Chris Duncan, Cornered, 2014, acrylic, twine, paint, wood. Image courtesy of Halsey Mckay Gallery, East Hampton.
Approaching Chris Duncan's Cornered at the end of a hall, we felt as though we were about to fall into a vast black hole—though a pleasantly geometric one. Duncan used mirrors and the art fair space to get the effect.
Chul-Hyun Ahn, Untitled (Double) #5, 2014. Edition of 3 + 1AP, 45 1/2 × 45 1/2 × 5 1/2 in (115.6 × 115.6 × 14 cm). Image courtesy of C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore.
Chul-Hyun Ahn's neon light installatations fall into the "light art movement" category, along with the art of Olafur Eliasson and Ivan Navarro. What's interesting about Ahn's is the way the works seem to create infinite abysses in walls they occupy, which the Korean artist conceptually ties to Buddhist tenants.
Adrian Esparza, Start and Stop, 2014. Sarape, wood, nails, enamel. 213.4 x 238.8 cm, 84.0 x 94.0 inch, 7.0 x 7.8 feet. Image courtesy of Taubert Contemporary, Berlin.
Texas-based artist Adrian Esparza assembles his intricate geometric works with simply string, wood and nails. He calls them "Sarapes," after a type of blanket worn as cloak, traditionally Latin American.
John Riepenhoff, Art Stand, 2014, wood, wire and clothing, 12" x 19" x 50" inches. Intallation View. Image courtesy of Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York.
Gallerist Nathalie Karg made art-handler-art by pairing John Riepenhoff's leg-stands with seven works by female painters. Included are paintings by Katherine Bernhardt, Michelle Grabner, and Jennifer Guidi.
Aura Rosenberg, Dialectical Porn Rock, 1989-2012, rocks, newspaper, Xerox, resin. Installation view. Image courtesy of Martos Gallery, New York.
Take a close look at these rocks. Notice anything... suggestive? When artist Aura Rosenberg made the first few back in the 1980s, she hid them where her friend was going fishing. Any fish caught were not remembered as much as the porn clippings seemingly produced by nature on the stones.
Rosenberg liked how they appeared within the landscape, and continued making them. She titled the series Dialectical Porn Rocks after Robert Smithson's "The Dialectical Landscape" essay (1973), which debunked the use of idyllic landscapes as an art trope.
Nick van Woert, Untitled (Noise 5), 2014. Resin statue and Sculpey. 33.75 x 23.75 x 11.5 inches. Image courtesy of OHWOW Gallery, Los Angeles.
Brooklyn-based sculptor Nick van Woert forms sculptures like the one pictured after the shape of other sculptures—but the replicas are made of unusual materials. This effectively erases the original's detail. Here, he used malleable Sculpey clay to make a bust. The colors feel liks TV static, dissolving the work's humanness.
Ben Weiner, Passages, 2012, oil on canvas, 28 x 54 inches. Image courtesy of Mark Moore Gallery, Culver City.
Artist Ben Weiner used to assist Jeff Koons—and, we're told, has a piece in an eminent museum by his own hand, under Koons's name. The experience made Weiner pledge not to use assistants in painting his labor-intenstive photorealistic images. He produces about eight annually. But his works—like this one of a paint dollop close up—are worth the wait.
BÄST, Wood & Carta, 2014, Wood Assemblage, 109h x 55w i. Image courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton.
Brooklyn-based BÄST may be the most prolific artist you've never heard of, yet. A native New Yorker, BÄST makes assemblages with trash like broken china or scrap wood. Eyes, rendered in various ways, proliferate throughout his works.
He also collaborates with Marc Jacobs on t-shirts and sneakers. As of now, he's the only artist the designer has allowed to have his name adjacent to Jacobs's own on item's labels.
Claire Ashley. Thing Two, 2012. 36" x 72" x 12" , Spray paint on PVC-coated canvas, fan. Image courtesy of Galleri Urbane, Dallas.
Chicago-based artist and professor Claire Ashley makes inflated sculptures that resemble pillows, but malformed and on psychedelics.
At the Dallas Art Fair's opening night Gala, Ashley devised an enormous duct-tape and paint covered parachute. Inside a dozen or so dancers gyrated and ran around, forming exterior wild shadows to the beat of clanging music.
Irby Pace, Dakota Fanning Was Here, 2013. Image courtesy of Galleri Urbane, Dallas.
To capture the bright powdery poofs in his "Pop!" series, Irby Pace ignites dyed smoke balloon bombs. The abandoned locations he chooses make us feel witness to candy-colored supernatural occurances. Or here, maybe just Dakota Fanning's lingering, oddly green, presence.
Peter Sutherland, From Rare to Scarce, 2014, OSB, inkjet printed on perforated vinyl, matte medium, 72" x 48" Inches. Image courtesy of Bill Brady KC, Kansas City.
Peter Sutherland is a member of Red Hook's Still House collective. We love the juxtaposition between fire and wood, almost palpable and vivid, printed with inkjet on vinyl. Looking at his Tumblr page, which has somewhat of a cult following, we're wondering if this brush fire may have been his inspiration.
Tony Matelli, Untitled (Red Rope), 2014, stainless steel and pigmentd silicone. 90 x 46 x 43 inches. Image courtesy of Marlborough Gallery Chelsea, New York. Photo by John Kennard.
Tony Matelli, of Wellesley's naked Sleepwalker notoriety, created another sort of apparition in this floating rope. Equally realistic, though with less underwear, the cord is only steel and silicone.
Purdey Fitzherbert, Canopy, 2013. Mixed media on canvas. 250cm x 90cm. Image courtesy of Hus Gallery, London.
British artist Purdey Fitzherbert gets the deep, misty effect in her paintings by first layering primer to conceal the canvas, followed by oil and spray paint. On top is metallic pigment to create millions of "pixels." The idea is that it mimics our mind's "after-image," that is, the remnants of visual stimuli we're bombarded with daily. It evaporates harmlessly here, drifting away in our unconscious.