Art-o-Rama has the vibe of LISTE Basel from about 10-15 years ago when it was limited to the number of galleries approx 50 due to its location at the Warteck Building.
Art-o-Rama is an increasingly important art fair held annually in Marseille- and signals the end of summer and a return to the September Fall exhibitions and fairs seemingly everywhere. This year it runs from August 30 – September 1, 2024, showcasing contemporary art from mostly young contemporary art galleries and includes editions and design sections. The fair supports emerging galleries, offering a platform for new voices in the art world. This year it features 47 galleries from Paris, Barcelona, Chicago, London, Vienna and more.
It’s exciting to see so many Barcelona galleries participating this year but makes sense given Marseille’s realtive proximity to the city. Bombon Projects and the non-profit space Cordova presents a shared booth with a series of photographic and mixed media works through a dialogue with artists Agnes Essonti Luque (Barcelona) and Mona Varichon (Paris), both artists are working with photography.
While Chiquita Room also presents works from two-female artists Laura Zuccaro and Xana Sousa. Zuccaro creates very faint and muted watercolors that sketch out modular or geometric structures, while Sousa presents fabric works utilizing mattress fabric with a similar color palette.
ethall brings together works by several artists who, through different media, refer to sculpture. With an (almost) total absence of three-dimensional objects, these works quietly circulate around the essential questions of sculpture.
There is also a cluster of 3 galleries from Vienna and 3 galleries from Chicago which is worth looking into. Vienna is represented by Sophie Tappeiner and City Galerie and House of Spouse…
Sophie Tappeiner is perhaps best known for having exhibited at Frieze London, Liste Basel, and Paris Internationale- normally her program is full of young international artists but, here she presents drawings from Anna Zemánková– a self-taught artist who died in 1986 former Czechoslovakia. Her work is described as ‘growing flowers that are not grown anywhere else.’ She created an imaginary herbarium of otherworldly organisms that feels contemporary to a younger generation of artists who have returned to traditional methods of art production and an interest in nature and bio-diversity. Zemankova was part of ‘Foreigners Everywhere‘ at the Venice Biennale. Tappeiner shares a booth with City Galerie who presents sculptural works by Berlin-based artist Xenia Bond. Her work is characterized by systematized forms that evolve into stylized idioms, which she then layers and collages to create new visual narratives.
House of Space is a relatively new space in Vienna, located in a 2nd-floor walkup apartment just outside the city center and the first international fair outside Vienna- presenting a solo presentation with Miriam Stoney known for her work with language, architecture, and sculptural interventions.
Untitled (circa 1970s)
Sateen collage, textile colors, ballpoint pen, acrylic 45 x 33 cm
courtesy Sophie Tappainer (Vienna)
Meanwhile, Chicago is represented here by M. LeBlanc and MICKEY along with Good Weather.
Good Weather has built its reputation by participating in international fairs originally with a location in Little Rock, Arkansas- not your standard stop on the international art scene, so Chicago eventually made sense while maintaining the gallery’s MidWest roots. Good Weather presents new paintings by LA-based painter Jenny Gagalka- seemingly still-life paintings utilizing a mundane color palette of pairs of objects (shoes, hats, etc.) creating a compositional doubling that allows the viewer to contemplate symmetry and its variations.
M.LeBlanc and MICKEY might be new names- if you are not familiar with the Chicago gallery scene, but both galleries have paid their dues and built good gallery programs. M.LeBlanc has an excellent group of mostly Euro-German painters in its roster (Peppi Bottrop, Hans-Jörg Mayer), which reflects Marc LeBlanc’s time in Berlin when he was a gallery director for Kavi Gupta’s (long shuttered Berlin space) along with curated projects at Christian Nagel and other galleries and spaces. For Art-O-Rama- M.LeBlanc presents the work of two Chicago-based artists, Jonah Koppel and Mindy Rose Schwartz. Schwartz will present her ‘Alien Head Keychains’ (2001-2023), a series of small sculptures of aliens (and alien farm animals), cast in polished bronze and secured with lanyards to a mix of rings, keys, and occasional pieces of found material.
Gouache and pencil on cardboard mounted to panel in artist frame
29,2 x 52,7 cm
Courtesy of the artist and MICKEY
MICKEY is a relatively new gallery to international fairs some recent fairs include (NADA Miami and Material- CDMX), but founder Mickey Pomfrey has been involved locally for many years having worked with a group of fellow SAIC grads (such as Puppies Puppies and members of Queer Thoughts (NYC) when he ran the off-space Courtney Blades. For Art-O-Rama, MICKEY presents works by Chicago-based Ryan Nault whose paintings have been described as something between banal, beautiful, and eerie. The horizontal painting format reminds one of film or iPhone formats more than landscape paintings.
With a variety of subject matter depicting aspects of ‘the everyday’ (fruits and vegetables, city views, domestic scenes) the work is familiar as he draws from still life paintings and iPhone photos to create images of a skewed reality depicted in painstakingly brushed gouache on cardboard mounted panels with artist-made frames that are tacked on giving the work a crafty vibe.
Overall it looks like this year’s Art-O-Rama has plenty to offer young collectors looking to learn about the latest contemporary galleries and artists that are developing the aesthetics of the next generation.