Whitehot Magazine
"The Best Art In The World"
by Paul Laster
The second edition of Art Southampton got off to a strong start with 4,200 collectors, art advisors, curators, artists, and designers attending the opening night VIP Preview. More than 90 international, national, and local galleries filled the 100,000-square-foot pavilion, with a lively sculpture garden surrounding the entrance.
Eric Fischl, who had a solo exhibition of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper at Hexton Modern and Contemporary, curated a special exhibition of artworks by New York Academy of Art alumni, while other notable solo shows featured Andy Warhol editions at Gallery Valentine, John Alexander’s paintings and prints at Pace Prints and Jerry Schatzberg’s photos of models and rock stars at Nikola Rukaj Gallery.
New York’s Edelman Arts had a marvelous 1964 Warhol flower painting, valued at around $10 million, while Galerie Terminus from Munich flaunted it’s own Pop Art treasure, a 1962 Roy Lichtenstein painting of a waitress serving a plate of peanuts, which carried a $19 million price tag.
Preview sales were brisk, including several sculptures and a collage by Winston Churchill's granddaughter Edwina Sandys at New York’s Westwood Gallery, a painting by Theodoros Stamos at NYC’s Hollis Taggart Gallery, a large-scale color photograph by Edward Burtynsky at Toronto’s Nicholas Metivier Gallery, and a Botero sculpture at Miami’s Consultores de Arte S.A.
“Opening night proved that a quality fair turns out a quality audience,” said Art Southampton director Nick Korniloff. “It is clear that Art Southampton has filled a void for the most sophisticated tastemakers and culturally savvy audience in New York.”
Scroll through the images below to view some of the faces in the crowd on opening night. WM
Paul Laster is a writer, editor, curator, artist and lecturer. He’s a contributing editor at ArtAsiaPacific and Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art and writer for Time Out New York, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Galerie Magazine, Sculpture, Art & Object, Cultured, Architectural Digest, Garage, Surface, Ocula, Observer, ArtPulse, Conceptual Fine Arts and Glasstire. He was the founding editor of Artkrush, started The Daily Beast’s art section, and was art editor of Russell Simmons’ OneWorld Magazine, as well as a curator at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, now MoMA PS1.
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