes telling my family and employers that I was in night school when the school had no such program. In reality I held a series of full-time jobs such as drafting briefs for an entertainment law firm, writing a chapter in a malpractice textbook on plastic surgeries gone awry (good intro to understanding Cubism) and working on the floor of the American Stock Exchange where I quickly came to the realization that I had no facility for numbers and barely knew my multiplication tables. After taking the bar exam I thought I might give fashion designing a try; though I attended museums in University while studying philosophy, I naively didn’t know art galleries even existed and thought art miraculously flew from artists’ studios onto the walls of museums. Oops. I handed out resumes under the doors of a few hundred garment center offices and landed a job as an itinerant salesmen for Nino Cerutti’s grandson who was a neckwear designer that previously advised Ralph Lauren who began his career designing ties. Traveling the East Coast like Willy Lowman in Death of a Salesman was a nightmare and all the while I was allergic to silk! When the company went bankrupt due to the compulsive gambling habits of the owner, I had to rub ties all over my face to extricate myself from the failing enterprise. The financier of the tie company was an art collector that kept me afloat for a decade. I never actually entered a gallery till I was 27 after attending the estate sale of Andy Warhol at Sotheby’s in 1988, which was a shock and epiphany. At the same time, the auction house was preparing for a contemporary sale and I realized art was actually bought and sold. Immediately afterwards I visited Hirschl & Adler Gallery and purchased a Twombly print. I raised the money, after being denied an unsecured loan by JP Morgan Chase (you should have seen the banker’s face when I asked!), when I had the manager of the law firm where I worked temporarily having surprisingly (to me) passed the law exam contact the bank. Like an idiot-idiot savant I immediately began making art and curating shows, which early-on included work by Rachel Harrison, Cecily Brown, Wade Guyton and Joe Bradley.

Photography by Tom Shaxson for Classic Driver © 2017. Courtesy of Mr. Schachter.

What would you hope people remember you by in terms of either your collecting, your art, your curating, etc.?

My writing, teaching and art making; but  mainly, my democratic, transparent, non-hierarchical passion for sharing all things art.

What time period and style do you find yourself gravitating towards when looking to buy for your personal collection, and how might that differ from the work you deal or curate or even critique?

I love 1960s/70s and I buy mostly new, newer and newest.

What would you tell your 20 year-old self?

Put your head down. And stay f-ing sober in process.

Are there any works you wish you had snapped up when you had the opportunity?

I have no regrets and consider myself materialistically ascetic: in the end we are only temporary custodians charged with preserving works for the next audience/owner after our lives. As long as I am absolutely surrounded by art I care about—and I most definitely am—I don’t get too stuck on particular attachments as to what. I’m a maximalist if that wasn’t clear.

Photography by Tom Shaxson for Classic Driver © 2017. Courtesy of Mr. Schachter.

Who are some of your favorite artists now?

Paul Thek, Vito Acconci (both dead and both shamefully still undervalued), Rachel Harrison, Mary Heilmann, Cheyenne Julien, Peter Hujar, Ebecho Musilmova, Sarah Lucas, Issy Wood.

When buying art for oneself,  what do you think is the most important thing to consider?

Love. Period.

Could you tell us the next piece you would add to your collection?

I have to pay for the last Paul Thek I bought once the cash crunch from the damn virus subsides. I also like Trey Abdella.

Do you have anything going on right now or perhaps something coming up you’d like to share?

My postponed one person show at Blum & Poe Tokyo coming soon, fingers crossed. And a show I curated at Muruani Mercier in Brussels. And a major Hollywood film and documentary based upon a New York Magazine article I wrote on the art con Inigo Philbrick (https://www.vulture.com/2020/03/inigo-philbrick-art-dealer.html).

The post Keeping Up With Kenny Schachter appeared first on Art of Choice.

Benjamin Abramowitz, courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

In her own words, Bouttier says, “when my husband and I embarked on building our house, we knew we wanted our home to be a showcase for my grandfather’s art. He was very prolific and his body of work is quite varied, so it really looks like we have the work of many artists in our home instead of just one man. From the moody charcoal nudes to vibrant and juicy abstract paintings, I really love it all. I’m the only grandchild of Benjamin Abramowitz, so the art is part of my legacy; it’s my responsibility to share it with the world. What has been so gratifying is that while people often come to me for furniture and artifacts, they end up falling in love with the artwork.” The love and pride she feels for her grandfather’s works lends to his continued legacy. With the help of her and her mother’s combined passion, Abramowitz’s art can be found in homes, as well as museums, and institutions around the nation.

Benjamin Abramowitz in situ. Photography by Stephen Kent Johnson for Architectural Digest August, 2019. Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

Bouttier even partly built her house around her own personal collection, of course curating a stellar inventory of antique furniture to accompany it all. The gallery opened out of this overflow collection of things she accumulated from all over Europe. Featuring polished and warm materials anchored in midcentury lines, her furniture perfectly juxtaposes her grandfather’s art. From painting to sculpture to calligraphy, there was very little it seemed this man couldn’t do.

