The 35,000 square foot pavilion and its dramatic glass box entrance on 57th Street and 12th Ave will host SCOPE’s flagship fair, SCOPE New York, featuring over 50 international galleries and museum-quality programming that will highlight groundbreaking, emerging work in contemporary art and beyond.

Aureus Contemporary will be presenting new works by Jeff Depner, Chad Wys, Claire Shegog, Yi-Hsin Tzeng and Karim Hamid.

Booth E01

Wednesday | March 7 | 3pm – 9pm

For VIP and Press

(or $100 donation at door)

Proceeds benefit chashama

Thurs | March 8 | 11am – 8pm
Fri | March 9 | 11am – 8pm
Sat | March 10 | 11am – 8pm
Sun | March 11 | 11am – 7pm

Save the Date for a «Karim Hamid Solo Show» at VOLTA NY.

VOLTA NY is an invitational show of solo artists’ projects and the American incarnation of the successful young fair founded in Basel in 2005. VOLTA NY was conceived by art critic and fair director Amanda Coulson to continue the original mandate of a tightly-focused, boutique event that is a place for discovery. Both Basel and New York fairs provide a showcase for current art production and relevant contemporary positions regardless of the artist or gallery’s age.

By putting the focus back on artists through exclusively featuring solo projects, VOLTA NY promotes a deep exploration of the work of its selected projects, an opportunity for discoveries that move beyond those afforded by a traditional art fair. While many fairs provide a broader overview, with more represented artists in each booth, visitors to VOLTA NY compare the experience to a more focused series of intense studio visits.

A platform for challenging, often complementary, sometimes competing ideas about contemporary art, the strictly solo format is what gives the New York fair its unique character.

Visitor Information:

Previews:
Thursday, March 8, 2012

Guest of Honor: 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
(Access only with VOLTA Preview Invitation)

VIP / Press: 12 p.m. – 2 p.m.
(Access only with VOLTA or The Armory Show VIP Card)

General Opening:
Thursday, March 8, 2012 2 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Public Hours:
Friday 9 – Sunday 11, March, 2012 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Location:
7W — 7 West 34th Street
between 5th and 6th Avenue / 11th floor
New York, NY 10001

Aureus Contemporary will be presenting new works by Peter Buechler, Sara Carter, Jeremy Dean, Jeff Depner, Karim Hamid, Yi-Hsin Tzeng and Chad Wys…

FirstView – For VIP’s and Press
Tuesday | Nov 29 | 4pm-8pm

General Admission Fair Hours:
Wed – Sat | Nov 30 – Dec 3 | 11am – 7pm
Sun | Dec 4 | 11am – 6pm

Booth E19 | SCOPE Pavilion | Wynwood Arts District | NE 1st Ave (Midtown Blvd) @ NE 30th St
Miami, FL 33127

See you in Miami!

Chad Wys: Someone recently wrote that I am more of a “con artist than a real artisan”. That particular person, I think, had such an aversion to the digital medium — and perhaps to any art that fails to live up to his personal criteria — that he felt “lied-to” and, even worse, “robbed” of something deeply valuable and personal. I think that statement was meant as scathing criticism, but I find it quite apropos and honest. Digital manipulation is all around us: in advertisements, where models are brushed to perfection; in the movie theater, where impossible actions come to “life”; in the increasing distrust people have for digital photography, through which anyone can alter anything and present it like a reflection of reality. No wonder folks feel “lied-to”.

THITH: There does seem to be a lot of theory suggested by these images of yours but at the same time, they are also just simply pretty to look at. It seems one one level, you’re just playing with color and form in a very formalist manner. Is there a division between these two aspects of your work or in some way are you challenging that too?

CW: There is often an unnecessary division between aestheticism and conceptualism — and much of that division is routed in Art schools today. Studio artists are often taught to be conceptual above all else, and that to merely be an aesthetic artist, interested foremost in beauty, is the kiss of death; on this I don’t completely disagree — but how much weight we should grant concept might be a point on which I diverge in my process. This speaks to the dichotomy that is kitsch versus fine art: or, for example, someone like Thomas Kinkade versus Lucian Freud. Why is one painter “legitimate” in the eyes of art critics, and the other not? What makes “good art”? The ratio of concept to aesthetics factors greatly.

