Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

exhibition review

From Digital to Deco, Debuts to Classics, All in a Fair’s Embrace

“City” (1921), by Winold Reiss, at the Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts booth at the Salon Art + Design, at the Park Avenue Armory.Credit...The estate of the artist, 1953 until the present

The Salon Art + Design, opening on Friday, is arguably more inclusive than other fairs at the Park Avenue Armory. Art, design and decorative arts can be found here, and the fair organizers stress that everything from high-ticket items to affordable objects for new collectors are on view, with galleries trying to read the taste of millennials with money to spend.

This year something new has been added: Digital art is a featured player. And window shopping is definitely encouraged. Some of the booths are set up like art galleries; others, like living rooms. And while the east end of the old Park Avenue Armory twinkles with the interactive digital works, the booths near the entrance are showcasing modern masters like Warren McArthur and Josef Hoffmann. Some of the works here have appeared in museums; others are making their debuts. Here are some highlights from the fair’s 56 galleries.

Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts Just inside the entrance, Mr. Goldberg, a New York gallerist, is showing the paintings of Winold Reiss, a German-born American artist who took a holistic approach to art and design. Reiss created paintings, menus and even matchbooks for restaurants like Longchamps, a storied chain in New York. Alongside Reiss’s paintings of the 1930s, the booth has furniture designed during the same period by McArthur, whose wealthy family commissioned a Frank Lloyd Wright house that may have served as an inspiration for it. McArthur embraced the same machinist aesthetic as Reiss and was an Art Deco innovator who was among the first to use aluminum in furniture design.

Yves Macaux and Richard Nagy These two dealers have teamed up to create a stellar presentation of Expressionist art and design. Mr. Nagy, a London dealer, has brought drawings by Egon Schiele, featuring nudes in curious positions, as well as a luridly colored portrait of a woman in a green blouse from around 1906, by Kees van Dongen, a Dutch-French painter. A canvas by Ludwig Meidner shows two men scuffling and is graced with the wonderful title “The Incident in the Suburbs” (1915). Mr. Macaux, a Brussels dealer, adds chairs, clocks and other decorative arts to the booth, made by designers like Hoffmann. Several of the objects Mr. Macaux is showing have appeared in New York’s home for Expressionism, the Neue Galerie.

Image
This games table by Josef Hoffmann is from the Brussels dealer Yves Macaux.Credit...Galerie Yves Macaux

Galerie Maria Wettergren A striking example of contemporary design installed at Maria Wettergren is a sculpture by Mathias Bengtsson, an artist whose work is in the collections of MoMA and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. To make his “Growth Chaise Longue” (2017), Mr. Bengtsson used software to “plant” a digital seed in his design program that simulated organic growth. He then created a three-dimensional print of the vinelike results and had it cast in bronze, joining ancient techniques with new ones in a curious and captivating object.

Image
“Growth Chaise Longue,” by Mathias Bengtsson, from Galerie Maria Wettergren.Credit...Galerie Maria Wettergren

Priveekollektie Contemporary Art | Design Another high-tech presentation is at the Dutch dealer Priveekollektie. Lining the walls of the dark booth are digital and interactive pieces by the British artist Dominic Harris, whose work is currently installed in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Using cameras and software, Mr. Harris captures pictures of animals and plants and then tweaks them, displaying the moving images on Ultra High Definition (UHD) screens to create what he calls “living paintings.” The trick is that you can alter the picture somewhat, changing the time of day or the arrangement of flowers in a vase, making still life into something personal and mutable.

Joan B. Mirviss Ms. Mirviss, a New York dealer, specializes in Japanese ceramics. The work of Sakiyama Takayuki, who lives on the Izu peninsula, 75 miles from Tokyo — but reachable only by arduous travel — approaches nature in a traditional medium. His abstract, swirling stoneware sculptures, covered with a glaze made from local sand, reflect the movement of wind and waves in his remote habitat. The titles of the works emphasize this: All begin with the word “Choto,” which translates roughly to the echo or sound of the waves.

Image
A stoneware vessel with a sand glaze by the Japanese ceramist Sakiyama Takayuki, on view at Joan B. Mirviss.
Credit...Richard Goodbody

Pierre Marie Giraud More contemporary ceramics, as well as glass and lacquer objects, are found at the booth of this Brussels dealer. Kristin McKirdy makes biomorphic ceramic sculptures, while Jean Girel’s sedate landscape vases are divided into horizontal registers of land, sea or sky — or treat the surface as if it were a hazy Impressionist painting. Giraud also has a roundup of ceramics by Japanese artists, including Yoshiro Kimura’s works with electric-hued glazes; Takuro Kuwata’s crater- and lava-like objects; and Ritsue Mishima’s shimmering glass vessels.

Maison Gerard A lavish sofa from 1984 by Pucci de Rossi, the Italian-born Postmodernist, harks back to 19th-century Orientalist art and design, with a mash-up of references and materials, including velvet, hidden compartments and marbled wood and inlaid marquetry. Gerard also has a commode made for the fashion designer Jean Patou, and a carved coffee table by Michael Coffey with a lazy Susan inside. Mr. Coffey appears more prominently in Amy Lau’s booth.

Image
Pucci de Rossi’s 1984 elaborate velvet sofa in the Orientalist style, at Maison Gerard’s booth.Credit...Maison Gerard, New York

Amy Lau Design An interior designer rather than a gallerist, Ms. Lau has created a complete environment in her booth, emphasizing “atmosphere” (the booth has that title) as much as individual objects. Ms. Lau is showcasing a massive wooden fireplace hand-carved by Mr. Coffey, with a bronze fireplace screen with porcelain accents designed by David Wiseman of Los Angeles. Ms. Lau’s booth pays homage to Art Nouveau, with its sinuous lines and botanical references. In a fair that is filled with a range of periods and sources, it’s a good lesson in how to make objects play together harmoniously, with neither art nor design dominating.

The Salon Art + Design
Nov. 10 through 13 at the Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue; 212-777-5218, thesalonny.com.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Where Window Shopping Is Encouraged. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT