Among the many harder issues to navigate when visiting Los Angeles is the site visitors. The truth that Post-Fair is in Santa Monica, a (comparatively) brief automobile experience away from this week’s fundamental occasion, Frieze Los Angeles, is an added bonus to what’s a pleasant and simply digestible nugget of a good.
Billed as a “pilot version of an alternate three-day artwork honest,” this inaugural version of Put up-Honest sprung the thoughts of LA-based seller Chris Sharp. Final 12 months Sharp ran an identical micro-fair in Paris referred to as Place des Vosges. Named after its location, the occasion served as an amuse bouche for that French capital’s iteration of Artwork Basel. It had solely eight galleries unfold throughout two venues in a Seventeenth-century pleasant Parisian sq..
Put up-Honest is equally charming, albeit in a way more West Coast approach. The honest is housed in a historic Artwork Deco submit workplace that was inbuilt 1938. The variety of galleries had elevated considerably since Paris whereas remaining manageable, one other profit for many who can get overwhelmed at bigger festivals. Of the 29 exhibitors and undertaking areas, there may be numerous native and worldwide expertise, with a mixture of plucky newcomers and top-tier galleries together with P.P.O.W. and Sprüth Magers.
“I actually needed to create one thing that was extra in regards to the galleries, extra collegial—a spot the place galleries can take a threat and convey difficult work with out risking the way forward for the gallery if nothing sells,” Sharp advised ARTnews. At bigger, extra business festivals, just a few unhealthy days can set off existential dread and put a gallery’s financials in query. “The entire thought was to have a spot to keep away from the concern {that a} unhealthy honest may take your gallery out.”
The constructing itself is elegant: purple marble on the partitions, magnificent uncovered beam roof, an intricate wooden ground, with smooth globe lighting hanging from the tall ceiling. The cubicles aren’t sales space in any respect however relatively single gallery partitions arrange within the heart of the room, with one gallery on both facet, and sellers arrange alongside the parameter.
For his sales space, Sharp introduced a solo presentation of works by the late Iraqi German sculptor Lin May Saeed. In Europe Saeed’s reputation has solely grown since her death in 2023. However stateside, Sharp says, she’s nonetheless comparatively unknown. That’s a disgrace since her sculptures and sculptural reliefs, that are comprised of discarded supplies, like Styrofoam, present a depth of tenderness that betrays the stuff they’re comprised of.
Sprüth Magers, which has areas in Berlin, London, LA, and New York additionally introduced the works of a beloved artist who died younger, Kaari Upson; on view right here is among the late LA-based artist’s final our bodies of labor. P.P.O.W’s presentation of intricate drawings and hand-carved picket artist frames by Harry Gould Harvey IV is intricate and intriguing. The sort of work that, like a jigsaw puzzle, calls you to lean in and study every small piece. Layered with iconography, wild scrawls, patterns, and xeroxed footage, they really feel virtually like coded messages, compelling you to decipher them.
Angela Anh Nguyen, I’ve been studying a whole lot of principle currently, 2023.
ORIOL TARRIDAS
One other standout is Harlesden Excessive Road’s sales space of labor by LA-based fiber artist Angela Anh Nguyen. The work, a cheeky tackle America’s obsession with popular culture and web discourse, introduced a right away smile to my face. Nguyen’s works are primarily gun-tufted textiles that depict almost life sized punks and nerds coated to -nth diploma in visible tradition: books, coupon clippings, iPhones. “I’m an energetic doom scroller,” Nguyen mentioned. “I take into account it a part of my apply.”
Towards the again of the room is Good Climate’s presentation of latest works by Detroit-based Dylan Spaysky. Comprised of repurposed mirrors and frames, one-way mirror movie, evening lights, brackets, and bolts, the works take inspiration from the multiplane digicam method pioneered by Walt Disney and used within the animated movies till the Nineteen Nineties. Individuals of a sure age will soften on the references to Snow White, 101 Dalmatians, and Little Mermaid.
As with every part in Los Angeles timing a go to across the site visitors takes finesse and forethought, however Put up-Honest was a welcome addition to the week and a very good motive to remain in Santa Monica for an additional couple of hours.
