First Person Artist is a weekly column by artist Kimberly Brooks in which she provides commentary on the creative process and showcases artists' work from around the world.
Right now, there is a giant pulsing orb of a fair going on known as Miami Basel singeing most artists' arm hairs. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it was started only five years ago as a sister fair to Art Basel Switzerland and has since mushroomed into an extravaganza with over 20 satellite fairs and numerous insane parties and festivities to go along with it. I'm not there, but some of my paintings are, and I have no arm hairs left to speak of.
During the life of this column I've been asked how I select artists to interview. I'm not an art critic and I don't view that as my role. Rather, I'm an artist sitting on a hill with a megaphone. Sometimes, as an artist/creative spirit/thinker, I have something to say--the editors here tell me they wish I had more things to say-- but most of the time I hand it to another artist. Artists, in my opinion, should be interviewed more about their own work. And it should be everywhere not just the art magazines. Since at any given time there are only, say, a couple gazillion artists with a show to promote, I pass the megaphone around. (The contradictory nature of making art and promoting oneself is a whole other subject.) So, in addition to being a part of the art community and frequent midnight art expeditions on the web looking at other artists' work, I also ask every artist I interview to suggest artists that they think should be featured.
One of our recent featured artists who is at the fairs is painter Liat Yossifor. She turned me onto some artists that I wanted to share with you:
Roni Horn at Miami Basel Fair
Roni Horn. Cabinet Of 2001 36 C-prints. Image Courtesy of Hauser Wirth .
Roni Horn. Puff (1) 2002 C-Prints / cymbolic light jet. Image Courtesy of Hauser Wirth.
Uri Nir at the Pulse FairI heard about this from other artist friends, too. He had a dark room with three projections that looked like film noir, all black and white; one video was of an injection of blood to a jellyfish-- it was very abstract, like an underwater flower, something between extreme beauty and pain.
Keren Cytter at PulseThese are film stills from a film about relationships and gender-- a modern update of a Greek drama with a European twist. It does not suffer the fate of some art films which look like it should be done better and on TV. It actually works as a complex and visually layered works of art.
Keren Cytter, French Film, 2002 12' digital video, color-b/wImage Courtesy of Noga Gallery, Israel.
Bari Ziperstein at the Pulse FairHe makes sculptures that look like modern furniture with an artists' intervention.
Bari Ziperstein. Untitled (Chandelier). 2007 Chandelier, plaster over foamcore. Studio Installation View
Bari Ziperstein. Untitled (Bathroom) 2006 Light jet print (edition of 5) 30 in. x 40 in.Images Courtesy of Bank Art Gallery.
Liat Yossifor herself exhibited at PulseLiat turns the surface of the paint into fine sculpture and light on it subtly changes was you change the viewing angle.
Liat Yossifor 15 x 18 in. Oil on Panel.
Liat Yossifor Installation paintings Oil on Panel. Images Courtesy of Noga Gallery, Israel.
Laurent Grasso from Nada FairVideo that was digitally manipulated entitled "Palaiv". In lieu of that image which we don't have we show an installation of his creating sun in the night.
Du Soleil dans la Nuit 2006 Vue de l'installation Nuit BlancheImage Courtesy of Galerie Chez Valentin
Kimberly Brooks at AquaThis is what happened to the canvas I wrote about in my column about the creative process. My gallery saw it half-complete and insisted I finish so they could take it with them-- it was still wet when it left the studio.
Ara Peterson at the Nada FairShe makes paintings that seem like sculputre and are based on music. She also experiments with retinal mixing where her use of color mixes in the eye and changes depending upon the viewers angle of viewing.
Ara Peterson. Impervious Vibes, 2006. Latex and acrylic on pine slats 60 x 85 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches
Ara Peterson. Impervious Vibes (details), 2006. Latex and acrylic on pine slats.Image Courtesy Ratio3 Gallery.
If you're at the fair, please turn us onto some of the artists or observations that struck you in the comments section of the post.
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