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But I remember the fall of 2007 quite fondly. It was the time when inspired by the feminist art exhibition WACK at MOCA in Los Angeles and Identity Theft at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, I decided to test the waters and thus people's response to my performance art character – the nouveau riche Eastern European art collector & philanthropist Malgorzata Romanska, at art fairs in Berlin and London. All in preparation leading up to the numerous fairs surrounding Art Basel Miami Beach later that December. Little that I know at the time that this will unleash for me an 18-month performance art & PR project at art fairs and auctions around the US and Europe, only to backfire in the process with the serious queer/gender issues behind my work being lost to overexposure and perceptions of entertainment at VIP previews and lavish art functions — or at encounters with sexist rich folk and art dealers.
Our performance PR project & other appearances in Miami that year were probably the most exhilarating experiences I've ever had as a performance artist. But it was London where my character, along with her omnipresent military-uniform-clad assistant, caught the eye of certain curators and art fair directors. That led to such projects as presenting the prize for best emerging artist at the Pulse New York fair and the PR "sponsorship" project at Volta in Basel the following year. It was also in London where we first met New York art dealer Edward Winkleman, who at the time was uncomfortable, cold & distant — the typical response which most gay dealers have when they initially meet my character and identify it as yet another all too familiar drag queen. But after a few more encounters with Malgorzata Romanska at subsequent art fairs, his view must have changed as he gave us the best compliment any artist could hope for – he was quoted in Artforum describing my work as "the best performance art piece in a decade, if it is one". Persistence and staying true to concept does pay off.
Yes, London has a special place for me. But it always has — as someone who's too European for America and too American for Europe, it seems to feel sort of in the middle as well, thus quite comfortable. I'd call it home, if I'd only didn't hemorrhage money every time I visited that expensive city.
So after taking a nine-month hiatus from performing, not surprisingly coinciding with the art market crash and thus lack of funding (or fear of allocating funding), I decided to visit those art fairs in London, where it all began for me two years ago. I would later also explore the fairs in Paris, as possible new venues for my performance art. I wasn't "bringing" Malgorzata Romanska along this time, so I would have the extra advantage of being incognito and not recognized, as most folk don't know that it's me behind the character.
Due to travel restrictions, I missed the opening art fair previews in London, but still allocated a full day for Frieze and a full day for Zoo. There weren't any other fairs this year worth visiting, as many didn't have London installments this time around. I went to Frieze on the Sunday, the last and probably the worst day to be at any art fair, as the crowds are vast and full of students and wannabe artists trying to sneak an encounter with an art dealer. But I wasn't there to meet anyone, nor get any deals on art for my collection – the latter were probably long gone by now, plus I haven't been able to afford art for quite some time now. I was just there to observe.
Frieze is probably the best and most consistent of art fairs, as it strictly showcases galleries which only represent contemporary art. So it hangs really well, almost like an enormous, well-curated exhibition. This year was no exception. But it hung flat, as nothing really stood out. Everything was small to medium scale, object-oriented and made for sale. No surprises, no special projects and no intrigue or inspiration. Even at the new alternative section called Frame. Thank goddess that all those huge, kinetic, crowd-pleasing, obnoxious sculptures, which normally occupy an entire gallery stall at a visible corner, were also gone. But I do miss the thrift-shop installation at the booth of New York dealer Gavin Brown's Enterprise from 2007. Or Richard Prince's commissioned performance, where a buxom female character wearing just a brassiere and cut-off jean shorts continuously posed on and around a vintage yellow Dodge, positioned on a revolving platform. At the time, my performance as Malgorzata Romanska was included along with these two projects in a French critic's Best of Frieze Top 10 list. So I began to think that we were also part of those currently-missing extra projects, which on one hand make an art fair unique and different from any other old trade show. But on the other hand were probably also part of that art market extravagance. However, if the latter, at least I hope that my performances made some commentary on that extravagance and on all the new money flowing in to buy art. And perhaps by judging how uncomfortable Ms. Romanska makes some folk feel and react, I probably did somewhat succeed in that respect.
