Upcoming Paris auction documents Barry Friedman’s refined glass art aesthetic

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="290"]
Giles Bettison, Vista #83, 2001. Fused, blown and wheelcut murrine glass. H 8 7/8, W 6 1/2 in. Estimate: 2,500 - 3,000 Euro (US$ 3,400 - 4,000)[/caption] This Monday in Paris, art dealer Barry Friedman will auction off 158 works of glass, many by artists he personally championed such as Michael Glancy, Giles Bettison(pictured at left), Yoichi Ohira, and Laura de Santillana. Organized by Camard & Associates, a Paris-based specialist in 20th-century decorative art, design, photography and jewelry, the October 3rd auction will take place  at 2:30 PM in Paris (8:30 AM EST) at Drouot-Montaigne. Work in glass by more than 20 artists will be represented in the auction, including such giants of the glass art field as Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra, Joel Philip Myers, and William Morris.

Looking through the lavish auction catalog (available online here), a distinct aesthetic becomes apparent, a taste for refinement of form that is in tune with Friedman’s established authority as a purveyor of beautiful things. His New York gallery first uptown and now in Chelsea, has exhibited work in various media from metal to photography to ceramic to glass, but always with a sharp eye on changing tastes. He has been at the forefront of various art and design trends and helped to make some of them, such as in the 1970s when he zeroed in on Art Nouveau furnishings. Friedman’s interest in glass artwork was spurred by his discovery of Michael Glancy’s work in 1996 at an exhibition in Switzerland. Though he became involved in glass in the mid-1990s, after the movement was already well underway, Friedman set himself apart from other dealers in his unapologetic approach to work in the media as something he has called “contemporary decorative art.”

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="377"] Frantisek Vizner, Aqua Base with Two Hollows, 2005. Optical glass, cut, sandblasted, and polished. D 10 1/2 in. Estimate: 8,500 - 10,000 Euros. (US $11,340 - 13,400)[/caption]

The Camard catalog documents this in the rich diversity of visually pleasing artwork ranging from Giles Bettison’s “Vista” series, created using the Venetian murrini technique to layer colored glass into a complex mosaics, to the more austere aesthetic of the late Czech artist Frantisek Vizner, whose stark columns and deep bowls that rise to a sharp point in their center provide a minimalistic approach to elegance of form. Also in the Paris sale is work from all three artists from the Barry Friedman Gallery’s touring exhibition ““Venice: 3 Visions in Glass: Cristiano Bianchin, Yoichi Ohira, Laura de Santillana”, which recently completed its stint at the Musee Des Arts Decoratif in Paris and will conclude its run at the  Glasmuseet Ebeltoft in Denmark on March 18, 2012.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="213"] Tessa Clegg, Prism 1, 2002. Pate de verre. H 9 1/2 in. Estimate: 1,500 - 2,000 Euros (US$ 2,000 - 2,700)[/caption]

Camard & Associates will host the auction as well as a series of seminars leading up to the sale. The exhibition “Collection Barry Friedman” will be on display at the Drouot-Montaigne today and tomorrow. A catalog of all the items for sale is available at the venue as well as online. Interested parties can bid live during the auction via the Internet or over the telephone. The more traditional way of participating afar by filling out an absentee bid form is also an option. Over the telephone and absentee bidders will have to register with Camard, while online bidders will register withDrouot. IMPORTANT NOTE: All artworks purchased at this event will incur a 22.5-percent buyers charge over and above the gavel price.

