Zoo Fair Review

Some notes on the Zoo Art Fair:

The fair, so called because it's been held at the London Zoo every year since its inception, took over a new venue this year: The Royal Academy of Arts. Exhibitors I spoke with liked the new location, but some also said they'd heard mixed reviews. Apparently, there were people who missed the novelty of the zoo — there is something ironic and appealing about herding a bunch of collectors into an artificial animal kingdom to buy art — and felt like the layout of booths at the RCA was labyrinthine.

The Champagne Perrier-Jouët Prize for Best Artist at Zoo Fair went to Karla Black, who beat out more than 600 other artists whose work was being shown at the fair. She's repped by Mary Mary in Glasgow, who had two of the artist's pieces at the fair. This one:

titled Stay Matte, is made of cardboard, paint, ribbon, body moisturizing cream, toothpaste, eye shadow, plaster powder, and pieces of towel. It sold but before the announcement that Black had won the prize and to someone who would have bought it anyways.

This one:

titled Division Is, is made of cardboard boxes, sugar paper, makeup (foundation, cover stick, and spray tan). As of Saturday, it was still available. Black's gallery seemed somewhat bewildered that it hadn't sold and hypothesized that people just assumed it had been snapped up after Black received the prize.

Elad Lassry took home the John Jones Art On Paper Acquisition And Award at Zoo Art Fair. As of Saturday, Lassry's gallery, Cherry & Martin from Los Angeles, had sold most of the artist's work that it had brought to the fair — some before the award was announced and some after they'd heard about it. The gallery is opening its first exhibition of Lassry's work next month and expects the prize to be good publicity for that. Here's one of his works, a take on the traditional still life:

Collector Beth Rudin DeWoody liked Kon Trubkovich (below) at Musuem 52's booth. She's bought work be the artist, who "examines normally opposing notions of captivity and freedom, revealing the frequent proximity and cross over of the two," according to the gallery's website, before, and he'll have a show at Marianne Boesky in February. Movin' on up!

While I wouldn't want to live with it, one of my favorite pieces at Zoo was All Purpose Primer by David Ellis and Roberto Lang at Roebling Hall:

The photo doesn't do it justice. Ellis and Lang collected trash from the Bedford-Stuyvesant and Fort Greene neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Piccadilly and Mayfair areas of London — the detritus from the States crossed the Atlantic in the hand luggage of gallery staffers — and rigged it to play beats like street drummers. No takers, as of Saturday.