VoltaNY’s new SoHo home is a great fit for a well-curated and spirited art fair.

Richard Garrison at Robert Henry Gallery, Brooklyn.

Garrrison CCS Tractor Supply. Robert Henry Gallery

Richard Garrison created fractured color wheels that are a scientific examination of objects like the Sunday circulars, drive-thru window menu color schemes and product packaging. Garrison measures the amount of each color, and then, in concentric rings of color, graphs the amount of each color in gouache and watercolor on paper. Each wedge of color in the circle is marked as to which picture of the product it originates from.
Featured Image:  Circular Color Scheme: Tractor Supply Co., April 4-9, 2012, Page 1. “Chick Days”, 2012 Watercolor, gouache and graphite on paper. 25″ x 25″ © Richard Garrison. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Salustiano at Kavanchina Contemporary, Miami.

Salustiano. “También Hacia Luz” N 3

Large oval medallions washed in rich opaque red and black are very difficult to pass by. These are striking works not only because of their sheer presence, but also because of the models’ gaze. They are a contemporary reincarnation of the renaissance masters. The physical shapes of these works reflect Michelangelo’s “tondos” while the technique is a step-by-step reproduction of Van Eyck’s glaze-layering first employed some 500 years ago. The artist under-paints each portrait with layers of brown and blue glaze that produce this etherial glowing effect on his figures. While the physical processes may refer to the history of art, his models – children and adolescents have an umistakable imprint of the (post)modern society. Isn’t there a similarity with Ira Bordo‘s portraits?
Featured Image: “Tambien hacia luz” N 3. Natural pigments, oil, acrylic resin on canvas, 175×230 cm. © Salustiano. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Brian Dettmer at KINZ + TILLOU Fine Art, New York.

Brian Dettmer. Tower 1. Detail 3E. Volta NY art fair

By far the most fascinating body of work at the fair is Brian Dettmer’s book sculptures. Dettmer’s obsessive de-construction and subsequent re-construction of the vintage books into installations creates a stunning result that plays on the compulsive tendencies of the viewer. The artist explains his interest in the material: “The book’s intended function has decreased. Its relevance remains vital but the content stays sedentary and the form remains linear in a non-linear world. We are left with the raw material…”
Featured Image: Tower 1. Detail. ©Brian Dettmer. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Kyotaro Hakamata at Ma2 Gallery, Tokyo.

Kyotaro Hakamata. VoltaNY

These multi-layered acrylic figures at first appear to be slammed into the wall face first. Depressing, really. But overcome this first impression and ask the director of this Tokyo-based gallery to tell you more about the figures and their awkward placement. It turned out that these carved candy-colored figures, (their surface is rather an unexpected tactile experience), are looking at a whole different world, there beyond the material substance of the wall. A hugely optimistic approach! In fact we should all have one of these figures to remind us that “hitting the wall” just reminds us of the whole other world of opportunities awaiting on the other side.
Featured Image: Man with a Bottle. 74×21.5x16cm © Kyotaro Hakamata. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Susanne Rottenbacher at Teapot Gallery, Cologne.

Susanne Rottenbacher began her career studying stage and light design at the Columbia University in New York and the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning in London. Luminous, engaging and seductive. Rottebbacher’s curved light sculptures are futuristic objects that prompt the possibility of time travel. They are Alice’s light deep into the tunnel to Wonderland. Inside the transparent plastic objects a filigree wire structure is trimmed with small colored LED-lamps. The outside is painted with stripes of differing color intensity, width and density.
Featured Image: Shine a Light. © Susanne Rottenbacher. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Alice Attie at Foley, New York.

Alice Attie, VoltaNY Art Fair

Returning to the Surrealist concepts of considering written language for its visual qualities and presenting it alongside drawing Alice Attie makes language the focal point in her work. In her most recent body of work Class Notes, she composed drawings in both physics and philosophy while at Columbia University over a period of three years. Each one of these highly-detailed drawings, wether in the shape of a loop, an organic string, an abstract cluster, or a cross with words dripping off the arms, was completed within the time frame of a single class. “Her subjects include lectures on Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger and the philosophy of Islam and quantum physics. The physical and the metaphysical, the minuscule and the grand…”
Featured Image: Physics K257 (Detail), 2010. 11″x14″. ©Alice Attie. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Amy Schissel at Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa.

Amy Schissel VoltaNY Art Fair

From the gallery: “Whirling schemata, concentrated notational systems, and web-like linear structures negotiate hybrid moments where paint and modes of digital representation collide. These systems, frenetically layered to visualize the largely invisible information flows that cut across cities, hover over continents, and seemingly negate the need of geographical location for human interaction and communication. Her works are an imaginative reinvention of our contemporary landscape and have become a means to re-insert a sense of civic legibility where the World Wide Web calls us to be everywhere and nowhere at once.”
Featured Image: Cyberfields, Acrylic, ink, charcoal, mixed media on paper 96″ X 132″, 2012. ©Amy Schissel Image courtesy of the gallery.

Watch more interviews from The Armory Show 2013 and the ADAA: The Art Show.

This article © galleryIntell