Soyeon Shin at Mrs., all images via NADA
Returning to Miami amidst the pressures and concerns of the current Covid-19 crisis, this year’s iteration of NADA Miami from the New Art Dealers Alliance feels a bit different. Reworking the format to fit the travel concerns and logistical issues posed by the virus, this year’s iteration, its 18th, manages to showcase an international series of presentations from a diverse roster of 47 NADA Members and 27 first-time exhibitors for a total of 97 galleries from 44 cities, both in gallery spaces and online.Known for its often adventurous showings, this iteration of the fair is no different, and takes its innovative approach to the fair format into a unique combination of digital and physical exhibitions. The fair will feature gallery hubs in multiple locations, including the Bay Area, Brussels, Chicago, Detroit, Lima, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Riga, Tokyo, Toronto, and Warsaw, where visitors can go to view various installations and selections of work from exhibiting institutions.
Akira Ikezoe at Proyectos Ultravioleta
In typical fashion, the fair’s selections were colorful and wide-ranging in style, and technique, emphasizing the fair’s position as a nurturing ground for new talent and exciting new concepts. At Proyectos Ultravioleta, one could view a range of playful abstractions on canvas by Akira Ikezoe, mixing a strange combination of images together in simple, staid execution that only drove home the surreal nature of the depictions, while at New York’s Mrs., one could view a similarly withdrawn series of pieces by Soyeon Shin, which blended architectural lines with open spaces of color to render similarly dissociative effects. By contrast, Boston’s Samson Projects was presenting work by Joe Wardwell, whose similar use of color turned towards language and text, creating vivid effects on canvas through moments of graphical abstraction.
Joe Wardwell at Samson Projects
Other highlights included work by Chris Bradley at Ackerman Clarke, creating evocative compositions from simple combinations of structural materials and readymade elements, while at Lubov, another New York gallery, Kevin Tobin’s combination of canvases arrayed in sequence built complex narratives out of complementing concepts and iconographies. Elsewhere, Vojtech Kovarik’s installation for Galerie Derouillon presented a powerful exploration of bodies and color, arranged in a gorgeous physical space.
Chris Bradley at Ackerman Clarke
Kevin Tobin at Lubov
Vojtech Kovarik at Galerie Derouillon
Offering yet another perspective on just what an art world might look like as we venture further into a tightly connected digital landscape, NADA’s fair project seems to have found one way past the current landscape of challenges to the traditional art market practices, and offers just one more look at why their work as an institution and support network continues to remain compelling in 2020.
Patricia Ayres at Fragment
Dodi King at Cooper Cole
– D. Creahan
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NADAÂ Miami [Exhibition Site]