—Ruth Reader

IF YOU GO:

“Collection Barry Friedman”

Monday, October 3, 2011, 2:30 PM Paris (8:30 AM EST)

Camard & Associés

Drouot Montaigne

15 Avenue Montaigne

75008 Paris

Tel : 01 42 46 35 74

Email : infoventes@camardetassocies.com

Hurricane Irene leaves Christopher Ries’s home and studio underwater

“I’m still standing in the midst of a raging stream that is deafening,” says artist and glass sculptor Christopher Ries, whose home and studio were inundated with water in the wake of Hurricane Irene, and continues to be threatened by high water. The GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet reached Ries on his cellphone today, and the sound of the rushing water was audible. Weeks after the hurricane, he is facing further potential water damage. In the last 48 hours, two flash floods have menaced his studio and home, both of which have already been so severely damaged that total refurbishment is planned. Inside his studio, glass models litter the floor and a heavy antique engraving machine is overturned, everything covered in a thick muddy sludge. “It’s hard to even describe the kind of setback that this is because of the mud and the total destruction of all the utilities in my home and in my studio.”

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400"] The sodden interior of Ries's studio in the days after the floodwaters receeded, leaving thick mud everywhere.[/caption]

With the help of family, friends, and a few of his employees, Ries is working to gut and rebuild his home and studio. While his home was flood insured, his studio was not. He is not currently receiving aid from any organization and doesn’t expect to. “You would think that we’d be on the computer trying to get a grant from some organization or another, but you just don’t have time,” he says. All of his time is devoted to restoration.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Models used for casting are covered in mud in his studio.[/caption]

Ries did his best to prepare, and his precautions were key to avoiding a total loss.When the hurricane was making its way north, Ries monitored storm updates vigilantly. At first he wasn’t worried. In the past, floodwaters had crested as high as 37 feet without damaging his property. Initial reports estimated Hurricane Irene would bring enough rain to raise the Susquehanna to roughly 34 feet. It wasn’t until 24 hours before the storm hit that reporters were predicting over 40 feet of water to hit the region. That was when Ries took action. “I got people from the church down here. I had people from my studio all working all night long getting equipment out, things out of my home. Next day the water’s rising, rising, rising into my studio, into my kitchen. The water finally crested at 44 feet. Forty-four feet! Anything we couldn’t get out was lost or compromised,” he says.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400"] What wasn't taken to higher ground was lost, including many antiques and collectibles.[/caption]

Luckily, Ries and his crew were able to save the large grinding and polishing machines necessary for creating the large scale prismatic glass sculptures that Ries is known for. His artwork centers on the physics and metaphysics of light and glass, or the way in which glass refracts, transmits, amplifies, and focuses light. In his independent home studio, he creates smaller works and casts models of works to be cast at Schott Optical studio. For now, the Schott studio and its staff are on standby until Ries returns. While the staff assists with polishing and grinding work, Ries says he has to have his hand in all aspects of production.

“I lay ‘em out, cut ‘em, I take them from conception to the end,” he says. The sudden hiatus comes at an inopportune time for Ries, whose work is supposed to appear in the Pan Amsterdam art, antique, and design fair, where his work will be exhibited by the Etienne Gallery at the end of November. He says he’ll try and send as much artwork over as he can, but he fears that he’ll be short on the number of pieces he intended to show. He’s also worried it will affect his reputation. “It’s really terrifying because something like this can be career-threatening. You can’t show up a day late.”

Despite the worry, Ries says he thinks he’ll come back better than ever. He feels lucky that his family survived and that he has a home to rebuild. “My shop foreman, his house was swept down the river. He has nothing. As water was coming in my front doors, I’m looking across my lawn to the Susquehanna, I was watching house after trailer and structure after tree just sailing across the landscape in front of me down the river.”

As far as his artwork is concerned, he’s unsure how it will ultimately affect his work. All experience being cumulative, he says, in some way it will affect his work somewhere down the line.

—Ruth Reader

Crocheting New York

BY RUTH READER AUGUST 18, 2011 New York City artist Agata Oleksiak, better known as Olek, met with GALO at her studio in the Lower Eastside late the night before the opening of her exhibition at the Jonathan Levine Gallery entitled The Bad Artists Imitate, the Great Artists Steal. The studio was sparsely lit. Yarn cascaded off of stools, workbenches, desks, and pooled in haphazard mounds. Olek was working furiously.