Benjamin Abramowitz in situ. Photography by Stephen Kent Johnson for Architectural Digest August, 2019. Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

He was always up to something; whether that be writing an informative book, teaching himself a new language, or diving into an inspired watercolor. Transitioning into the realm of the three-dimensional, he began making wall sculptures and freestanding statues in the 1970’s.

Benjamin Abramowitz in situ. Photography by Stephen Kent Johnson for Architectural Digest August, 2019. Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

Later in his life, hindered by his declining eyesight, he worked primarily in ink on paper. Nothing could prevent him from working with all the passion and stamina of someone 50 years his senior, though, and upon his death, left an estate with “almost 6,000 paintings, sculptures and works on paper” to his daughter.

Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1917, Abramowitz became entranced by art and began to pursue it during his young life. He was schooled at the National Academy of Design after finishing high school at the Brooklyn Museum School in New. In 1936, he joined the Work Projects Administration (W.P.A.) under the name ‘Ben Hoffman’ where he became a master artist at 19.

Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

In 1941, he moved to D.C. in the midst of World War II and began a new life for himself. He was a devoted father and family man and was praised for his balance between work and life. There, he became one of the most renowned artists in the area during the 20^th century and was consistently met with unbounded acclaim. His works were awarded numerous best in show prizes , and major museums – the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection, and the Baltimore Museum of Art among them, honored his work with solo exhibitions. With over 70 years of output, it’s no surprise his work spans collections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Benjamin Abramowitz in situ. Photography by Stephen Kent Johnson for Architectural Digest August, 2019. Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

The depth of his notebooks helps paint a portrait of how dedicated this man was to his craft. His daughter, Bouttier’s mother, began began archiving her father’s works. She housed all the works in her own home and installed professional storage. By the time of his death, she had accounted for nearly 6,000 of them. He drew, painted, created sculptures; all of which can be found in his granddaughter’s home (pictured) curated by her own Galerie Provenance.

Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

Even more, Abramowitz’s paintings, sculptures and works on paper are, among others, in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, The Phillips Collection, St. Louis Art Museum, Newark Art Museum, Georgetown University, the U.S. Department of State, the District of Columbia Art Bank, the Montgomery County Maryland Art Trust, and the Archives of American Art.

Benjamin Abramowitz in situ. Photography by Stephen Kent Johnson for Architectural Digest August, 2019. Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

In Abramowitz’s work, you feel his compassion. He lived through difficult and emotional times, which he was only able to fully process through art. “By the 1970s, he moved beyond the canvas, and turned to making elegant and iconic wall works and freestanding sculptures, some black, some white, filling book after book with ideas for more. He designed four books illustrating the basic principles of the creative experience.” An eclectic mixture of these works can be seen in the below image of the gallery wall in Bouttier’s living room.

Benjamin Abramowitz in situ. Photography by Stephen Kent Johnson for Architectural Digest August, 2019. Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

Focusing on minimalism, with all of its simplistic integrity, Abramowitz tended toward an array of styles. From geometric shapes in any medium to vaguely drawn nudes or purely abstract canvases, he was a prodigious figure in the 20^th century. Pegged as an art “coach” and teacher, Abramowitz became a legend in the DC area.

Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

Even after his death in 2011, his work still resonates with its audience, exhibiting well after his death years ago. Sales of his work are steady as well, and this year, a large, abstract painting, has been chosen by the new Ambassador to Turkey for presentation at the US embassy.

Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

“Art Movements splintered into a thousand shards in the decades of the 1940’s onward. In its complexities I created an individual order, a body of work, of paintings, sculptures, and drawings, evolving into the next century, inspired by its own inferences.” – Benjamin Abramowitz, 1988

*Quoted content sourced from artist’s website; www.benjaminabramowitz.com.

Courtesy of Galerie Provenance.

The post Galerie Provenance Has Curated Benjamin Abramowitz to Perfection appeared first on Art of Choice.

Can you tell us about Anónimo?

Anónimo is a contemporary art auction, where the concealment of authorship remains until the piece is sold to the highest bidder. A muti-destination initiative whose main purpose is to encourage the purchase of art as a process free of preconceived ideas, motivated only by the connection that an anonymous piece can generate.

However, as the Anónimo platform expands in to new destinations and forms of artistic expression, a variety of special editions are being envisioned and purposely curated to respond to their geographic and environmental context. Giving birth to a collective of site-specific editions that can evolve out of the art auction rule book and explore new and fresh ways to appreciate and approach the daring complexities of today’s art world.
 

What do you hope the business does for the art world?

Well what I love about Anónimo is how un-intimidating it is, especially for young or even new collectors. In reality, the less you know about the art world the purer your experience is with Anónimo . I believe this is why we have so many first time buyers that get introduced to the whole industry there after.

So I guess the obvious answer to this question is that Anónimo invites people to re-connect with art through an emotional and personal connection.

However, I have learned over the past editions that what I also love is how Anónimo is inviting new blood to enter the art world in a very easy very un-intimidating way.
 

What is your background? When did art become a passion for you?

