Missed the scope art fair? Not us. We saw the 72 galleries in 72 hotel rooms on six floors, two to 10 artists per room, and we did it in five hours, with a break for lunch, but who’s counting? Well you can do the math. We can’t bear to. What tickled us most was the use of every square inch of space in those hotel rooms–the beds, the bath, the floor the ceiling, the window ledges, closets, drawers, desktops, etc.
So here’s the bed, the bath and the beyond of scope, more pix, fewer words, to give a sense of the event. And for you non-Americans who don’t know the reference, here’s the play on words. (It’s too much time for us to link to the galleries, but the scope website is here).
Bed
olsen, rune
That tried and true hotel bed activity, as practiced by two lions at Samson Projects’ hotel room (“Fucking Lions” by Rune Olsen, graphite on archival masking tape over a wire armature padded with newspaper, all coated withy acrylic gel).
bowlby, astrid
Philadelphia artist Astrid Bowlby created a bedspread gone wild with her acrylic on cut-paper installation at Gallery Joe’s room.
conant, chrissy
It didn’t make us feel secure, but maybe you’ll feel safer in bed under the protection of the “Homeland Security Blanket” by Chrissy Conant at lyonswiergallery’s room.
hamburger, susan
Late in the day, we took pictures but forgot about the notes. Here’s a Delft-on-foam-core tea party on the bed at some young, hip gallery where the art sitters were already into the wine, not the tea. (Addendum 03/16/05: Turns out the artist is Susan Hamburger and the china is Spode-on-foam. And the bed was in Williamsburg Gallery 31 Grand‘s room.)
rapp, ray
Ray Rapp’s mini-videos of bodies in action (on the bed) were familiar friends. Rapp’s work was memorable in “Subtle Nothings” at the Borowsky Gallery last year (see our artists index, left, for posts).
van empel, ruud
We eyeballed the art at Michael Steinberg Gallery. It stared back at us. We couldn’t tell if the eyes crossed the line between art and kitsch from Bed, Bath and Beyond.
fenzl, christine
Kids on pillows were a subgenre in the bedroom art department. These digibabies, photocollages by Ruud van Empel come from TZR Gallery in Bochum, Germany.
loefke, andrea
Here’s another child on a pillow–Christine Fenzl’s “Paulina,” is on display by Volcker & Freunde Berlin, also German. Thought you’d like to know the asking price–$5,000.
matthews, rob
Curtis Fairman’s oooh la la sculptures promised glitter, chrome, surveillance and roulette wheels, although as far as we could tell, they were non-functioning objects. The gallery name was Dust and it’s in Las Vegas.
bristow, bethany
This is a sleeping astronaut, part of the artifacts that become a basis for the “documentary” photographs of Kahn/Selesnick, showing at Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York. Years ago we remember seeing a Kahn/Selesnick panorama photograph at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The gallerist confirmed that the PMA’s photography curator Kate Ware had made the purchase.
munn, robert and sara cook
Bath
Joan Linder’s Geoge Bush caught holding his privates in his hand in the tubby got a laugh out of us at the Mixed Greens room. Mixed Greens is a New York venue supporting emerging artists.
Andrea Loefke’s tub floweth over at PH Gallery’s WC. PH is a New York Gallery, by the way.
cook, sara and robert munn
And look who we found in Gallery Joe’s loo. Rob Matthews’ drawings, reflected in the mirror above the sink, include a drawing of a sink, left bottom. Gallery Joe is the only Philadelphia Gallery in Scope this year, and Matthews is a Philadelphia artist and artblog contributor.
Feathers under glass by Bethany Bristow reminded us of David Altmejd’s goth-strocities. The glass looked like melted jars and bottles and paperweights. The gallery was New York’s W/O Walls. Look for her work in Greater New York 2005.
We have no information about who made this male version of the sex doll, but it was expanding and contracting and gasping for breath on Artcore/Fabrice Marcolini’s bathroom floor. The gallery is from Toronto.
The bathroom came out into the bedroom to support paintings at Factor Gallery, a featured project of HAMES LEVACK, a London operation that expects to open Factor in New York soon. Those are toilet paper rolls under the paintings.
Robert Munn and Sara Cook created a couple of holograms, one mounted on the bathroom mirror at The Proposition (we think), a New York Gallery.
Here’s more picture with no note taking. Roberta liked it. Libby thinks she never saw it. But it’s in the bathroom, mounted on the mirror–bathroom reading.
Beyond
For a time we kept running into these fraternal twins, male and female look alikes who we think we may have seen at the Whitney Biennial press preview. The photo comes from contributor and fellow blogger Mark Barry. See his post at ionarts with a swell picture of more bed art and animals.
Here’s a once-in-a-lifetime meeting of two Astrids, Bowlby (left) and a German-born Astrid who was attending Scope.
And beyond the bedrooms and bathrooms, back in the lobby, we found artist Matt Fisher, and his friends Tracy Matthews and her husband, artist Rob Matthews. Fisher was a featured artist at Stephanie Theodore’s room, and if you look back through this post, you’ll see some Matthews work that was in the bathroom department.
Maybe a little commentary later, if we each have the energy for it. We’re still recovering. But we loved seeing so much work in so little space and we’d do it again.