A+S Works On The Farm

BY RUTH READER AUGUST 12, 2011 Legs folded, seated on a riser in a small black box theater at Triskelion Arts in Williamsburg, choreographer Sarah Capua directs two dancers, “Every relationship with the ground is important. Like you’re walking on sacred ground.” She unfolds her legs to model the delicate footsteps she describes.

Capua runs a start-up dance company alongside her long-time friend and collaborator Audrey Ellis, called A+S Works (after their first names). They are working on their upcoming performance, Dakota, which is influenced by poet Kathleen Norris’ first work of nonfiction, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, 2001.

WE ARE: Cash, Guns, and Money

[caption id="attachment_165" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Sarah Frost Browning's Paper Gun @ NURTUREArts WE ARE exhibit."][/caption] BY RUTH READER AUGUST 4, 2011

A 50 caliber M2 lays loaded and ready on the ground next to a thousand-dollar stack of cash. One of the walls of this sparsely lit room is pocked with a dark viscous substance.  No, this is not a crime scene. This is NUTUREart’s WE ARE: exhibit Live and Let Die, presented by curatorial platform Fortress to Solitude...

A Present Van Gogh: The Art of Devin Westland

BY RUTH READER JUNE 28, 2011 GALO Magazine met Devin Westland at the Chelsea Hotel over the weekend to see his work presented at Art of Fashion’s pop-up gallery showing. Westland was one of nearly 40 artists to display his work in this month’s viewing. “That’s mine over there,” Westland said pointing to a vibrant landscape of fields set ablaze beneath a quiet blue sky. “What do you think?” he asked uneasily. Westland, a young 23-year-old, is still finding his footing as an artist.

Skolimowski Revisited

BY RUTH READER JUNE 22, 2011 Just when you thought Jerzy Skolimowski had dipped into the shadows never to produce a film again, he emerged from a 17-year hiatus with two films: Four Nights with Anna and Essential Killing.

The critical acclaim for both films prompted the chief curator of the Museum of the Moving Image, David Schwartz, to host a retrospective of the artist’s work, showing films made throughout the course of his over 50-year career...

Ballet At Tandem

[caption id="attachment_145" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Photograph by Karli Cadel"][/caption]

By RUTH READER JUNE 15TH, 2011

“You’re late!” A thin muscular man calls out, his chin pointed high in the air with dissatisfaction.

A young lady joins a string of other young women lined up at Tandem’s wooden bar. Each is dressed in some variation of stretch pants and a tee-shirt; some are barefoot, some in socks. The man lowers his chin and takes a tall stance, “Okay, let’s start with pliés.” This weekend as part of Bushwick Open Studios, men and women found themselves clamoring for a spot at Tandem’s bar, or should we say barre, for a ballet class hosted by Movement Research. Taught by long time dancer and choreographer Greg Zuccolo, the class was a surprisingly vigorous two hour full of tondués, rond de jambs, and pirouettes.

Eric Trosko, Ducks, Synthesizers, and Abstract Art

By RUTH READER JUNE 7TH, 2011

What initially led BushwickBK to Eric Trosko’s studio this past Saturday was the promise of trapeze artists and acrobats. While that part of the show was cancelled, our dashed hopes were assuaged by Trosko’s musical act at Factory Fresh and studio exhibition.

What Is Performance? Figure It Out.

By RUTH READER JUNE 2ND, 2011

Last August, choreographer and performance artist Jill Sigman poured dirt onto the floor of her studio and erected an elaborate hut comprised of trash found in Bushwick for Talking Trash in a Hut, 2010. She lured passersby into her apartment with a scavenger hunt she set up around the neighborhood. She placed hand-written notes in trees that led participants to her studio for tea and conversation.

As the project evolved, so did Sigman’s apartment. She discovered plant growth and bugs in the dirt surrounding the hut after she spent just a few days away.  “It was like an entire ecosystem had sprung up in my apartment!” she marveled.