Interview with ADA Gallery's John Pollard at Scope London

Here's a video interview with ADA Gallery's John Pollard at Scope London. Getting into these fairs had been a big goal of his... I think he took work by Kate Woodliff, the Spahr Brothers, Daniel Davidson, Eric Sall, A.J. Liberto, Bruce Wilhelm, Casey Jex Smith, Charles Yuen, Tricia Keightley... others.


Here is John scoping out Scope Miami last year... trying to figure out how to get in.

UPDATE: That video has now had more "views" than any of the other London art goings-ons videos (Frieze, Scope, etc.) on that site....

ABMB: Richmonders showing in Miami

Sun-Tek Chung at Samson Projects, NADA


Eric Sall at ATM, NADA


James Davis at (?), Scope


Susan Jamison at (maybe Irvine Contemporary), Scope - I heard her work did well here, and that she is very happy with this gallery. Is that a piece by Susanna Fields, to the left?




Sarah Bednarek at Keith Talent, Aqua




I forget his name! at Keith Talent, Aqua
UPDATE: David Herbert!!! LOTS of photos on his website.


John Pollard, of ADA Gallery, visiting someone's room, maybe Numark's, at Scope. David Ryan pieces on the wall.


Trying to sell some paintings at Aqua; at Basel

I don't have any pictures, but saw many copies of John Henry Blatter, Derek Cote, and Ben Jones' project, Daily Constitutional.

Mike Hein

Mike Hein, at Mulherin + Pollard.


pink edge


rose reflection


plank


this one is kind of like a cartoon western landscape



Mike Hein at Edward Thorp, on anaba 10/14/09.


spacey tombstone relic message




spooky one








Mike Hein Treasures

The POLLARD of Mulherin + Pollard is John Pollard, who still runs ADA Gallery in RVA. CLICK HERE to see a shitload of old anaba ADA posts.

Thanks, Richmond!

Okay... I am not in Richmond anymore (maybe for good)... so this is a good time to review the blog for Richmond Art highlights.

Some Favorite in-Richmond Posts:

i keep finding treasures
broad street robot dance
the Belmont Library is ruined, later... restored!
in-between alley
Castle Masters!
Spahr Brothers - not into their work, but the post is cute and funny.

Some Favorite Richmond Artists whose work I'm REALLY glad to have seen, and shared with all of the people who look at this blog -

Danielle Reide
Michelle Arthur
Nick Kuszyk
Kirsten Kindler, and here
Dawn Latane
Rachel Hayes, and here and here
Michael Mewborn
Eric Hall
Jeannine Harkleroad, and here
Tom Harte
Carolyn Henne
FEAST
Joel Holmberg
Bruce Wilhelm, and here
Travis Conner, and here
Don Crow, and here
Paul DiPasquale, and here
Ron Johnson
Michael Lease, and here
Haigh Jamgochian, and here
Christopher Weideman
Scott Eastwood, plus Scott with Drew Liverman.
Jason Coates, and here
Timothy Sean Johnston, and here
Amanda Blackmon

That is NOT a listing of all of the Richmond artists that have been included on anaba, just a listing of some of my favorites to have been featured. They have all probably been mentioned multiple times, those links are to posts that look at their work in a little more detail. Use the little box in the top-left corner of the blog to search for any names.

Some Excellent Richmond Art Efforts to Remember -

Dinah and Paul Ryan's Adaptation Syndrome - panel post 1, panel post 2, panel post 3 (shocking conclusion!), Dominique Nahas follow-up.
John Ravenal's Artificial Light - post 1, post 2, secrets of Ceal Floyer revealed!, miami boo-boo.
Radius250 - here and here.
Amy Hauft's Relativity - here, here (17 comments!), and here
Sabine Russ and Gregory Volk's Surface Charge - pre-post (NOT a Karin Sander), post 1, post 2, my collaboration with Maix Mayer, cute fox.
Sculpture Invitational 2005 - here, here, here, and here.
Sculpture Invitational 2006 - pre-post (i'm in it as a social sculptor!), post 1, post 2.
VCU MFA Thesis Shows: Round One - here and here, Round Two here.

Some Richmond Art HEROES!!

Ashley Kistler - for her work with the Visual Arts Center of Richmond
Harry Kollatz
Amie Oliver
Jeremy Parker - for both Gallery5 and RVA Magazine and that whole community.
John Pollard - for ADA
Kirsten Kindler - i don't think ADA would have gotten very far without Kirsten's work, and support.
John Ravenal
Beverly Reynolds - the MOST gracious and beautiful gallerist in Richmond!
Melissa Roberts - for Nonesuch and that whole community.
Tom and Amanda Robinson - for Gallery5

My Richmond Flickr Set -

a TON of Richmond art pictures, like 800.

