~FREIZE BUZZ
yes, we know – the 74-year-old Japanese artist – KEIICHI TANAAMI – whose pop art work made some waves at this year’s 2010 FRIEZE ART FAIR, in London – where his work was showcased in the ‘Frame’ section – by NANZUKA UNDERGROUND, a gallery from TOKYO. as DANIEL BAUMANN, one of the co-curators of the Frieze Frame section stated in a recent NEW YORK TIMES (OCT 15, 2010) review of the fair – ‘Frame is about looking at the future of art, and “the future is not reserved for the young” ‘. !!
p.s. DANIEL BAUMANN is the lead curator for the up-coming 2013 Carnegie International art show in Pittsburgh.
we meet KEIICHI TANAAMI at the opening for his amazing awesome one person psychedelic show – ‘Spiral’ – at the wonderful indie gallery – that used to be – but is no more – the now somewhat legendary TRANSPLANT GALLERY, run by the super talented and visionary young Japanese curator YUKI MINAMI. it was located in Chelsea – back in the day – when there were pretty much – no other (meaningful) galleries over there. Yuki used to live in the back.
the invite for the show.
KEIICHI TANAAMI, ‘SPIRAL’ ran from MAY 28 – June 24, 2005.
it was a totally totally awesome show and some pretty awesome guests turned up, too.
you can see more pix here: artlovers archive !!
scroll down – the show ends that report.
the young and super talented Japanese curator – YUKI MINAMI – photographed on her very last day in NYC !!
Transplant brought a lot of super cutting edge art shows to New York – in it’s brief reign – but unfortunately the gallery never received much, or even any !! backing from the mainstream – so no wonder, she figured out the big wormy Apple was a loser – picked up, and went back to Japan. the rumor was she went back to get married – but she never let on to her private life – as such, she was very Japanese in manner, conservative, graceful. yet determined. sure of her contribution and yet, very formal in many aspects – yet so awesomely forward in her vision.
nobody has taken her place. oh for real eyes, give me the indies. the other guys don’t know art – till it’s been certified – it’s like: can they tie their shoelaces – bunny ears ? – they have so little, so no talent for finding talent grass roots up. and when the indies go down – hate to tell ya, but so does the temp of the scene. what can I say – bring on the indies. or as one indie dealer was overheard to say – “go find your own god damn artists” !!
let’s hope there will always be some stupid optimistic guys willing to make a run for it – bringing us the raw real-time talent – the new wave, just as it builds momentum. before the big sharks – with the access to the next-level collectors, duh. come along and snap up their best artists and shut them down, just when they’re finally, on the very edge of making it . . . ouch. shark bite – New York City style.
it’s super painful to watch, and bad for all.
PHOTOS: COPYRIGHT NANCY SMITH