Texas Contemporary Art Fair: LIVE BLOG

by Glasstire October 22, 2011

BLOG CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED!!!

The Texas Contemporary Art Fair is open! The Glasstire staff will be live-blogging the fair through Sunday. Come by and see us at our booth, with Art Fair Mad Libs with exciting prizes (i.e. t-shirts) throughout the weekend. And, just like the Houston Fine Art Fair, we’ll be asking readers for their picks of the best and the worst art from the fair. Send a photo and caption to [email protected].  All entrant’s submissions will be posted anonymously so don’t hold back. We’d also love your nominees for “Best Booth.” (And no, as with the Houston Fine Art Fair, we AREN’T doing “Worst Booth.”)

Sunday, October 23

3:41 p.m.
Ceiling installation complete with lounge chairs by Leo Villereal at Gering & Lopez Gallery, -KK

1:44 p.m.
Chatty morning here at the Glasstire Saloon! No time to post, no time for lunch. Although lunch at the fair is restricted to Aramark food products. It’s just like eating at the airport! If only Aramark’s ironfisted grip on the George R. Brown Convention Center could be broken and edible food allowed! Somebody should crash some food trucks though the loading dock doors…-KK

Saturday, Oct. 22

11pm

Too pooped to party; back-slapping at Chaney house skipped in favor of instant chocolate pudding in the thriftstore recliner which serves as the Glasstire News Desk.

Art Fair Pre-post-mortem: from my limited vantage point behind the bar at the Glasstire Saloon, (broad view of pathetic cafe area drained dry by vampiric caterers Aramark), this fair was more spacious, more relaxed, and infinitely more interesting than the Houston Fuddy-Duddy Art Fair last month. If THAT show was a big furniture store, THIS show was a big furniture store with ideas.

Like all second children, everyone was anxious for this event to succeed, but without the pathetic hand-wringing given the firstborn fair. This fair was fun, which makes it seem less likely to return next year, because something went wrong: successful art fairs are not fun.

Where are the wire-tense collectors hectoring harried gallery assistants for first dibs, or the dazed crowds of footsore curators and student art-stars pressing their noses on the glass display window of the artworld they read about in magazines?

What we’ve got here is a Houston-style art fair: slower, looser, and less crowded than fairs in high-pressure places where things matter. Unexpectedly sophisticated, with time to think a bit before reaching for your wallet. I hope it sticks. -BD

 

4:41 p.m.

Thomas Glassford at Sicardi Gallery.

Sasha Pierce‘s insanely OCD paintings at Bryan Miller Gallery. – KK

4:31 p.m.
Fabulous Candida Höfer at Rena Bransten. – KK


4:23 p.m.

Great 2-D vases by Stephanie Syjuco at Catherine Clark Gallery.KK


4:17 p.m.

Detail from William Powhida‘s LA Makeover Chart at Charlie James Gallery. – KK

4:14 p.m.
Steven Keene’s $5 paintings in progress at the Rice Gallery booth!

4:07 p.m.

Thomas Jorion photographs of Detroit decay at PX Photography. (Sorry for shitty IPhone photos, photo gallery!) – KK

3:41 p.m.

Cool stuff from Austin’s Champion Gallery:

Ryan Schneider‘s The Display at Champion Gallery.

Marjorie Schwarz‘s paintings at Champion Gallery.- KK

1:24 p.m.

Hillary Scullane‘s The Green Blob, was conveniently performed by Continuum in the food court opposite the Glasstire Saloon. – KK

 

10:00 a.m.
Due to crap internet connection within the GRB, the Glasstire Live Blog has been slightly less live than we would like. Here is some stuff we could have posted if our AT&T air card had not reset and lost connection every 9 seconds…

Cowboy Mike arrives with Sugar in tow for Thursday night opening party.

Sugar awaits her spectacular entry into the fair. SHOCKING REVELATION: Sugar, the Glasstire Pony is actually a miniature horse!

Sugar prepares to meet the public.

Bill Davenport – artist, GT Newswire Editor and creator of Glasstire’s fabulous Saloon booth – adds the Glasstire logo to Sugar.


Gonzo247 contributes to the pony!

The Glasstire Bar in full swing with fab organic tequila and margarita mixers generously donated by Republic Tequila.

Artist, writer, comedian, Glasstire contributor and San Antonio favorite Sara Fisch enjoys a tasty Republic Tequila beverage while sporting her grandmother’s sombrero!

 

Artist, activist and designer Selven O’Keef Jarmon visits the Glasstire bar sporting his TX Contemporary t-shirt.

 

Kimberly Cedeno, art student and Glasstire intern extraordinaire!

Artist and icon, Bert Long!

