The Affordable Art Fair, Fall 2010

 

 

The Affordable Art Fair had its first Fall annual fair in NYC on September 3o, 2010 with 60 international and local galleries. Contemporary art was made available to the masses with prices ranging from $100 to $10,000 (artdaily.org).

It seemed that most people were drawn to the Pop Art inspired pieces as opposed to the more traditional paintings of landscape and classical subjects. There was lots of color seen in the art that was displayed.

The Affordable Art Fair was buzzing with the energy of a young crowd. Looking around the space, the fair-attendees appeared to range from young to middle aged professionals, trendy people, as well as older businessmen. The crowd was also quite international and consisted of Europeans, Americans, and a few Asian people as well. While most were admiring the art, many were also ferociously jotting down notes. Probably to remind themselves of which artists to keep an eye on! Surprisingly though, it didn’t seem as though too many people were buying, but judging from the interest, I’m sure they were planning on taking a second look…

Do the butterflies in this gallery remind you of any artist? It made me think of British artist Damien Hirst’s paintings.

At the Woolff Gallery, a British Gallery I noticed there were a lot of works influenced by Pop Art. Anne Marie Wright’s “Monroe” and Robert Mars’ “Real Gusto”.

 

 

 

 

Galerie Envie d’Art

Pascal Vilcollet paints many icons of our time through the traditional medium of oil painting. He paints cultural icons including Karl Lagerfeld, Andy Warhol and Twiggy. It is interesting to see that Warhol seems prevalent throughout the entire art fair.

 

 

Regis Guerin, below, has been with the LM Galerie Paris since 2009. He painted since the age of 15, and graduated from Esag/Penninghen School. He uses a lot of mixed media to create visions of superheroes. The titles he uses redefines the subject matter in a seemingly American propagandist context:

 

 

 

 

 

 

About an hour after walking past LM Gallerie, Regis Guerin’s Peace Maker, priced at $4000, had been sold! The buyer, however, was unknown.

Again, here the use of collage and mass media evokes the Pop influences.

More art seen at LM Galerie:

 

 

Bleach Box is a specialist gallery working with artists who exploit and experiment with film based photography and traditional printing techniques to create challenging images (bleachbox.co.uk) Bleach Box was one of the more popular booths at the fair and had people poring over boxes of prints. Many people were walking around with prints in their hands. One was even taken off the wall right before my eyes! Bleach Box is based in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

 

 

 

 

Some of the more classical pieces I saw (Priced at $2700 each). This is by Patrick Pietropoli:

 

 

More images from the AAF:

 

 

This work of art is very similar to the artist, Hitomi Hosono, represented by Adrian Sassoon. She also has a porcelain series and studied in Japan before going to the UK.