THITH: The danger is to be too overwhelmed by one side?

CW: Relying on beauty and/or sentimentality and, on the opposite end, relying significantly on concept can be equally poor artistic choices. I prefer to indulge in both equally. I revel in a certain amount of guilty pleasure concerning the objects that I unearth at thrift stores and garage sales. A quaint, pastel figurine of two love birds can be, at its most literal core, a beautiful object that mimics great European porcelains that came long before it. But, I am conflicted when I come in contact with kitschy, economical art objects; on the one hand I like indulging in the object’s easy, dumb beauty, but on the other hand my sensibilities as an initiated art enthusiast are insulted by the object’s poor, derivative qualities. I certainly grapple with these conflicts and I play with the idea that beauty can coexist, if not engage in combat, with the intricate critical theories that are given so much weight today.

THITH: Does all this make computers the perfect place to tackle these kinds of questions?

CW: I think computers have a profound place in the visual arts and graphic design has never been richer than it is at this moment. I think some people just miss the ironic or subversive use of digital manipulation in art. I’m both using it to serve my concept and I’m also using the digital medium because I cherish it. One can do so much with computers; for example, even mimic painting techniques. The work in my Nocturne series is meant to question tradition, to question the literal “objectness” of artwork (why we collect it, why we hang it, why we admire it for its decorative and aesthetic qualities), to question art historical motifs (through the juxtaposition of realism and anti-realism), and to question the concept of the “original”.

THITH: What is the process with the Nocturnes?

CW: I had been working with relatively traditional media for quite a while and I wanted to experiment with digital applications. I began by digitally painting over sections of old Victorian portraits that I’d encountered on the web or in art textbooks. Quite literally, I’ve appropriated a digital reproduction that imitates the original painting, and I’ve digitally deconstructed it through imitations of decay and overpainting. Have I offended the original? Or have I offended the lie of the original? My guess is the original painting was “offended” the moment its reproduction was created and used in its stead. And because my resultant work is digital in nature, where is it’s original? I’ve spent years studying how different types of paint drip down a canvas. Are those long-gone drips the originals? Or is the original (e.g. the concept) in the my, or my viewer’s, mind? What’s more: does it matter?

THITH: At the same time these techniques themselves simulate the look of unfinished paintings but you yourself are in fact doing the opposite and deconstructing the painting so, the final image shifts between appearance and disappearance. Is this relationship between Being and Becoming important to you or, what do you see as going on?

CW: I think the ambiguity of precisely what is going on in the Nocturne images is what allows them to either irritate or inspire the viewer. As I look over the body of my work in various mediums — be it film, photography, mixed-media collage, readymade, painting, digital design, etc. — it becomes clear that I wish to capture a sense of ambiguity in the inane objects and images I appropriate. A Victorian portrait of a gentleman was painted by its 19th century creator to be just that: a portrait of a gentleman. When I crop out most of the gentleman’s identity, what purpose does the portrait now serve? To point out the fact that it was merely a portrait of a gentleman in the first place? I see my role as creating a new conversation around particular objects and images. I attempt to critique a cultural understanding of visuality as well as the institution of art itself. It’s up to the viewer to decide what it means in the context of the 21st century.

THITH: The reference to the 19th century seems really important. Is there an intention in this time and in the wealthy in general?

CW: Most definitely. The 19th century, in particular, was a time when aesthetic modernism was boldly embraced in place of narrative realism in visual art. At that time it was a dramatic thing to want beautiful pictures that were simply beautiful pictures, rather than to perpetuate the romantic lie that art provides a window into reality and that all art must serve a higher narrative purpose. One of the most crucial players in the game of aestheticism was James Whistler. His near non-representational landscapes were revolutionary at the time (Google his Nocturne in Black and Gold!) and caused art critics and the public alike to doubt visual modernism (Whistler actually took to court an art critic who trashed his work!). In fact, I’ve named my series after his Nocturnes — which were ambiguous British landscapes that were neither meant to mimic the natural world in exactness, nor to convey any sense of narrative outside the picture plane. It is to this sense of absolute aestheticism, or absolute romanticism in the years before modernism, or absolute religiosity in the years before romanticism, that I look — both respectfully and critically.