I studied Marketing and have a minor in Market Psychology. This is why I believe my first encounter with contemporary art was such a nuclear bomb. I was living in Miami and I went to the first Art Basel Miami Beach fair. It was a tsunami of stimulations for me.

Do you collect art? Who are some of your favorite artists working today?

I do collect whatever I like, whatever I can afford and whatever grabs me in the moment. I like the pieces that I buy to carry a strong memory of the energy I felt when I came in contact with them. I believe it is what makes my home and workplace special, that those pieces help me remember the good energy they carry. I also love buying pieces from artist friends or gallerist. I really like what mutual support brings forth.

I cant possibly pin point an artist as favorite, its like saying only one song is your favorite. But I can say my favorite art movements or periods are: Modernist, Abstract, Minimalist, Dada.

What was the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

To trust my instincts above anything or anyone no matter their seniority – but to ALWAYS listen carefully to the voice of experience to at least know where the obstacles laid for them.

What is your advice to a young person looking to enter into the art industry?

I think art will forever be in the forefront of the future because it will forever express beauty. Even if it’s not aesthetic or something that you particularly like or feel connected to, it will forever express deep emotions.

This is why I always invite people to explore this fantastic world, if not to understand it on itself, but so that through it we can try and understand the times we live in.

What do you hope for the future of Anónimo?

That it can be an instrument for awareness of our current situations and contexts and human beings and inspire if not change, than at the very least a bit more consciousness.

The post Alejandra Martinez’s Anónimo Invites its Audience to Reconnect with Art appeared first on Art of Choice.

What is your background? When did you become interested in art?

A large part of my identity and perspective comes from growing up in Singapore, where I spent the first 21st years of my life. I served in the Armed Forces and then left Singapore to attend Babson College. Upon graduating, I became a partner in a software outsourcing company in Poland with Marcin, our current CTO, which we leveraged to create Artifact’s technology platform.

In Singapore, I experienced both the benefits and trials of a rigid education system with little to no focus on the arts and as a result, the relationships it created between society and the creative industries. Being an artist or art professional was perceived as lazy and uninspiring, compared to careers in medicine, law, and engineering. None of my peers visited museums or galleries, nor were they encouraged or concerned to learn about art or the people devoted to the space. I made it a personal quest to prove that art is for everyone and art can be as present and important in our lives as music & film.

The first step in that journey was learning from my father, who was an artist himself. When I was younger, I loved asking him about his artworks, discovering a great deal about him through his work and the journey he would undergo to complete each one. I understood that artists go through a journey throughout their careers, where their perspectives, medium of expression and references to their life experience change and evolve. When my father would finish a piece, he could speak about it for hours, from every material, every brushstroke and inspiration. As he grew older, the same passion and willingness to explain his work would diminish. The stories that made me fall in love with his work, faded and importantly were not accessible to anyone but me.

I realized how little opportunity there was for the general population to learn more about this industry and the heroes that are a part of it. So came the solution to my quest, I wanted to capture the artist’s vision fresh, unedited, in their own words and in a sense, immortalize it. Giving access to these stories would also ‘humanize’ art, break up the jargon and give the public a much desired, more personal and intimate connection to a piece of art, the bridge between the public and art that I had always been looking for.

What was the impetus for creating Artifact?

Beyond my personal experience, I discovered information about today’s art and artists is fragmented, incomplete and cycled through countless intermediaries like galleries and PR professionals until so much of the conversation sounds like impenetrable jargon where the voice of the artist is unrecognizable.

Their sales page is on one marketplace, their exhibition history on static text scattered on the websites of different galleries, and their perspective on the piece reserved for those who can visit their studio—not to mention needing to update their Instagram, personal website, and more.

Artists and their work are a vital part of our culture. When information is altered, or worse when there is no place to capture the artist’s vision, identity and social critique, a piece of that cultural insight is lost forever. More importantly, artists themselves lose all their agency as others control their information, a vital currency in today’s world.

It starts once a gallery or dealer receives the ability to dictate the story, price, and purchasers of the work. It ends when the artist is given the number of pieces they should create and what their practice should consist of. This behavior is damaging to the legacy of the artist, the provenance of their pieces and collectors that own their works.

Artists deserve, just like anyone, to own their information and control how their art is experienced and communicated. This will allow artists to have more control over their careers, be more easily discovered and foster closer relationships with their audience. Beyond more agency for the artists, documenting the artist’s voice provides a richer and honest perspective of our time, one of the key benefits we have relied on art and artists to do for so long.

What is Artifact?

Artifact is where Artists have a voice and own their story. Our mission is to make art for everyone by reinventing how it is experienced and how artists are discovered.

Artifact is a unique immersive platform that allows anyone to uncover the story behind a piece of art and see how it is connected to the world around us, in the voice of the artist them self. Artists create interactive portfolios, making their work and their stories searchable to art professionals and aficionados all over the world. This networking platform brings together art professionals and artists by providing access to previously unrecorded and fragmented information about artists and art.

By giving artists a commonplace and an innovative art cataloging tool to document the entire journey of their artworks, Artifact delivers a much-desired closer connection to artists, a more approachable industry and a foundation for innovation in all its sectors.