Well, instead of in the originally-allocated seven hours, I was able to cover Frieze in one hour and a half. Everything in the fair seemed to repeat itself. And there were no American galleries there, especially Los Angeles ones, at least none who I knew, except perhaps for Javier Peres, but he has much more of a European presence than a Los Angles one. So I decided to go to the Zoo art fair a day earlier. I even had time to leave the press kits and numerous other materials collected during my short time at Frieze back at the place where I was staying.
Zoo was miles away, both physically — as it had changed to a new location in East London, far from its previous few installments at the Royal Academy in the West End — as well as conceptually. It was now more of an art festival than an art fair, held in a complex of abandoned warehouse buildings with a curated show, site-specific projects, solo exhibitions and about 20 art dealers thrown in. It was ... interesting — it's really the perfect, noncommittal adjective to describe this incarnation of Zoo. And although I appreciated the effort of installations tucked in raw, exposed-brick nooks and crannies, I didn't see any innovations when it came to exhibiting art. Plus as a collector myself, the environment didn't encourage me to buy art, but just to observe and experience it. So I was wondering how all the art dealers exhibiting at Zoo felt, since they were there to sell and cover their travel and booth costs. My contact Inés López-Quesada from the Madrid gallery Travesia Cuatro confirmed my insight, as she hadn't really sold anything during the fair. The gallery used to do quite well when Zoo was at the Royal Academy.
After a few days of searching, with some success, for out-of-print books by Candida Höfer and Rebecca Horn, plus a look into the always-amazing work by Sophie Calle at her Whitechapel Gallery retrospective, I hopped on the Eurostar to Paris for FIAC and some of the satellite fairs around it. I love fast intercity trains and miss them in the US. They're quite convenient, eliminating the hassle of far away airports and their security rituals. Plus one meets the most interesting people on trains, as I sat next to a fascinating French woman from Congo, who entertained me with funny and over-the-top stories about her four little children.
I arrived in Paris quite late, almost at midnight, as it was cheaper to travel at that time. The keys to the place where I ended up staying had travelled to get to me from Paris to Tennessee to San Francisco to Los Angeles and then with me first to London before going back to their "home" in the Marais section of the city. My friends, whose apartment the keys belonged to, were visiting their farm in Greece at the time I was to arrive, so they had sent the keys on a journey halfway around the world and back. It must be a tough life – didn't Meryl Streep once start one of her films by saying, "I had a farm in Attica"?
I hadn't been to the art fairs in Paris since the late 1990s, when I was still based in Amsterdam. Although the experience has been blurred by attending and doing projects at too many art fairs since, I don't remember good things about FIAC from that time. However, I kept on hearing and reading that their current director Jennifer Flay had transformed the fair during the past few years into an international must-see. Judging from the prestigious roster of galleries, I was open to this new and improved experience. I was also excited about the independent satellite fairs, as I've always found the best conceptual work by emerging artists to be represented by either French or Swiss galleries.
I had allocated only one day to cover everything, but judging from my experience in London during the previous weekend, it was not an impossible task. I even had time to stop by the Pompidou Center's bookstore on the way to the fairs, looking for what other but out-of-print Sophie Calle books. Found some!
FIAC, the main fair, had too locations. The first one, at the Cour Carrée – the rue de Rivoli entrance of the Louver, was compact and held in a modern glass structure, in turn positioned in the middle of the courtyard. I didn't realize at the time of entering that this was to be the more alternative and progressive section of FIAC. There were quite a few familiar emerging artists galleries, such as Broadway 1602, Haas & Fischer, Hotel, Vilma Gold and others, but most were international. Of the Parisian galleries whose conceptual and minimalist artists I loved, none seemed to be represented here, while the work of other French galleries, which were present at the fair, was not of great quality. There were some stand-outs, such as an enormous crowd-pleasing rubber wall house at Galerie Loevenbruck, and although it wasn't anything to boast about, I appreciated the fact that they took more risk than the galleries at Frieze.