THITH: Oh, is that where the name comes from? Because, there’s also an association to music. It was a really popular style of compistion for the first wave of modernist composers. Chopin, Liszt, Debussy and Bartok all of wrote them. Was that intentional at all a reference for you or was it Whistler who was inspired by the current fashions going on in the concert world?

CW: Actually, most of Whistler’s work has a strong association to music. Besides his Nocturne landscapes, titles of some of his works include: “Symphony in White”; “Arrangement in Grey and Black” (which is actually the formal name of the famous painting of is mother); “Harmony in Grey and Green”. This was very much a feature of modernism — the merging of music and visual art. Wassily Kandinsky, who was, arguably, the first non-representational artist, created vibrant works with titles like “Composition V” and “Improvisation X” — effectively equating paint to musical notes. My reference in title to Whistler’s Nocturnes is a direct and literal reference to the modernists’ riffs on musicality across mediums. This is yet another way that I’ve linked my exploration with motifs to the explorations of other artists throughout history… a melting and “dripping” pot of ideology and aesthetic motifs.

THITH: These original paintings really suggest a very specific opulence, and you’re displacing and replacing the image with equally elegant and refined contemporary art mannerisms, is there a commentary in this about the roll art plays as a status symbol and luxury good?

CW: The role that art plays as a luxury good is perhaps the constant strand throughout much of my artwork and much of my academic research. I’m very interested in this and most of my writing is squarely fixed on the problem of art as a commodity. That is to say: how does art function in culture as both a deeply poetic utterance to be thoughtfully considered, and also as a commodity to be traded and displayed for decorative and luxurious reasons? Similar concerns are also pointed at by much of my artwork. I enter thrift stores and fixate on economical pieces that have lived an easy life on the shelves or above the fireplaces of their middle-class owners; many of the objects I find mimic finer pieces held within the world’s grandest museums — objects that neither the middle-class owner, nor I, could ever hope to afford. We decorate our lives with objects that make us feel more complete or more elevated intellectually and/or financially… when it’s all very much an illusion.

THITH: All but one of the Nocturnes is of an individual, is there something about ideas of the individual itself that you’re playing with here? Does it matter that these are wealthy individuals and why the one couple?

CW: I think one of the strongest obstacles we face today is alienation from one another. Despite the obvious promise that the Internet and its plethora of “social networks” provides, it’s apparent that, while we’re literally more “connected” than ever before, we’ve never been less dependent on one another, nor less emotionally involved. A large part of our general drifting apart has to do with technology: We don’t speak face-to-face, but through a technological mediator like a webcam, or a webpage. Not that I personally have any great desire to be physically and emotionally connected to so many people, nor do I necessarily mourn this great “alienation” that I reference, but I do find it to be an intriguing and oxymoronic feature of contemporary life.

My selection of what I perceive to be cold, dry, isolating, stark, formalistic portraiture speaks to these contemporary concerns. Even Nocturne 112, that you referenced in your question — which appropriates a portrait of, I would guess, two wealthy, 19th century sisters — is so formal, so unemotional, so isolated by all the suffocating negative space around the two women that I can’t help but feel some sense of total removal from society; even despite the fact that the portrait was surely intended to confirm that these two women are, in fact, a major part of (aristocratic) “society”. I see in portraits like these a similar sense of (oxymoronic) alienation.

THITH: Some of the styles you’re playing with evoke the high art modernism of people like DeKooning but the very nature of what you’re playing with here seems to stem from someone like Baldessari or to, one of the grandpappies of Modernisim, Duchamp. Who are the older artists you look at?

CW: Duchamp was light years ahead of his time and to label him a modernist is only taking into account the era he was born into. Still, my references to any or all of these artists is another extension of my act of appropriating objects, images, styles, and motifs from history. The gestures I make with paint, or digital “paint”, on the surface of any object or image is not always an intentional maneuver (in this way, I also share some methodology with Jackson Pollock!); so I cannot claim to always be conscious of what precisely I am appropriating. But there is a conscious effort on my part to blend ideas from art history. The blending of a Rembrandt painting with minimalist, colorfield shapes is certainly a purposeful effort to juxtapose (or clash) elements that don’t belong together. I’m essentially a non-literal mash-up artist.

The Hundred In The Hands is a band, living in New York City. View the original interview here.