How is Artifact bridging the gap between the public and the arts?

Artifact’s platform invites the public to engage with the artist and art like never before. Each artwork has its own URL, showcasing its unique profile of two viewpoints, the artwork’s ancestry – showcasing its journey through life from verified provenance to a geographic map highlighting the influences the artist had and symbols on each work that reference our surrounding environment and the artwork’s pulse – short answer questions highlighting the work’s reason for creation and the artist’s opinion of it. This viewpoint also includes pictures and videos of the creation process as well as any other media the artist would like to share.

By providing access to information on one global public platform, we tie every influence, reference, relationships, component, style, exhibition, course, showcase, and creating a welcoming and transparent environment for the public to engage with. Artifact invites you to develop a personal relationship, on your terms, with art and artists today.

Who is Artifact’s target audience?

The platform is dedicated to everyone, everywhere that has felt a sense of intimidation, mystery or lack of understanding towards the industry, art and the passionate stories & expressions tied to it all.

We found artists to be a large part of that group. We exist first and foremost to serve them. Artifact’s interactive portfolios act as a facilitator and complementary tool to all art marketplaces, both physical and digital. Given that all the information in the artist’s portfolio is tagged, they can be searched and sourced from a large variety of touchpoints, expanding the paths between artists and galleries, curators, collectors, and the general public. Launching in the next few months, Artists will also be able to apply to open calls/career opportunities as well as seek the advice of mentors and industry experts, as a result, providing benefits to all types of art professionals.

What are you hoping for the future of Artifact?

Artifact provides a valuable benefit to every stakeholder in the art world, bringing a historically fragmented and siloed together for the first time. By making the artist’s voice an integral piece of any art experience, Artifact can simultaneously foster a deeper and more meaningful level of public participation in emerging art and equip artists, galleries, academic institutions and other art professionals with the tools to realize the potential of their newfound audiences. We are creating a foundation based on access, storytelling, and transparency.

Artifact will guarantee art and artists are never out of reach, make the language of art more inclusive, encourage people to purchase art and build relationships with artists, allow artists to control their own careers, empowering them to side-step expensive and time-wasting industry traditions, and pursue & connect directly with art professionals, and ultimately, increase the viability of being a fine artist as a profession.

What are you excited for this year?

This year, we took Artifact online so there is a lot to look forward to. I am excited to see both the vision and product exposed to various communities in the art sector. Our team is incredibly passionate about the movement and is constantly looking for new opportunities to take Artifact to new heights. Although the current product has room for painting, sculpture, installation, and drawing, we will be releasing functionality for video, performance, digital mixed media, collage, and printmaking later this year and a host of other new services.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

I remember sitting at home during college as an analytics major at the time. I came across two quotes by Joseph Bueys that I believe also fueled this 4-year journey of research, interviews and product building:

“I think art is the only political power, the only revolutionary power, the only evolutionary power, the only power to free humankind form all repression…”
“A total work of art is only possible in the context of the whole of society. Everyone will be a necessary co-creator of a social architecture, and, so long as anyone cannot participate, the ideal form of democracy has not been reached. Whether people are artists, assemblers of machines or nurses, it is a matter of participating in the whole.”

The post Aaron Isaac is Building a Platform to Tell the Stories of Artists appeared first on Art of Choice.

Nike O. Opadiran

When did you first become interested in collecting art and where did you interest come from?

In the summer of 2017, I had the privilege of coming to know, and viewing the collection, of Peggy Cooper Cafritz, a beloved arts patron who founded the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C. Her collection of contemporary black art resonated strongly with me as a young black woman. But even more so, her advocacy of young black artists inspired me and helped me understand that my purpose as a collector could be an extension of a broader commitment to countering the limited narratives of black people in today’s society.

Deborah Roberts
Miseducation of Mimi #158, 2013-2017

What was the first piece of art you purchased?

Less than a month thereafter, I acquired a piece from Tajh Rust, a terrific young artist who, at the time, was about to start his MFA at Yale. I bucked what is probably sage advice by not waiting to refine my taste or at least starting with lower cost prints. But I have no regrets. Tajh remains one of my favorite emerging talents. And although his work has grown tremendously since that piece (which he completed several years before starting at Yale), his ability to narrate the intimacy and vulnerability of black life in ways that feel universal is still present in that early piece.

Kudzanai-Violet Hwami
Hard Light, 2018

How do you go about choosing what to add to your collection?

Within that focus area, I simply strive to acquire really good pieces by artists whose work I absolutely love. Ideally, those pieces will stand, in retrospect, as early examples of the style for which an artist will later become known. But even if that’s not the case, I feel privileged to offer my patronage at a time when many artists are still figuring things out. And thankfully, many artists and dealers have rewarded my early support by later giving me access to some very important pieces.

Nina Chanel Abney
Untitled, 2017

Who are some of your favorite artists working today?

Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Henry Taylor are killing the game and adding needed voices to the conversation. In terms of artists in my collection, I hold Tajh Rust and Wangari Mathenge in special regard because my support for them predates their graduate studies. So we have, in some sense, grown up together in the art world. I also think Jonathan Lyndon Chase and Kudzanai-Violet Hwami are two of the most talented artists under 30. So I am glad to have their work in my collection.