After Cour Carrée, I headed to the Grand Palais, the second location, on the other side of the Louver. It was the first official day of the fair, so upon exiting the metro, I was confronted with long queues of attendees, thus I was quite grateful to be able to go through the press entrance. Immediately upon entering, I was welcomed by art from the Gurskies and the Holzers, in blue chip contemporary art galleries such as Emanuel Perrotin, Luhuring Augustine and Paula Cooper. I was excited and hopeful to see another, but more interesting version of Frieze. However, just one isle over, I found myself surrounded by modern art galleries, then by modernist furniture. My mind is somewhat fearful to even recall some glass sculpture thrown into the mix somewhere. So I wondered what were some alternative galleries like GB Agency, Nicola von Senger and even Shanhgart doing at the Grand Palais, as they would have been more appropriately situated at the other location. FIAC here was a visual mess. Not necessarily when it comes to quality but the mixture of art simply didn't hang well. Therefore, I cannot say that it was a diverse show, as that would sound too complimentary. The only original and inspiring part of it for me was the signage. Isle sections and bathroom signs were printed in black over white, lantern-like balloons, which hung high over the booths in contrast to the ornate, Art Nouveau high ceiling of the Grand Palais. As I stood up on the second level of the fair, over the isles, the view was somewhat poetic, like a silent Jules Verne film or a Smashing Pumpkins music video.
After purchasing a rare Marina Abramovic catalog from Beaumontpublic gallery, I rushed over to Show Off, one of the satellite fairs, which happened to be right next door, in a tent along the bank of the river Seine. Thank goddess for Volta director Amanda Coulson, who was always one fair ahead of me that day and was constantly texting me directions and interesting things to check out. We never ended up meeting while in Paris.
Show Off was rather quiet, in fact dead, as it had opened the previous day. Dealers, especially a couple of American ones, were begging me with their eyes to have a conversation, but I was determined to cover everything in a single day, so I rushed off. I felt badly for the pastries and quiches at the café more so than for the art dealers, as they looked quite dry and lonely, with no one there to devour them. The fair was consistent, but probably because of its small size, and not because of great quality. The only things, and I mean things and not art, which stood out were these brightly-colored, Jeff Koons-like plastic rabbits and squirrels by the Cracking Art Group, which were "showing off" around and inside the fair's tent.
Another fair in the area, Art &EACUTE;lysées, was positioned in a super long and narrow tent in the park across form the Grand Palais. I passed by it on the way back to the metro, but I only had to take a brief look through the front doors and see the dark painted walls with hotel-like paintings in elaborate frames hanging on them, to decide that it would be a waste of time. So I headed to the 19th district in the north part of Paris for Slick.
The location was not even listed on my Streetwise map, but experience of navigating through the city at numerous visits over the years helped me find it right across from a football (aka soccer) field in what looked like one of the immigrant neighborhoods of Paris. It was held in a fantastic venue — a newly-renovated, vast art center with large arched glass entrance, a cool cafe and an enormous court yard. But the building was the only slick thing about Slick, as I encountered yet another visual mess, although not nearly as high quality as the one at FIAC. Cute and clever art of Madonna (the singer) as Madonna (the saint) and penises transforming into guns or skin-tone wax pieces, derivative of Matthew Barney's work, hung everywhere. A slew of performance artists, wearing surreal sweaters that transformed into lampshades and tables, slowed down my escape from the fair, but as I was walking out, up through the long inclined ramp, I was wondering what was New York dealer Virgil de Voldere doing exhibiting here?
And this ended my Paris art fair exploration. As my well-traveled keys and I headed back to the place where I was staying, I realized that I had forgotten the main purpose of this visit – to find some possible new venues for my performance art character. But I was too exhausted and a bit discouraged from what I had seen that day to even contemplate it. All I wanted to do was get away from art and go back to the very first chocolate place I visited when I first came to Paris almost 15 years ago. Then hop on the Eurostar back to London, pack and immediately fly to Amsterdam the following day. Perhaps I should book my flight to the Miami art fairs in the meantime?
To be continued… ■