Some Favorite me in Richmond -

Face of Jesus
Super Surface Charge!
Seal of Approval
Guggenheim Richmond, Pictures From Another Planet, the Assault on Taste review
Jerry Saltz at Art Basel: Stuffy's, followed by a Studio Visit!!!
Meatballs at Stuffy's - the first Stuffy's show explained!

i might update this post later with things i've missed....

I wish that each of Richmond's nine Fortune 500 companies would chip in and give me four grand a year or so to keep anaba/me in Richmond.... that would be NICE.

labels

I've started adding labels to posts, and am in the process of going back through the old posts and adding labels to those. The bad thing is that if you click on a label it will only show the last twenty posts which share that label, even if their might be hundreds.

I'll try to fix that.... but it doesn't matter so much right now anyway because most of the old posts are still unlabeled. Right now I've got something like 95 posts labeled "richmond artists", but that only goes back to 2005.

PLUS - another thing you can do is search the blog by entering your search terms in that space at the very top left... this brings up any mention of that term. So if you enter "Fiona Ross" or "Nonesuch" or "John Pollard", for example, it will bring up posts that aren't necessarily labeled. It doesn't bring up names or things that are mentioned in the comments, unfortunately.

First Friday - 9/2/2005

Here's a rundown of some exhibitions opening this weekend and next that I'm looking forward to. If you're having/hosting a show in Richmond opening soon please feel free to post the info in the comments.

Nonesuch - Last night I was walking by this basement space and peeked in the windows and was very excited by what I saw. Today I returned and learned that the artist is Scott Eastwood and his show was the August show. Oh! I'm sorry, Scott! I didn't have time to stay this afternoon but I really liked your work. The new show opening Friday will feature the drawings and sculpture of Peter Corrie. Nonesuch looks like a good space - it's at 918 W. Grace St. (649-4069), near Little Ceaser's and Plaza Art Supplies.

I think Scott's work might still be up on Thursday if anyone has a chance to visit.

Gallery5 - All Mixed Up. This is an interesting new space within the Virginia Fire and Police Museum, near the old Milk Bottle building, sort of behind ADA. They're open until 1:30am with bands - $3.00 after 10pm.

ADA Gallery - Sun Tek Chung, James Davis, Jeannine Harkleroad, Danielle Riese (is that correct or is it supposed to be Danielle Riede?), and Josh Rickards.

Sun Tek Chung, James Davis, and Jeannine Harkleroad were three of the four just-closed Relativity artists. What's up with that? It will be interesting to see these three artists together again so soon with different work in a different space and a different organizer. First Relativity post here, second Relativity post looking at the work of James Davis and Jeannine Harkleroad here.

Josh Rickards must be the same Joshua Rickards in the radius250 show whose work I just wrote about here. I had been thinking that John (Pollard of ADA) would like his work.

1708 Gallery - Casting a New Light. From the press release - "for the ten artists selected by New York photographer Jerry Spagnoli for this exhibition, process is a vital mens of enhancing the material presence and associative power of the photographic image. As evident in their daguerreotypes, calotype negatives, salt prints, collodion wet-plate negatives, ambrotypes (Michael Seal has some ambrotypes in radius250), tintypes, and photograms, vintage processes are still richly evocative tools."

The artists are Jayne Hinds Bidaut, Ellen Carey, Sean Culver, Dan Estabrook, Deborah Luster, Dana Moore, Mark Osterman, Irving Pobboravsky, France Scully Osterman, and Roland Wirtz.

Visual Arts Center* (formerly known as the Hand Workshop) - Recasting the Landscape. Photography by Jerry Spagnoli and Robert Shlaer - "both artists make use of the earliest form of photography and also draw inspiration from 19th-century concepts and depictions of the American landscape, allying process and subject matter to extend the medium's expressive capabilities". Spagnoli is also the curator of the related show at 1708 Gallery.

* I liked the old name better! This new one is boring, bland, and hard to remember. You've been given some horrible advice. Please change it back!

OPENING SATURDAY 9/3 -

Chop Suey Books - For Your Eyes Only. A show of new work curated by DC resident Cheryl Gant. Exhibiting artists are Anitra Haendel (New York, NY), Kim O'Grady (Los Angeles CA).

OPENING FRIDAY 9/9 -

Solvent Space - Heaven & Hell. Stephen Vitiello. Sound and video work in collaboration with Scanner and Andrew Deutsch. There's going to be a performance in October.

new painting

ADA Gallery owner John Pollard has updated his homepage and it now includes a photo of one of my most recent (2nd-rate? crappy?) paintings. This painting is small, maybe 8" x 11", and a bit brighter in reality. Four hundred bucks and it's yours.

I'm pointing this out because I haven't updated my Inliquid page in a while - all that stuff is from almost a year ago at the latest.

Also - A friend has e-mailed me with some nice thoughts on Susan Jamison's work in response to what I wrote earlier - he/she is too shy to post a comment but I think this is nice and I am placing him/her in the Commenter Protection Program and posting it anyway.

