Irish-born New York City artist Nuala Clarke scored the caboose at Fountain and a shiny hotel room at Verge (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Dylan Hotel
52 East 41st St. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
March 5-7, $10 (March 4 VIP preview $20)
www.vergeartfair.com
Verge concentrates on emerging international artists, displaying cutting-edge work from approximately two dozen galleries from France, Japan, Canada, and the U.S.—mainly from Brooklyn—during Armory Arts Week. Verge, whose mission is “to establish boundaries of the extraordinary as a counter to the natural compulsion towards stagnation in the way art is evaluated and delivered to the public,” will be held in the Dylan Hotel, with installations in various rooms, lobbies, and other locations throughout the hotel, including site-specific pieces by Zachary Fabri, Sculpture Space, NURTUREart, and Artists Meeting Art Machine. In addition, the American Society of Media Photographers has teamed up with Doctors Without Borders to raise money for Haitian relief by selling prints for $100, curated by Elizabeth Avedon. And if you bring another twenty bucks, you can buy an object from the Artist Meeting Art Machine, which its creators describe as an anarchist automat. If the selection committee is any barometer, Verge should have some cool art on view; among the committee members are Richard Feigen, Carrie Springer, Dan Cameron, and Edouard Steinhauer.
Director Don Argott details a very different kind of art theft in the gripping documentary THE ART OF THE STEAL. But in this case, it’s not a famous painting that disappears from a museum in the middle of the night but an entire collection, as well as a man’s legacy, absconded with in full view of the art world. In 1922, Dr. Albert C. Barnes established the Barnes Foundation, displaying his remarkable collection of post-Impressionism art in an arboretum in Merion, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia. His goal was to share his magnificent works — including a stunning array of paintings by Cézanne, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, Seurat, and Van Gogh — with bona fide art lovers and students, setting up a school and denying access to the general public, the mass media, and the rich and powerful. He adamantly refused to let any single piece ever be loaned, sold, or moved, outlining the demand very specifically in his will. After his death in 1951, Violette de Mazia continued to carry out his wishes as the Arboretum School expanded, but when she died in 1988, the trust was put in the hands of small Lincoln University and suddenly the Barnes Foundation, which had treasured its privacy, was put into play as politicians, charities, collectors such as the Annenbergs, the press, and the public at large descended on the Barnes like vultures, everyone wanting a piece of the action. Argott follows the money with archival footage and photographs and new interviews with many of those involved on both sides of the caper — although several of the more prominent “thieves” refused to participate. THE ART OF THE STEAL is a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the ritzy art world, a must-see for art lovers who get to peek behind the scenes of a multibillion-dollar heist going on in plain sight.