It was an evening filled with fine art, fancy patrons and not as much hand sanitizer as you’d think. I showed up to the Volta festival not quite knowing what to think; I had never been to a showing like this. Was this a multimedia arts festival? Contemporary counter culture festival? An extension of those annoying art boutiques shilling $500k Mr. Brainwash prints in Chelsea? Could I have answered all of these questions on my own just by looking this thing up in the first place?
When I arrived on Wednesday evening, I have to say I was surprised. The art was… it was good. I really liked it. I was honestly happy to be there.
I should say that I’m no art critic. The walls of my home are almost completely bare, largely because I’m too terrified of the process of picking out art to actually commit to anything. What is tacky? What is nice? What is problematic? I can never tell. I felt a little bit of that same apprehension when I was trying to pick out cool pieces from the Volta festival, but here are some that stood out to me.
This is a piece by Japanese artist Kenpei Yunde, who brought several pieces over for the festival. The blurb on the plaque mentioned that each of his pieces takes a year to create, and that he layers on pain in thick coats to create a natural feeling three-dimensional texture to each piece. This work stood out to me especially, in part because of the way it was lit from the outside. A bright tungsten light, which I have to assume the curators aligned themselves, was pointed down at an angle to the viewer’s right, in a way that mimicked the position of the sun in the painting. Light at that angle caught the layers of paint from the side, and almost made the tree look like it was glowing from within.
I spoke with a representative of the artist. He said that his organization represents many artists, and that this painter was one of the most famous painters in Japan. I asked him why they chose to bring the work of this particular artist over for the Volta festival. He said it was because the painter was famous. That was the end of the conversation.
Which, honestly, was fine by me. I don’t do these kinds of conversations well. I’ve gone to conventions where I’ve met artists and illustrators that I liked, and often times I want to talk to them. But what to say? How can we talk verbally about a visual medium? I was both disappointed that the conversation didn’t last longer, and relieved that I had a way out. I had a few other conversations with artists’ reps that didn’t go much deeper than this one. Talking with artists about art is a skill that I know I need to work on.
I also really appreciated some of the optical illusions that were on display. It was fun to see the sorts of things hung up in a physical space that couldn’t be really experienced online.
This is a three-dimensional sculpture, with lines that make it difficult to make out its exact topography. It’s a little tough to communicate through a photograph, but it made me do a serious double-take when I looked at it in the space.
And speaking of three-dimensional uses of space, this piece by John Ferrara stood out to me as well.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the artist was making a bold statement with this piece. I could pretty easily see this thing being hung up in a fast-casual restaurant. But it did stick with me as an interesting piece, I think mostly because I found it to be an effective use of the physical space. It felt tactile in a way that some of the flat paintings didn’t. (Obviously I didn’t actually touch it.)
I think that my main takeaway from this experience was that, if we’re asking people to come all the way out to a gallery in Chelsea, then adding dimensionality to our pieces is a good way to give them something that they couldn’t have gotten at home.