Art Fag City at ArtReview.com: Tepid Show at Aqua Wynwood

by Art Fag City on December 8, 2008 Events

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Hosfelt Gallery at Aqua Wynwood. Photo AFC

My post on Aqua Wynwood is now up on ArtReview.com. The teaser below followed by a few images.

I’ve seen enough contemporary Miami fairs this week to safely place Aqua Wynwood in the upper middle half of the lot. That Aqua Wynwood doesn’t compete with the top-rated NADA, a fair distantly followed by Pulse, isn’t much of a surprise; it’s not a particularly well kept secret that Aqua, with 48 participants, often picks up galleries that weren’t selected by Pulse. What art lookers may not have predicted however is the amount of foot traffic the event would get — a big improvement on last year’s meagre attendence.

In contrast to its hotel room-based parent fair on Miami Beach, Aqua Wynwood’s booths cater to exhibitors with slightly larger works. Overall though, this doesn’t change the essential problem of a mid-range fair: it’s pretty boring. Without the highs and lows many fairs deliver, it’s hard to get excited one way or another about predictable work, and there’s plenty of that in this show. Most of the stuff here (and most of it is painting), is good enough to avoid a pan, but there’s insufficient ingenuity in evidence to warrant forming much of an opinion about the work.

To read the full review, click here.

In one of my brighter moves this week, I accidentally erased a fair number of my photographs from Aqua Wynwood after forgetting that I hadn’t actually posted them yet.  I managed to find the majority of the individual works I mention in the piece on the gallery websites but a couple of the best works were lost.

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David Huffman, MLK, 2008, acrylic, oil and glitter, black light paint, collage on canvas, 72 x 60 inches. Patricia Sweetow Gallery

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Rae Caesar, Descent, Digital Ultrachrome on Paper, 72 x 48 inches, Edition of 10. Jonathan Levine Gallery

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Carolyn Castaño, Tropical Baby (Yandara), 2007, acrylic, glitter, tape, rhinestones and mirrors on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

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Russell Crotty at Hosfelt Gallery. Photo: AFC

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Henry Darger at Hosfelt Gallery. Photo AFC

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Misato Suzuki, The Telegraph Cables Hum, 2008, Charcoal, acrylic & coffee on canvas, 60 x 48 inches. Sam Lee Gallery

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