PALM BEACH 3: Surprises and Success, Miami Continues to Impress
Jeanette Hendler
Palm Beach 3, SOFA, exhibition space.
The 2005 art fair season has been in Florida. Following the third year of Art Basel/Miami, several smaller fairs took place: the Connoisseur Fair in West Palm Beach, held at Kravis Center; the 15th year of Art Miami; then followed the very newest concept in art fairs, Palm Beach 3. Redesigned and renamed, it really encompassed three fairs in one. The galleries and dealers participating often blurred the lines of the three distinct categories–a section for fine art (featuring works of every possible medium, including video and installation art), an areas dedicated to photography (with vintage, contemporary and emerging photographers), and the very interesting categorical designation called SOFA (Sculptural Objects and Functional Art). The title of the SOFA section was not definitive of what objects exhibited therein. Furniture and decorative arts dominated its showcases. This was the area that attracted the most attention, since not only was the SOFA concept new but the dealers exhibiting were at the top of their field, their wares, exceptional. SOFA is the same organization that annually runs the very successful SOFA fairs in both Chicago and NY. Their experience shows. They really know how to run a first class operation.
Housed in the new and beautiful Palm Beach Convention Center, located in West Palm Beach, there were over 100 international exhibitors. The emphasis was definitely on contemporary or post war art, with the organizers preferring to use the post 1950 date as the starting point for the fair.
Prominent were over a dozen German galleries, including three from bustling Berlin, and others from Frankfurt, Cologne and Leipzig. The talk of the fair was that Germany has the hottest contemporary art community in the world and the sheer number of foreign exhibitors from the one country supported to this.
Many visitors were astounded to see the very first viewing of a Cuban exhibitor in many years. Galerie Habana from Havana, specialized in painting and sculpture done by artists working in Cuba. The work was quite good but the dealers associated with the gallery were very reticent about discussing anything other than the art they were presenting. I observed many attempts by others to engage them in conversation about the political situation in Cuba. The dealers would continuously look over their shoulders, repeating, "only art please, no political talk."
The admirable Galerie Stefan Ropke of Cologne, Germany, welcomed visitors at the entrance to the fair, screening an enormous, room-size video and neon installation with suspended monitors, which flickered self-portraits of the Greek artist, Apolstolos Palavrakis. The various images were projected amid angular beams. It was an powerful gateway, under whose monitors each visitor had to enter and exit the fair.
Israel’s outstanding exhibitor was the Dvir Gallery, from Tel Aviv. Creating a photographic interpretation of Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper, the Israeli photographer Adi Nes shot an image of fourteen army fatigue clad Israeli soldiers dining at the supper table (née mess hall). This beautiful, carefully staged and controversial image garnered huge attention. The Dvir gallery is no stranger to the international stage, famous for representing the American artist Lawrence Wiener among others. It was also the first time that an Israeli gallery exhibited at the Palm Beach 3.
Art jewelry was showcased in abundance at the SOFA section of the fair. Described by the various dealers, "as being an art, rather than a craft, the value not necessarily in the stones or weight of the gold or other metals, but in the artistic design." Galleries such as Aaron Faber and Charon Kransen, both of New York, and many other dealers were featuring art jewelry and their booths were always crowded.
Photography is treated with great importance in this area of Florida, due partly to the fact that Baroness Jean von Oppenheim donated 670 top notch photos to the local Norton Museum of Palm Beach, making it one of the preeminent photography collections in the Southeastern United States. Also, the same area has the Palm Beach Photographic Centre, with its internationally known photography and digital imagery event, Fotofusion. This yearly event is held 15 minutes south of the Palm Beach 3 fair. It is known all over the world and attended by nearly a thousand photographers, including Pulitzer Prize Winners. In addition, two of the mort important private photography collections, namely the Marty Margulies and also the Debra and Dennis Scholl collections, are housed in this area of Florida.
The Photography area of the fair was almost one-third of the dealers exhibiting. There were such stalwarts as Howard Greenberg and Staley-Wise, both from New York, presenting blue chip photography. Less well known in the field, but equally interesting was the booth of Holden Luntz, of Palm Beach. He presented wonderful works by Florence Chezallier and Neil Folberg as well as photographs by the painter Ben Shonzeit.
In the Contemporary portion of the fair, I admired the works of the Scott White Gallery of Telluride, Colorado, which brought works by Botero, Giacometti, Calder, Christo and Rickey. A new addition to the art fair exhibitors was Millenia from Florida with great Dine, Rosenquist and Motherwell works. Whitford Fine Art from London had an outstanding Noguchi granite and wood coffee table from 1950 among other important art. Eckert Fine Art of Naples, Florida, showed rarely seen exquisite works from Robert Rauschenberg, done in the 70s.
Lecture programs accompanying the fair were plentiful and interesting. Artists such as Lino Tagliapietra, Sam Maloof and Michael Sherrill gave talks. Collectors Jane Holzer, Marty Margulies and corporate collectors Wilmington Trust also participated in the series. The director of the George Eastman House spoke on "Reading Photographs," which was sponsored by the Palm Beach Photographic Centre.
The marketing department of the fair endeavored to distinguish Palm Beach, not only with the works displayed but with the events surround the event. The organizers were successful in engaging companies to provide unusual, even extravagant, tourist packages to visitors: visitors could have a simulated spin in space in a specially modified Boeing 727-200; ride in a L39 fighter jet; tour elite spots such as Donald Trump’s Mara-Lago Club in Palm Beach; explore shipwrecks; tour John F. Kennedy’s bomb shelter, located on an island off of Palm Beach; drive a Ferrari on the Ferrari racetrack.
These playful, if extravagant, activities should not distract from the fact that the quality of work shown at Palm Beach 3 was very high. The primary downside that I observed was the confusing layout of the fair. Many attendees complained they had got lost, circling round the exhibits. Hopefully, future fairs will address that very minor defect.