Patrick Martinez
I AM, 2018

How do you keep up to date with the latest art trends?

Like many young collectors, I consume a lot art through Instagram by following a mix of artists, collectors and curated accounts, such as Sugarcane Magazine. I also keep up with a handful of websites and podcasts, such as artnet News, Art of Choice and The Modern Art Notes, which provide a mix of art news, interviews and market insights. But most importantly, I have developed meaningful and personal relationships with a group of collectors, advisors and dealers whose opinions I respect. Collectively, they have been great in helping me navigate this space. And, in particular, I have found their willingness to introduce me to artists, dealers or institutions has been key to unlocking a level of access that I would not have otherwise had as a new collector.

Shikeith Cathey
Brush Your Blues, 2017

Why do you find art to be a worthwhile investment?

I definitely take pride in any decision I have made to invest early in an artist who has benefited from a steep career and price trajectory. But the value I attribute to my collection is far greater than that. I am now part of a vibrant community of creative people, and that is far more valuable than potential profits. Add to that the idea that my patronage can, in small ways, provide a counter-narrative to the ways in which people who look like me are seen, and that’s all the return on investment I need.

Tajh Rust
Selam, 2019

What advice would you give to someone starting their own art collection?

Accept that this is a difficult market to navigate as a new collector. Galleries and established artists want to place work with institutions and collectors that matter. Rather than begrudge that, learn to identify what you like that also resonates more broadly with others and focus on younger, more accessible artists whose work fits within those broader trends. In time, if you do that well, you will develop a collection that gives you wider access to artists, dealers and institutions. Also, the best advice I have received to-date was from a collector who encouraged me to donate work to a museum. Trust me. That’s a good look.

Rebecca Ness
Still Shlumpy in the Kitchen, 2016

What is the next piece you would like to add to your collection?

I own a lithograph by Toyin Ojih Odutola. If the art gods bless me, I hope to add another piece by her to my collection. I am also a big fan of Arjan Martins, a Brazilian artist. So we will see if an opportunity presents itself there.

Jonathan Lyndon Chase
Blue Petals, 2018

The post Nike Opadiran’s Collection is Brimming with Top Emerging Artists appeared first on Art of Choice.

What is your background in the art world and how did it lead you to your current role?

I started with working in art galleries, which I think is a fundamental and very formative experience for whoever wants to be in the art world. When I moved to NY I also started curating exhibitions, mostly featuring emerging artists. For a couple of years I worked in Art Finance, while I continued to curate and advise on the side. I’d say that the experience in working on very different sides of the art world has been the base for my current role as an independent art advisor and curator.

What are you most passionate about in the art world?

Definitely curating. I love to have conversations and studio visits with artists and also to think about different aesthetical and conceptual connections between them. I like to curate exhibitions where I can mix different periods of time or mediums. For example my show 68-18 at Shin Gallery in 2018 brought together 48 artists that have been pivotal figures in the art world of Downtown New York between 1968 and 2018. It was a big effort but also very rewarding.

The metA Gala, May 6, 2019

Who are some of your favorite artists working today?

I’d say some of my favorite established artists working today are Mark Bradford, Bruce Nauman, and Yayoi Kusama. Artists that are having a solid career and that I believe will keep on growing are Korakrit Arunanondchai, Lucy Dodd, Alex Da Corte. Emerging artists that I would put in a young collection are Louisa Gagliardi, Sayre Gomez, Eliza Douglas. I like artists whose practice focuses on various mediums, but most important is that an artist has their own unique language.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

“It’s not the issue that matters but how you deal with it”

Tell us about your recent event held in New York City, The metA Gala.

The METa Gala was a fundraising event for the exhibition Meta-Realities. It was also an occasion to bring together experimental djs and visual artists and to create an immersive installation where music and visuals would merge. We were very lucky to have the possibility to work with great talents who put a huge effort into making the evening a very unique experience. It was very interesting to see the attendees being a little shocked at first for the visual and musical impact, and then exiting their comfort zone to start vibe with the environment.

The metA Gala, May 6, 2019

Can you also tell us about the forthcoming exhibition Meta-Realities?

The exhibition will mostly focus on site-specific installations. That’s why we wanted the METa Gala to be immersive, to be a sort of prelude to the exhibition to come. I’d like to replicate the feeling of being transported into a parallel world, this time through physical artworks instead of through ephemeral ones like video, light and music.

What are you excited for this year?

Definitely to continue this project and for what the future holds. I’m also very excited about the Venice Biennial, not only because Venice is my favorite city in Italy but also because it feels very interesting and focused on the present and the future.

The post Ludovica Capobianco Curates Immersive Experiences appeared first on Art of Choice.

What is your background and how did art become a part of your life?

I’ve been a visual and performing artist my whole life, and studied art history in college. I’ve spent the past thirteen years as an entrepreneur in the arts.

What was the impetus for creating Uprise Art?

