| | |  | | | SOFA CHICAGO Opening Night | |
Get your Party on!
Joint Opening Night Public Preview, Thursday, Nov. 3, 7 - 9 pm. Join collectors, museum curators, art advisers, interior designers and architects, top artists and dealers, and young arts enthusiasts for a festive evening of discovery. Mingle with an artful crowd, enjoy (good!) wine and hors d'oeuvres. Be among the first to view and acquire top artworks before the fairs open to the public. Enjoy one-on-one conversations with over 400 attending artists represented by 80 SOFA and Intuit dealers from 12 countries. Opening Night kicks off with an invitation-only preview at 5 pm for SOFA CHICAGO and Intuit Show VIP cardholders. SOFA sponsor Chubb Personal Insurance will host a private event in the Chubb VIP Lounge designed by architect/ designer Suzanne Lovell. The Public Preview begins at 7 pm. Tickets are $50 and are available on sofaexpo.com or at the door beginning at 5 pm. Opening Night continues until 9 pm. Stop by the booth of European contemporary silversmiths, Thalen & Thalen (Francorchamps, Belgium) at 7:30 pm for the unveiling of its new Mega Bowl, aptly titled Windy City Bowl, which the dealer reports is "some 40 pounds of fine silver, valued at over $100,000." Also debuting Opening Night, large-scale aluminum sculpture Rose Tuxedo by world-renowned sculptor John Chamberlain (KM Fine Arts, Chicago), which has never been publicly exhibited before!
 | | Gerard Cambon
Judy A Saslow Gallery, Chicago IL | |
Outsiders In!
For the second straight year, The Art Fair Company and Chicago's respected Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art team up to present The Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art alongside SOFA CHICAGO. Intuit dealers include Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Carl Hammer Gallery and Judy A Saslow Gallery (all of Chicago); Ricco/Maresca Gallery, American Primitive Gallery, and Marion Harris (all of New York); Harvey Pranian Art & Antiques (Evanston, IL); Just Folk (Summerland, CA); Outsider Folk Art Gallery (Reading, PA); Hill Gallery (Birmingham, MI); Galerie Bonheur (St. Louis, MO); The Pardee Collection (Iowa City, IA); Gilley's Gallery (Baton Rouge, LA); Lindsay Gallery (Columbus, OH); Tanner-Hill Gallery (Chattanooga, TN) and Portrait Society Gallery (Milwaukee, WI). Get in-the-know with Outsider 101 in the Lecture Series, presented by Randy M. Vick, Art Institute of Chicago. Informative in-booth Q & A's Discover Outsider Art with Roger Ricco, Ricco/Maresca Gallery; Judy Saslow, Judy A Saslow Gallery; and Aarne Anton, American Primitive Gallery; plus in-booth talk by George Veiner, Outsider Folk Art Gallery on 21st Century Self-Taught Art. Don't miss Q & A with John Maizels, editor/founder of the UK's Raw Vision magazine, on European trends in outsider art.
 | | Louis Mueller
Courtesy of the artist. | |
Collage, Collision & Compromise
9 SOFA CHICAGO special exhibits are free with fair admission including Innovations in Glass and Metal: The Work of Richard Meitner, Jack Wax, and Louis Mueller. Three pioneering artists explore the use of a variety of materials, including glass, wood, and bronze with an emphasis on form and concept. Monomater: single, one, alone; alluding to matter, material presents 30 worksexecuted either in a single material or in ones with similar sensibilities by students and alumni of Cranbrook Academy of Art inBloomfield Hills, MI, curated by Iris Eichenberg, head of metalsmithing (Ornamentum, Hudson, NY). And inspired by the work of Parents Circle - Families Forum (PCFF)-Israelis and Palestinians who have lost immediate family in the Middle East conflict-and curated by Israel's most famous political cartoonist, Michel Kichka, Cartooning in Conflict is a meditation on conflict, hope and resolution. Artists include world-renowned cartoonists, many of whom have won Pulitzer Prize and other prestigious awards. Don't miss Robi Damelin and Siham Abuawwad of the PCFFin the Lectures Series-and presentations by many featured artists and curators of all 9 special exhibits!
 | | Michelle Holzapfel
Center for Art in Wood, Philadelphia | |
Esteemed Speak
30 Lecture Series presentations are also free with admission! Participants include James Baker, ex. director, Pilchuck Glass School; Nicholas Bell, curator, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum; Heather Becker, president, Chicago Conservation Center; Gerard Brown, professor, Temple University; Tim Burgard, curator, Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco; Iris Eichenberg, professor, Cranbrook Academy of Art; Peter Held, curator, Ceramics Research Center, Arizona State University Art Museum; Lloyd Herman, dir. emeritus, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum; Carolyn Karnovsky, gen. manager, FORM Contemporary Craft and Design Inc., Western Australia; Janet Koplos, critic; Gretchen Keyworth, dir. emerita, Fuller Craft Museum; Albert LeCoff, ex. director, The Center for Art in Wood; Denise Mullen, president, Oregon College of Art and Craft; Jennifer Komar Olivarez, curator, Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Andrew Page, editor, Glass Quarterly; Bruce W. Pepich, ex. director, Racine Art Museum; Peter Pinnell, professor, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Paul Richelson, curator, Mobile Museum of Art; Damian Skinner, art historian; Dorit Straus, vice president, Worldwide Specialty Fine Arts Manager, Chubb Personal Insurance; Davira S. Taragin, curator; Randy M. Vick, professor, Art Institute of Chicago; Kevin Wallace, director, Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts; and James Yood, critic, instructor, Art Institute of Chicago. Natalie van Straaten, founder Chicago Gallery News and Ginny Van Alyea, publisher/editor, Chicago Gallery News lead walking tours of SOFA!
 | | Henry Darger
Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York | |
Good Benefits!
Celebrate Chicago's INTUIT: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art's 20th anniversary! Benefit INTUIT at the 20/20 Visionary Ball, Saturday, Nov. 5, cocktails at 6:30 pm, dinner at 8 pm. At The Westin, 909 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Join Gala Chairs Ellen & Richard Sandor in celebrating INTUIT's accomplishments and honor artist and teacher, James Zanzi, professor emeritus, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Show your INTUIT colors by donning your funkiest glasses and rock out to grooves by Soul Summit DJs. Try your luck in a silent auction! Tickets: $200 per person. Tables of 10: $2,000 - $20,000. Also join Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts (Newcastle, ME) in Chicago for the Watershed LEGENDS Gala Awards Dinner honoring Val Cushing, Richard Shaw, Paul J. Smith and Patti Warashina, Friday, Nov. 4, 2011, 7:00-10:00 pm at the Arts Club of Chicago, 201 E Ontario St, Chicago, hosted by Bruce Pepich, Executive Director and Curator of Collections, Racine Art Museum. Seating is limited. Table & individual seating available: Sponsor Table - $2,500; Patron Table - $5,000; Benefactor Table - $10,000; Sponsor Seats - $250; Patron Seats - $500; Benefactor Seats - $1000. Click on the links above to buy tickets!
 | | Timothy Schreiber
Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia | |
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Design + Sculpture + Functionality
On the design A-list, sculptor and furniture designer Wendell Castle (Barry Friedman Ltd., New York); architect and design artist, Timothy Schreiber;andartist/designer Vivian Beer, who will speak in the Lecture Series (both Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia). Mike Johnson, Larry White and David Wade of Sam Maloof Woodworking (del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles) carry on their late mentor's legacy with classic Maloof furniture designs from the 1950s. Also of note, sleek, organic wood furniture by David Ebner (William Zimmer Gallery, Mendocino, CA) and Brian Fireman and Michael Coffey (Bespoke Global, New York); and art deco-inspired pieces in exotic woods by Kent Townsend (Jane Sauer Gallery, Santa Fe, NM). Don't miss the special exhibit As The World Turns: AAW@25, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Association of Woodturners (AAW), with accompanying Lecture Series panel discussion and all-star booksignings. Or Collectors of Wood Art's (CWA) lecture, Legacy & Continuum in Collecting Wood Art, and on-site demonstrations by SOFA-represented artists and members of the Chicago chapter of the AAW.
 | | Peter Bremers
Litvak Gallery, Tel Aviv | |
Hot Glass
Litvak Gallery (Tel Aviv) returns with another stellar booth installation, featuring Peter Bremers, Dale Chihuly, Vaclav Ciglar, Bohumil Elias, Bohumil Elias; Jr., Stepan Pala, Zora Palova;, Julius Weiland and more!Other top glass artists represented at the fair include: Howard Ben Tré (Habatat Galleries, Royal Oak, MI); Philip Baldwin and Monica Guggisberg (David Richard Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM); José Chardiet (Thomas R. Riley Galleries, Cleveland, OH); Richard Jolley (Scott Jacobson Gallery, New York & Berengo Studio 1989, Murano & Venice); John Kiley (Traver Gallery, Seattle); Vladimira Kumplar (Heller Gallery, New York); Latchezar Boyadjiev (PISMO Gallery, Denver, CO); Silvia Levenson (Bullseye Gallery, Portland, OR); Libensky/Brychtova (Habatat Galleries, West Palm Beach, FL); Richard Marquis (Elliott Arts West, Santa Fe, NM); William Morris and Yoichi Ohira (Barry Friedman Ltd); Ginny Ruffner (Maurine Littleton Gallery, Washington, DC); Paul Stankard (Jane Sauer Gallery, Santa Fe, NM); Preston Singletary and Dante Marioni (a new collaboration! at Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM); Lino Tagliapietra-with a booksigning! (Schantz Galleries, Stockbridge, MA); and Bertil Vallien (Hawk Galleries, Columbus, OH). Stankard and Vallien will speak in the Lecture Series. Don't miss the panel discussion Who Made This? Collaboration and Creativity in Glass; The Corning Museum of Glass Hot Glass Roadshow's live demonstrations by SOFA-represented artists and Corning master glassblowers; or new! creation of a glass mosaic by The Society of American Mosaic Artists (SAMA).
 | | Martín Ramírez
Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York | |
Self-fraught
Ricco/Maresca Gallery (New York), Carl Hammer Gallery (Chicago) and Judy A Saslow Gallery (Chicago) will offer drawings and watercolors by Chicago's own famed outsider, Henry Darger (1882-1973). Saslow reports that most of Darger's remaining works have recently been donated to museums in New York and Paris, and that pieces on offer by Intuit Show dealers "now take on an important distinction as being the last pieces by this artist available for purchase." Ricco/Maresca Gallery (New York) will also represent the estate of institutionalized, Mexican-Amercan outsider Martín Ramírez (1895-1963), offering several mural-sized landscapes which it reports have never been exhibitedbefore.On view at Carl Hammer Gallery (Chicago) are apocalyptic landscapes and haunting chicken bonesculptures by Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983), about whom Hammer will speak in the Lecture Series. Represented at American Primitive Gallery (New York) is Eugene Andolsek (1921-2008), who drew mandalic compass and straight-edge geometries on his mother's kitchen table every night after work, brilliantly coloring them with inks mixed in an eye dropper. And at Russell Bowman Art Advisory (Chicago), Charles Steffen's (1927-1995) drawings of androgynous human beings morphing into plant forms, their shapes inspired by tar and tobacco stains Steffen saw on the sidewalk.
 | | Patti Warashina
Image courtesy the artist | |
Ceramic Honor Roll Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts (Newcastle, ME) honors artists Val Cushing, Richard Shaw, Patti Warashina and photographer Paul J. Smith for contributions to ceramic art with a LEGENDS special exhibit and accompanying lecture. Complementing the special exhibit GOLD: American Craft Council Gold Medalists 1994-2010, ACC sponsors a lecture with Gold Medalist William Daley(Perimeter Gallery, Chicago). Top ceramic artists represented at the fair include: Robert Arneson (John Natsoulos Gallery, Davis, CA); Cristina Cordova (Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago); Richard DeVore (Perimeter Gallery, Chicago); Sueharu Fukami (Floating World Gallery, New York); Tammy Garcia (Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM); Toshimi Imura (Dai Ichi Arts, New York); Jun Kaneko (Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, MO); Michael Lucero (Donna Schneier Fine Arts, Palm Beach, FL); Akio Takamori (Barry Friedman Ltd., New York); and Toshiko Takeazu (Perimeter Gallery). And don't miss lecture presentations by Gareth Mason (Mindy Solomon Gallery, St. Petersburg, FL) and an overview of the seminal career of Don Reitz (Lacoste Gallery, Concord, MA).
 | | Eunmi Chun
Ornamentum, Hudson, NY | |
Jewelry Galore!
Top studio art jewelers represented at the fair include: Eunmi Chun and Caroline Gore (Ornamentum, Hudson, NY); Jane Bohan-with an in-booth talk!(llyn strong gallery, Greenville, SC); Ralph Bakker and Verena Sieber Fuchs (Charon Kransen Arts, New York); Peter Schmid/Atelier Zobel and Fabiana Gadano (Aaron Faber Gallery, New York); Linda MacNeil-with a booksigning! (Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia); Ingerid Ekeland (Oliver & Espig, Santa Barbara, CA); and Issac and Orna Levy (Yvel, Jerusalem). Lecture Series gems: jeweler/scholar Bruce Metcalf (Snyderman-Works Galleries, Philadelphia) on the ancient roots of adornment; and New Zealand's Dr. Damian Skinner, 2010 recipient of The Art Fair Company's New Voices research grant,on jewelry at London's recent Collect. Don't miss SNAG's Emerging Artists panel with Laura Prieto-Velasco (Ornamentum), Catherine Allen (Option Art, Montreal, Canada), and Deborah Rudolph (Charon Kransen Arts). Lectures by Aussie Julie Blyfield (Charon Kransen Arts), plus a booksigning; and Doug Bucci (Snyderman-Works Galleries) on the intersection of art, jewelry, medicine and technology. Two jewelry special exhibits! Art Jewelry Forum's Geography, presenting 80 works from around the world; and Two Generations: The Jewelry of Earl and Tod Pardon, featuring mid-20th century and contemporary works (respectively) by famed father and son (Aaron Faber Gallery), plus a booth talk by Tod.
 | | Bill Traylor
Just Folk, Summerland, CA | |
Self-taught
Just Folk (Summerland, CA) has acquired 28 iconic drawings from Europe by Alabama vernacular artist and former slave William "Bill" Traylor (c.1854-1949), which have not been seen in the U.S. for at least a decade-"They are among the strongest of Traylor's work, and several feature his signature 'Traylor Blue.'" Other African-American folk artists of note: Chicago's Joseph Yoakum (1880-1972) at Harvey Pranian Art & Antiques (Evanston, IL); Thornton Dial
(b. 1928) at Russell Bowman Art Advisory (Chicago), who is the subject ofa traveling retrospective exhibition organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art; Purvis Young (1843-2010) at Outsider Folk Art Gallery (Reading, PA); Amos Ferguson (1920-2009) at Galerie Bonheur (St. Louis, MO), "the Picasso of the Bahamas", about whom Bonheur's Laurie Ahner will speak in an in-booth talk; and Emitte Hych (1909-2009) at The Pardee Collection (Iowa City, IA).Don't miss Wisconsin religious visionary Stephen J. M. Palmer's (1882-1965) watercolors at The Pardee Collection; and former South American monk Carlos DeMedeiros' found object, small-scale confessionals with (real or imagined?) confessions in sealed envelopes, at Marion Harris (New York).
 | | Marilyn Pappas
Snyderman-Works Galleries, Philadelphia PA | |
Fiber Ties
Friends of Fiber Art International is 20! Celebrating its anniversary by honoring Karen Johnson Boyd with a lecture and special exhibit of artworks from her personal collection and objects she has donated to Racine Art Museum. Friends will also sponsor the lecture FIBER: Artists, Ideas, Inspirations featuring Katherine Glover (Jane Sauer Gallery, Santa Fe, NM); Marilyn Pappas (Snyderman-Works Galleries, Philadelphia); Lesley Richmond (Jane Sauer Gallery); Susan Saladino (Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago); and Jo Stealey (Snyderman-Works Galleries). Friends also sponsors Buy, Enjoy, Sell, Give or Bequeath? Lloyd Herman, director emeritus of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum moderates a discussion among collectors about options for the future of their acquisitions. Collector panelists are Cathy Wice (all craft media); Jack Walsh (quilts); Darcy Walker (needle art), Edith Falk (baskets) and Camille Cook (all fiber techniques). Other top fiber artists represented at the fair include Lia Cook (Perimeter Gallery, Chicago), Judith Content (Jane Sauer Gallery); and Joyce Scott and Gyöngy Laky (Snyderman-Works Galleries). Don't miss the contemporary Japanese bamboo art at TAI Gallery (Santa Fe, NM) including the freeform sculpture of Honda Syoryu and other masters, many of them prestigious Living National Treasures of Japan.
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