Spring/Break Art Fair - "New Mysticism " - Armory Arts Week NYC 2013

Photographs by Crichton Atkinson.

ART

SPRING/BREAK

ART FAIR 2013

ARTSnFOOD coverage: Armory Arts Week New York 2013
(Guest Writer:Crichton Atkinson)

One of the premier works at the Spring/Break Art Fair was Car Wash Incident by Eve Sussman and Simon Lee. A 35mm two screen video installation, it re-created a major insurance scam by Jack and Leigh Ruby. The two screens showed multiple perspectives of the same event (on repeat) with the main characters and props appearing on screen together in multiples and with many actors playing the same role.  It called out both "the fake-out of the scam" and the scam built-into "the fake-out of film and video", a beautiful work, which probably changed this viewer's life. - C.A. 

"Spring/Break - New Mysticism" was the coolest, freshest, art fair out of the whole mix, in New York City this season.  Only in its second year, Spring/Break was 'curator-driven' and located at 233 Mott Street in a building titled "Old School". Organized by Ambre Kelly and Andrew Gori, there was nothing 'old school' about what they did, rather this Art Fair traded-in the stifled, controlled, and often pretentious scene at the huge Armory Show for a hip, vibrant, and fresh approach to a multiple-exhibit fair. With over 20 curators and 70 artists, most with names you have never heard of and works you have never seen before, the show was an excellent reminder, while most of the art market might create an ouroboros (snake eating its own tail), 2013 is brimming with new talent and ideas - a platform like Spring/Break fills the gap. 

It has been 100 years, this month, since the contemporary art movement began with the first Armory show in 1913 - where Duchamp, Picasso, Matisse and other modernists shocked America with their art. That mother-of-all-art-fairs jump-started the paradigm shift regarding "What is considered art?" and the transference to America from Europe, the leading role in the art world. Revolutionary perspectives are the sacred-heart of the artistic muse, yet they have never happened by looking retrospectively, in this way Spring/Break was the only 2013 art fair which came close to doing justice to the spirit of the original Armory Show, where it all began.  

The opening party for Spring/Break - New Mysticism was not staged for the socially and financially elite, but was swarming with people aged 25-35. The art and the scene maintained a purity only new voices can, so we shall see how long this fair will keep its freshness. The focus of the fair was still on selling art, either by bidding online at "Paddles Auction", or by employing the web pages and social networks of the young curators, artists, and organizers.  

The fair's subtitle, "New Mysticism" should tell you something about these artists, curators and the youth culture to which the fair is appealing. "New Mysticism" could be the umbrella under which this whole generation of hipsters, across America, are seen stretching their new aesthetic wings. From off-shoots of Urban Outfitters, who's cyclical copycat format has industry chasing youth chasing industry, to the music videos of the Dirty Projectors and the freak folk scene slipping on the accouterments of their parents generation, while trying to combine the 'good vibes' with the glossy finish and rising varnish of the internet.  

(Source: Guest writer CRICHTON ATKINSON attended Spring/Break Art Fair, photographed the event and wrote the text.)

More Armory Arts Week 2013 coverage to come in our next issue!

Until later,
Jack

ARTSnFOOD, is an online publication dedicated to "The Pursuit of Happiness in the Arts and in Food." ™ All rights reserved. Concept, Original Art, Text & Photographs fall under the © Copyright 2013  of Jack A. Atkinson under all International intellectual property and copyright laws. All gallery, museum, fair or festival photographs were taken and used with permission. Images © individual artists, fabricators, respective owners or assignees.