I launched Uprise Art in 2011 in response to seeing a deep need in the market. As an art history major, many of my classmates went into the art world. They worked at galleries, institutions, and auction houses, but many did not own original artwork. None would have called themselves art collectors. I also had quite a few friends who were artists, hustling and hitting the pavement, looking for galleries to exhibit their work. I had graduated from Columbia University right before the financial crisis, so I also had this entire other group of friends who went on to be corporate lawyers, consultants, and bankers. They lived in amazing apartments with no art, and had limited time to integrate themselves into the cultural fabric of the city. They had corporate memberships to all the museums and never used them.

I saw these two groups of people – young artists and patrons – who, in twenty or thirty years, would want to know each other. I thought to myself, there has to be a mechanism to introduce these people at an earlier point in their careers. The alternative is that they miss out on all this time when they could be learning about art, living with art and having art enrich their life. And, for artists, missing out on having all the resources to continue exploring their ideas and furthering their careers.

Artwork by Jordan Sullivan. Photo by Claire-Esparros.

Why is Uprise Art important in today’s art landscape?

As the number of options increase and the amount of visual information grows, curation becomes more and more important. Traditional brick and mortar galleries create value through curation and by cultivating relationships. We have similarly invested in curation rather than algorithms, and in forming long-term relationships with collectors rather approach transactions as simply ecommerce.

How do you decide which artists to add to your roster?

We look for artists who have a unique view of the world and a conceptually compelling artistic practice. We’re also focused on advancing the careers of emerging artists, where our support can make the largest impact.

Uprise Art at PULSE Art Fair 2018.

What are some of the company’s long-term goals?

As an online gallery we’re constantly striving to utilize tech to help us be as efficient and effective as possible. We want to expand the collecting experience with more in-depth content on artists and artwork.

We’re fortunate to be based in NYC, which is home to hundreds of artists. Most people in the world do not live with that kind of proximity. Our goal is to continue to create engaging and educational content for others to have a nuanced, intimate, and sincere connection with an artist’s practice, regardless of where they are based.

Have you seen the landscape shift for females, such as yourself, looking to take on pioneering roles in the art world?

In certain areas, yes. It has become more and more difficult to ignore the disparity in representation of women in leadership positions in institutions and of women artists in the art market. Awareness is the first step. Actual change is separate from that and the next step.

Artwork by Inka-Bell. Photo by Christian-Torres.

As a female CEO, is it important to you to create equal opportunities for women both who you employ and who you represent?

Yes. Women are underrepresented in the art world, from museum directorships and permanent collections, to gallery representation and auction sales. Uprise Art is a female-founded gallery with a team of mostly women. More than 50 percent of our artists are women, which is rare in the gallery world.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

As an artist or an entrepreneur, there are many times when challenges are overwhelming. Approaching every challenge as a unique opportunity to excel and problem solve has helped me keep a positive attitude.

There are plenty of places online to buy posters and prints, and many are doing a great job. Uprise Art focuses on one-of-a-kind artist originals. It’s a totally different beast. Every SKU is unique. Art is also a highly personal purchase and most ecommerce best practices don’t apply. It’s an incredibly hard code to crack, and that is what makes every day exciting as we continue to grow our company. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Uprise Art homepage.

What are you excited for this year?

We’ve been working on a number of large-scale public and residential projects that are coming to fruition this year. I’m looking forward to growing our team and expanding on the range of artistic projects we make possible.

The post Tze Chun Disrupts The Traditional Gallery Model with Uprise Art appeared first on Art of Choice.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

When did your interest in art begin?

One of my earliest memories is sitting with my grandfather by a table in his small apartment in Israel, coloring outlined characters in a book. He was an artist who had to miss his art school studies due to the wars when he was younger. I’ve always been attracted to colors and would notice the smallest things as I went on with my life ever since.

When did you begin collecting?

My collecting started at a very young age. I was interested in collecting items I would find in my path of life, both for nostalgia and inspiration. Like collecting a small bit of energy from the past that I can always revisit. My art collection only really started as I started growing up a little and making a few bucks. One of my first buys was a sketch I bought from a talented homeless man in our area, that would sit and mumble and sketch beautiful images that I learned were things he would see in his own travels through life. He would glue the sketches on which ever wall he was leaning on and would create his very own gallery. It was beautiful.

Who are some of your favorite artists?

In no particular order, I would have to say Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Cy Twombly, Agnes Martin, Basquiat, Morris Louis, Joe Bradley, you get the idea. Colorful. Hopeful. Inspirational.

How do you think art plays a role in the restaurant world?

In a recent podcast by Dave Chang, a hero of mine and a great chef, he interviews Jerry Saltz, where they discuss the correlation between the two which I have been discussing with myself in my own mind for quite some time. There is a point of origin in creating a painting or a dish. A point of inspiration, which I feel both the artist and the chef look to revisit with their work. Of course, you can also have unintentional work as well which also ends up beautiful.

Why is it important to you to fill your restaurant with high quality work?

