Over breakfast at Casa Comtesse I noticed a listing in the local paper for the Material Art Fair, and it was going on just down the street from where I was staying!
This was the first year of the Material Art Fair with just forty galleries in attendance. The focus of the fair was on "Emerging Practices"(!?) A little over half of the galleries came from outside of Mexico. Several exhibitors were actually artists co-ops such as the Neter, which isn't so much a gallery as a group of artists that are committed to promoting their artwork by promoting the gallery. These groups work together, pulling from the groups resources to build bigger and better events, exhibits, opportunities, and artwork. These groups with their can do attitude added a lot to the optimistic atmosphere of the art fair.
The Neter used customized pizza boxes to create portfolios that included limited edition prints by twelve of their artists. Very nice work at a very reasonable price.
Printed Matter Inc. |
I was very surprised and happy to see Dallas represented by artist Ricardo Paniagua at the DAI Gallery...
Kevin Jacobs Director of the Oliver Francis Gallery
And Dallas's own emerging practice gallery, the Oliver Francis Gallery .
Over all, the Material Art Fair was a great opportunity to see how artists, co-ops, and galleries are approaching the art market with new alternatives in the hopes of making big waves. Hopefully next year MAF will make a bigger splash by spending more time on promoting the art fair, and perhaps finding a better location than the fourth floor of the Hilton. |
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