In the course of a century we’ve gone from Dr. Albert C. Barnes, the cranky millionaire who would allow paintings from his exceptional collection to be reproduced only in black and white — he wanted viewers to understand that they weren’t looking at the real thing — to Charles Saatchi, the British megacollector who, by his own account, spends several hours a day looking at art online. The real has undergone a transformation in recent decades, however, and now you can experience art virtually and even attend the VIP Art Fair 2.0, the Internet’s first major art bazaar.
This is the second year for VIP, hence the “2.0.” Last year’s fair was rife with technical problems: log-in difficulties, a temporary site shutdown and reports from dealers that they couldn’t update the “back room” components of their displays. (Not that things like this don’t happen at brick-and-mortar art fairs: I was once at the opening of a New York fair that was shut down by a gas leak.) This year things seem to be running more smoothly. As intended, VIP feels like a traditional art fair, at least in its structure. Rather than breaking the mold, it tries to translate the format faithfully to the virtual realm, describing each exhibitor’s page on the site as a “booth” and providing a “map” that looks suspiciously like the floor plans you’re presented with at most art fairs.
Individual works have “scale” buttons under them that you can click to produce a little gray doppelganger of a real-world fairgoer (in silhouette with arms crossed, as if contemplating the work) to get an idea of its size.
There are 135 exhibitors from 35 countries, with good representation of far-flung exhibitors from the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, since the online fair eliminates shipping costs. The emerging and blue chip are arguably better integrated at VIP than at the Armory Show or Art Basel Miami Beach, in that the main fair accommodates all of them rather than requiring lesser lights to show at satellite locations.
Still, they are listed under different headings on the Web site. Small local galleries from the Lower East Side, like Lisa Cooley, Rachel Uffner and Untitled, are represented in the Emerging section, alongside Carbon 12 from Dubai, Labor from Mexico City and the Loft at Lower Parel from Mumbai. In the section labeled Premier Large, dealers include the usual New York suspects like Gagosian Gallery and Marian Goodman, as well as White Cube from London and Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin.
There is also the familiar effort to inject substance into the fair with curatorial and educational components. On Friday Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac offered a 24-hour performance by Terrence Koh, an artist whose persona splits the difference between an online avatar and a Japanese Butoh performer. You can take an online tour through the home and collection of Pam and Dick Kramlich, major video art collectors in San Francisco, by clicking on the Discussions tab.
There are segments from Art21, the PBS television show devoted to art; discussions with dealers videotaped inside their galleries; and rotating “insider tours” of the fair designed by people like the artist Yinka Shonibare and the tennis fixture and art collector John McEnroe, who offers scintillating comments like “pretty, but pricey” (about a Francis Alys painting at David Zwirner).
For those who frequently look at art online, VIP is not unlike the experience of surfing the Web sites of galleries, museums and art magazines, except here it’s consolidated into one time-compressed package, with prices prominently displayed under the works. It’s a little strange to see a million-dollar Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen at Pace, with that gray silhouette-figure propped in front of it, or a fluorescent sculpture by Dan Flavin from 1964 floating like an abstract icon on the screen at Zwirner.
Our brains have adjusted far beyond Dr. Barnes’s expectations. Trained by Internet dating and online shopping, we’re not under the impression that images offer a flawless reproduction of the real. Which may be why VIP 2.0, for all its high-minded features, is vaguely unsatisfying, at least if your interest in going to a fair is more in looking than in buying. It’s another reminder that most objects made in real space are best experienced there.
Copyright: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/arts/design/vip-art-fair-2-0-is-virtual-modeled-on-the-traditional.html?_r=1&ref=technology