"hey there martin.... I was just reading your blogg, but Im too shy to write anything on it. the birds with the strings is one of my favorites also. the out stretched hand with the strings attached to some of the birds and not others,.... and the broken string on one of the birds---------they all symbolizes the relationships we have in life. those who stay with us. those who break away from us, those we cut away ourselves ( why the sissors are there) and those that come back, even though there are no strings...like heartstrings... no real strings attached.... and there was a string that went off the canvas.... for those relationships that are distant, but who are still, very much attached. there is a lot of depth there, in the artists work, there is also a lot of pain. each of those paintings have a story to them, especially the one you like. you are right about susan, she is a very beautiful person, but she ain't no girlie girl : )"

If you have anything to say about any of the shows you saw on Friday please feel free to leave a comment - don't worry, nobody has to know who you are.

my show at ADA

Mentioned in Wednesday's April in Richmond post that I'm included in a three-person show at ADA Gallery. The other two artists in the official "show" are Michael Ferris and Susan Jamison. Gallery owner John Pollard also has an area in the back where work from the most recent shows remains hung so there are a number of pieces by Jason Coates, Steven Little, and Bruce Wilhelm still up to see. This is also where the twelve by twelve racks are.

Thursday night we had kind of a preview reception, so we got to meet each other and see the show for the first time. Michael has some incredible sculptures, his process is extremely labor intensive, and also some great drawings and collages. I especially liked one drawing I called "blue zombies" - later I looked at the pricelist and saw it's called Gore. He's a good drawer. I want to put my arms around the sculptures and have my picture taken with them.

Susan Jamison sold four paintings already!!! Three to the same husband/wife collectors! They bought one of mine last year. They know they're stuff!! Susan Jamison is hot!! Her work's not bad either!

Jamison works in egg tempera and makes sweet allegorical delicate paintings. I don't mean sweet like nauseous - just sweet. I said something to her about that and she said she once had a problem with it, making stuff that's sweet, until someone quoted I think Fitzgerald to her - something like "people who don't like sentiment are afraid of it". Damn facts!! I'll have to ask her again! My two current favorite Jamisons are not among the four that sold - one with a spider's web being brushed with red pigment and another with a group of yellow finches each connected to a different finger of the same hand by a red thread. Both of these red thread pieces made me think of the red thread of Japanese Buddhism and the red thread of the kabbalah, but Jamison said she wasn't thinking of those things.

Speaking of egg tempera - my favorite egg tempera artist is Sarah McEneaney! She is the master - I can't believe they put Amy Cutler in the Whitney Biennial before Sarah! Who's next? Marcel Dzama?? NO CANADIANS!!!

Holy Smokes! There are no Sarah Mceneaney pictures on Artnet!! That's what you get for living in Philadelphia!

By the way, all of my work SOLD OUT last night before the show has officially even opened to buyers including Charles Saatchi and the Guggenheim!!!!

Jason Coates, Steven Little, Bruce Wilhelm

This is the last week to catch the work of Jason Coates, Steven Little, and Bruce Wilhelm at ADA Gallery.

The show looks really good - all three do similar work and gallery-owner John Pollard has mixed it up so you aren't quite sure if you are looking at a Steven Little or a Bruce Wilhelm unless you look it up on the pricelist. Truth be told, the ones I like the best all turn out to be Wilhelms*.

Bruce's work has a wonderful lightness of humor and touch. He strikes just the right off-hand balance between the not-quite-there Little's and a little-too-much Coates. He's also got a terrific sense of color.

Coates works in the same quirky figurative manner as Little and Wilhelm but his work is easier to identify because it is bigger, more like "painting" than drawing, and generally seems more labored. One of his pieces is called Dinosaur Mountain Bridge - a green triangular canvas of a brontosaurus encircled by an upward spiraling elevated highway. This is hung next to one of Bruce's smallish pieces called I Would Like To See Godzilla Turned Into A Building For People To Live In. Jason's work will be featured in the upcoming Mid-Atlantic edition of New American Paintings so check it out!! Raft is nice - very simple and clean.

This style is enormously popular with young artists and buyers right now. You can see stuff like this at Spector Gallery in Philadelphia, Richard Heller in Santa Monica, or Zach Feuer's gallery in NYC. Does it come from Chris Johanson? I think it really took off after Jerry Saltz's rave review of Jules De Balincourt's first show at LFL. This work is charming and likeable, easy to make and easy to sell. Glib Art. It's easier to name the galleries than name all the artists. It's all over.

I'm starting to sound a little harsh - sorry! I should share that some of my own stuff isn't too far removed from this manner of working either - I'm critiqueing myself a bit as well. I'm glad to see that the newest De Ballincourts seem to be better than the big debut.

*Full Disclosure: I own a Bruce Wilhelm!!