Sugar leaves a parting gift at the end of the night. Editorial cleaned up.

BOOZE ALERT: Several leftover bottles of Glasstire’s tequila of choice disappeared from our Saloon late Thursday night…if you have seen them please notify the Glasstire staff. The editorial department is distraught. – KK

Friday, Oct. 22

2:33 p.m.

Local update: Inman has sold works by Demetrius Oliver, Katrina Moorhead and Darren Watterston. Roesch has sold a Jonathan Leach plexiglas box Madeline Dietz wall sculpture. – RK

1:15 p.m.

Sales news: the big sale going around last night was David Shelton, the great San Antonio space, who sold the 6 piece suite of drawings of boxers (pugilists, not dogs) by Vincent Valdez, as well as works by Cruz Ortiz, Kelly O’Connor, and Sarah Frantz. Ka-CHING! – RK

 

Vincent Valdez drawing suite at David Shelton

Thursday, Oct. 21

7:30 p.m.

GLASSTIRE SALOON IS OPEN!

GLASSTIRE PONY IS HERE!

2:00 p.m.
To start things off, here’s a sneak preview from yesterday’s setup…

Truck unloading giant container inside the George R. Brown.

 

San Antonio’s David Shelton with “Make Tacos Not War” by Alejandro Diaz.

Kelly O’Connor collage waiting to be hung at David Shelton’s booth.

Patrick Reynolds and Katrina Moorhead setting up at Inman Gallery's booth.

Angela Fraleigh at Inman Gallery‘s booth.


Rachel Hecker and Francesca Fuchs at Texas Gallery.

Arturo Palacios of Art Palace with Elaine Bradford crocheted conjoined twin.

Michael Bise‘s dark Uncle Corky at Moody Gallery.

Michael Kennaugh at Moody.

PaperCity bookstore. (From 1:00 to 2:00 on Sunday, PaperCity‘s Catherine Anspon will lead a discussion about the Texas art scene, then and now, with Harvey Bott and other artists. A signing for Anspon’s Texas Artists Today will follow. )

And random, as yet unidentified stuff…

Steve Lambert at at Charlie James Gallery.

David LaChapelle

 


Michelle Andrade, Death by Daydream at Charlie James Gallery.

SuttonBeresCuller

 

Lounge in progress…

– KK

 

10 comments

You may also like

10 comments

BrownKlown October 21, 2011 - 22:21

See you soon.

Reply
Amber October 22, 2011 - 11:55

Why do people think it’s okay to take an animal out of their normal environment to parade around as entertainment? God provided pastures for pony’s. Paint yourselves up and if you need a jackass for people to pet and gawk at.

Reply
Kelly Klaasmeyer October 22, 2011 - 12:22

Well, Sugar is normally hanging out at childrens’ birthday parties with 5-year-olds on her back. Here she just stood around, was petted, got some paint and ate hay continuously. Horses won’t eat if they are upset or anxious. The presence of jackasses on the Glasstire staff can neither be confirmed or denied.

Reply
Nancy October 23, 2011 - 21:16

poor pony

Reply
Michael Henderson October 24, 2011 - 08:02

Maybe if people think of the little horse as being like a big dog they could be more at ease with the whole thing. It is a pet. I have a really big dog that is almost as big as a little horse. I take her to openings sometimes and she would have loved to have gone to the art fair. If I had only known that animal poop was so entertaining. . .

Reply
Monday Postpourri: Don’t go chasing waterfalls edition | October 24, 2011 - 11:26

[…] make it to Houston’s inaugural Texas Contemporary Art Fair, Glasstire was there to live-blog the […]

Reply
Michelle Cate October 24, 2011 - 20:46

EYE love me some Bert!

Reply
Loli Fernández-Andrade Kolber October 24, 2011 - 21:32

Yeah! Go Glasstire! Great stand/booth in a great fair!

Reply
HJ BOTT October 27, 2011 - 02:24

As always, there are mixed subjective reactions, but the real fun, for me, was last month when rubbing shoulders with both the unwashed, that could get in, and the folks to-be-seen, as well as some serious collectors. There was more stuff to write about as well, comparing copy. It seemed, KK, that there was a bit of strain to find enough positive AND insulting remarks in this second go, but there were some galleries that I did enjoy at both events. The catholicity of my visual arts taste must be dating me back to my ultra subjective days making, viewing and hustling art in NYC. CROWDS! I love to see crowds. Don’t, and can’t, mix with crowds, but want to see them looking at and buying art. Houston gallerists can be proud, they measured up!

Reply
HJ BOTT October 27, 2011 - 02:27

Thanks for the mention with Catherine Anspon’s TAT crowd.

Reply

Leave a Comment

Funding generously provided by: