Contemporary Art: Governors Island Art Fair 2014

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - Visiting art fairs belongs to my favorite activities. Yesterday I took the 5 minutes ferry ride from Manhattan to Governors Island, a tiny island close to Manhattan`s south peak. There was the Governors Island Art Fair 2014 (4heads.org).

The hosts had chosen  100 artists and gave each of them one room to display their works. The result was a huge variety of surprising ideas.


My favorite is an installation by Sabrina Barrios (sabrinabarrios) called: "How to Build a Pyramid - Part II: Understanding the Connections to Constellation". She filled a room with a set of threads (picture on top of this post). This construction looks like a huge (dangerous) spider web. The room is kept in dark, but the threads are illuminated by black light.

I was also fascinated by an installation by Hao Ni (haoishao), called "Night II" : I saw a mysterious glass box, illuminated from outside, where drops of a liquid were running down threads. The catalog explains: "Mineral oil on monofilament, resin on various fabrics, car headlights embedded in wall, and other mixed media".

One room has a collection of bizarre elaborated constructed items which are connected through a systems of tubes. The steampunk installation has even some living gerbils (looks like a mouse wikipedia) in it. The catalog names Mikel Glass & Daniel Baltzer (baltzerglass) as the creators and calls the work "Coherence" (mixed media kinetic installation).

Another room had an installation which looked like a part of a jungle. I believe this work is by Ashley Rodiguez Reed (ashleyrodriguezreed).

There also were a lot video installations, some of them mesmerizing, which can not been shown here.

I also saw some paintings. Some were abstract (here: "Apparatus Transport System" by April Zanne Johnson aprilzannejohnson),

others showed some kind of jokes like Antonia Andrioti`s "Pinkcops" (antoniaandrioti).

The exhibtion also had the typical nudes which seem to belong to every art show. Above this paragraph you can see works by Ajama Kojo (ajamukojo) and Rebecca Sutton.  The ladies in violet, red and blue are by Alice Sfintesco (alicesfintesco).

And there also was a horse in one room, which reminds me that contemporary art often comes with some humor.

I plan to go there again if they continue the event next year.