I hope that our customers, our diners will enjoy the colors on our walls, even if doing so without realizing. A burst of color is always better than no burst. In the case of the SLAB, my new BBQ restaurant, Warhol Gallery is our neighbor, and the idea of hanging some of their Cow prints made perfect sense. It’s great to see how many recognize it and enjoy seeing them. After all, these are signed works, which is also nice to realize that at some point, Andy himself stood right there, right in front of them.

What is your take on the LA art scene?

With the recent success of the Frieze Art Fair in LA, the constant sellouts at the Broad and the amount of people that show up at gallery openings, big and small, it’s without doubt that LA’s art scene as well as food scene are on fire. There is a lot of money here which brings in a lot of great works, although not all available for public view of course, but with local programs and talent, I am thrilled to be in this city.

Do you support local artists?

Just like in cooking, I do my best to support the local guy. Or girl. Even though Jonas wood is from Boston, he’s here now and we claim him as ours!

What’s next on your wish list?

I bought a Cy Twombly sketch at a Goodwill store a few years ago, which I want to get authenticated! I always hear of these amazing finds and hope mine will be one as well!

The post Burt Bakman Treats His Restaurant as He Would a Canvas appeared first on Art of Choice.

Brett Gorvy, 2017. Photo Zenith Richards

You’ve worn a lot of different hats in your career. Is there a common thread that connects everything you’ve done?

One of the things that defines me, as well as anyone who has found success or pleasure in what they do, is following your passion. This is something that I have been very fortunate in. Early in my childhood, my father turned to my siblings and me and said that he hoped we would one day take over the family business, but in order to do so, had come in equipped and with passion because frankly to work for something which is not going to drive you, you might as well find something else. It was a good positioning because it made us think about what is ultimately important to us.

By that stage, art and literature were completely my life. I was focused to the point, where I studied art history at University, then started doing my MA, and then my PHD. When I was doing all of this, I started realizing that my true love is exploring and communicating.

All of the opportunities I’ve been awarded have come literally by chance – a lot of my history is all these doors opening and closing. I generally jump through just before the door closes. In most cases, an avenue or opportunity occurred, and I took the chance of doing it and that flowered into something else. I began writing for the Independent Newspaper, submitting pieces on everything from culture to mountain bikes. I then started submitting to magazines and was taken on as a feature’s editor.

One day I interviewed a guy at Sotheby’s on Contemporary sculpture and the next day he offered me a job to be his number two in the department. I had no experience at all. Somehow, we clicked in some capacity. At that stage in my life, the idea of working at an auction house was probably scary and at the same time I loved being a journalist. A year later, he called me up again. He had left Sotheby’s and was now working at Christie’s. His presence at Christie’s was such that it made a lot of disruption – he was like the enemy coming in to work with this new team. He called me up out of the blue and said I’m looking for a new head of the department and it took me about 3 months to decide. My father was the one who largely influenced the decision. He said to me, “Look, what do you got to lose. At the end of the day, if you don’t enjoy it after a year, you can just write the book about your experience.” 23 years later, I was still at Christie’s. That’s basically how these things have happened. It wasn’t that I had training or a great desire to be in the commercial world, it was just meeting the right person at the right time.

When I joined Christie’s in the early 90s, the Contemporary department was the number six department, now it’s by far the number one. At that stage departments like, silver, furniture, and Old Masters, were all higher earning than contemporary art and it was also the downturn of the market at that moment. So, it was actually a really good time to start because it meant you couldn’t do much wrong. Ultimately you were building things instead of trying to hold up a whole marketplace. In 2000, I moved to New York and basically took over the department internationally.

I’ve known Dominique for 20 years, we met at Christie’s at the end of the 90s and she was running the private sale department at Christie’s at that stage. What brought us together was a shared passion for art, a shared passion to create beautiful exhibitions and to share that kind of passion on a broader scale, and actually, a great love of poetry. We realized that strangely, we loved the same poets.

Was it a long time coming for you to shift out of the auction world and into the gallery world?

It was a long time coming for Dominique in the sense that she asked me five years earlier and almost every year after to join on. We would have a yearly cup of tea and revisit the conversation and at the time, I felt like I had more room to grow in the auction world. It came to the point basically of realizing that if I was going to make a career move – I had just turned 53 – this was my last chance in a way. I intend to never retire, and I hope I can ultimately work until dotage, but that kind of energy and sense of wanting to create something, it comes from being surrounded by a certain group of people. Having the ability to do business at the drop of the hat and be ready 24/7, you have to be in a kind of mindset that I think is age-driven.

With my career, I wanted to continue to explore in a way. One of the great things that Dominique offered was this readymade platform. She had been building this wonderful business and to acquire the entire building has led to a wonderful response from artists and artists’ estates. They love the space and see it is very pure. It is a space where you can create a dialogue floor by floor. Also, Dominique had a core team in place and a group of artists she represented. We have shared loves, such as Abstract Expressionism. We had already done a lot of business together over the years because she was bringing buyers to the auction or we were doing private sales.

What do you hope to accomplish at Lévy Gorvy?

I think one of the things that I’ve found as I gained more and more experience was realizing that what I was doing was so unique. The experience that I had at Christie’s, although it was within a team, was at the top table with the very senior people, many financial people, the CEOs and CFOs, etc. You are making these very important decisions, dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars at any time. That kind of experience, to bring it into the commercial world, is actually quite unique.

It also comes down to which are the artists you really love. I think one of the things that both Dominque and I share is that we look to the gallerists that we really respect – someone like Marian Goodman, or looking back to earlier periods of time, someone like Leo Castelli or Ileana Sonnebend, or Pierre Matisse – who are these amazing personalities as much as anything else and who, because of their input, really moved art history. So, when we do a show, ultimately, it shouldn’t just be because we have a passion of showing artists that we are representing or that we love, but we really feel that by doing the show, we are contributing to art history. That might sound pompous, but why else would you do these things?

When did you begin sharing daily on Instagram?

What I love about Instagram is the beautiful objects and wonderful opportunities it allows you to share. Instagram is very finite, it forces you to be concise. You get to see exhibitions through other’s eyes and you get to see how other people are responding. You really feel the pulse. You see why everyone is posting one thing. It’s not necessarily an accurate way of reading things, but it gives you an accurate understanding of what you are responding to. To me, Instagram is an extension of why I love doing exhibitions or going to galleries myself. It’s nice to show the paintings you are seeing and what you are getting a thrill of.

Instagram made me relook at literature. I realized early on that you could add elements to the images that creates a dialogue. Then, somehow poetry came into it. Now, pretty much every time I post something, I can hear a voice – everyone thinks I know all these poems and I don’t, but I do know poets – and often a painting or a work of art will inspire me to think “Oh, that sounds like Sylvia Plath” and then I will look at the thousands of poems I have screenshotted on my phone and find one that I bookmarked a year ago and set aside because I couldn’t think of an image.

Generally, I wake up in the morning and do these things. I don’t plan them. I generally have a 20-minute rule, if I don’t finish in 20 minutes, I’ll scrap it, because otherwise you get bored of it yourself. What’s amazing is how easy it is to make these things, making these little videos that people think are incredibly well-produced. You go into an exhibition and take a little video and find some music, put it up, the whole thing doesn’t take long but the effect works. Occasionally, I go back and re-read something and think “My god, that actually made sense.” At the time when you make these things you often send them off without much thought.

In my career as a journalist, more so than just being a journalist, it was about being creative with words, being creative with ideas or just loving what I was looking at and wanting to express it. Sometimes, the only way you can do that is by writing about it.

Since Art of Choice is female run, we are interested to know if you share your relationship with art with your daughter?

She’s the kind of personality – she has quite a strong and stubborn steak in her – that she finds her own way. What I’ve learned from myself and going back to my own parents is that you follow your own passion. There’s nothing worse than being dragged through every museum and every art experience. Most recently, we went to Japan and the whole idea was for all of us to have different experiences. A lot of the experiences we had were driven by things we felt she should be showing us through her eyes. Sometimes that’s the best way of doing things.

We have father-daughter weekends when my wife is out of town where we will go downtown, and she will take me to the latest, coolest place on social media and I will take her to an art gallery with young people that she can connect to. That’s something that educates me just as much – I’m not teaching her, but we are experiencing things together. I look to my wife in the same way – she was the first Deputy Chairman at Christie’s. If I look at our own collection, we have a very strong female focus in terms of what we collect. 99% of those artists were introduced to me by my wife. I give her a lot of credit and thanks. And again, what I love about the program we have here at the gallery is its strong female focus and obviously Dominque as a partner.

What kind of art do you collect? Do you have a favorite piece in your collection?

I’m an incredibly obsessive person. Often, if I am interested in one artist, I want to collect everything. Bruce Conner is one of the artists we have and who I have been collecting since the late 90s. I introduced his work to my wife, and she was also incredibly inspired, so it became a joint project between us. We basically have created the most comprehensive collection of his work in the world. As an artist, he was obsessive in his mark making. He was an amazing filmmaker, an amazing photographer, an amazing draftsman, and collage maker and he was able to combine all these things. It’s that obsessive focus that drove me, but also the fact that he was able to work in all these different realms. He is an artist that opened a lot of doors in terms of the way we collect.

Whereas I’m much more methodical in the way I approach things, my wife is completely instinctive. She walks in and knows exactly what she wants, and she will make a b-line for it. It makes for a great partnership. Because of her interests and opening certain worlds for me, we have a very strong female voice in the collection. We primarily collect works on paper because it’s more affordable and it’s also the most instinctive element of an artist – it’s the most direct expression of their thought process, their mindset, or their abilities. It’s very rare in a drawing that an artist can fidget – it is unforgiving, every mark is understood.

That’s mostly what we collect, small scale things. Initially it was because we couldn’t really afford bigger paintings, or our apartment was not that big. If you come to our home, the walls and floors are completely covered, literally, there is not one space. We have an obsession with collecting and there is not a hierarchy between a famous artist and my favorite things, which often don’t have much commercial value – they are just inspiring and wonderful. There will be a Cy Twombly next to an artist most people won’t know about but who we both love.

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