Ashfly's happy homepage of ART etc: MARKET 2014

hello.
2014 MARKET.

My general impression was little-too-much-nice-stuff-for-walls/ same-same-as-last-year/ ok-but-wheres-the-innovations-?.
I felt that, within the frame of what Market is, it could have been more.The change of venue, the lack of "opposition" from Supermarket, didn't do very much. Was it mostly the same artists as last year? Was it the athmosphere (its simply more interesting with events where you can sense that people are truly enjoying the works and the situation; this was not the case, yet I don't want to fall into the trap of saying that everything needs to be served in the form of populistic event)?. I don't know honestly, but it just didn't feel fresh and new.

Ernst Billgren (shown by Lars Bohman gallery) has something special for sure.

(Im sorry it looks like crap - the photo - but I get so self-conscious when photographing stuff in Lars Bohman. They make very clear that they are just a little bit better than everyone else, its stressful...)

GRRRR AARGH! /I just lost everything I just wrote, ie I was almost finished with this post.../
Rewriting: However. I guess to some degree I did the walk around Liljevalchs with a new set of eyes. I was looking for something specific, perhaps trends, perhaps a specific trend that I can (in a new way) correlate to my own work. This I found.
I was quite fascinted by the brutality of below work. Honestly, I find it quite ugly, like, everything about it, the colours, the forms, the materials, the combinations. It reminds me of German expressionistic woodcuts, and it has this feeling of intensity of feeling and body. There's nothing dislikeable about that in itself (although I was never very into German expressionism) but the way it comes through below I simply find it, well, ugly. But then there's two. The same piece x 2. And these pieces are quite large. That whole repetition somehow defies the spontaneity, and even the directness and brutality becomes like a cold thought-out choice. Strange this is, and interesting.

Steinar Haga Kristensen
Totaler Angst der Abstraktion #2 (Der SchliePmuskel funktionert nicht mehr #63), 2014
Johan Berggren Gallery

Also here, Im generally not so into paintings and pictures of "faces" (perhaps because Im not a people-person), I often think its dull and nothing I haven't seen before. Like fire and nudity, always fascinating, you have to look, but then too often the work simply ends there. These paintings I still found rather nice, the contrast (Im a fan of Manet also, the crisp contrast and large fields of very-darks and very-lights), and the simplicity and symbolic undertones from the removed mouth or eyes. It also reminds me somewhat of Chris Berens's figures http://chrisberens.com)

Rauha Mäkilä
Left: Alek, 2013
Middle: Mura, 2013
Right: Gerli, 2013
Helsinki Contemporary

The following works by Ian McKeever and Eduardo Terrazas, are notes for myself in relation to my own work. First, Ian McKeever http://www.ianmckeever.com/ (here I had to ignore the dull 1st page of his website, it was a bit disconcerting. Yet I found some pictures there that I like a lot, very inspiring, Ive posted some screen shots below. Anyone who knows my work will know why I like his work).

Ian McKeever
Eagduru 13, 2013
Galleri Susanne Ottesen

Ian McKeever from
http://www.ianmckeever.com/

And here then, Eduardo Terrazzas. I think there is a trend going on right now concerning the awareness of material and involvement of texture. I can see this in fashion - since about 2 years back theres been a whole bunch of leathers, fake-leathers, furs, fake-furs, feathers, strange synthetics often black or white. Im not a fashion designer and have no idea about whats going on in that world, but I go shopping sometimes and have noted a trend. I think perhaps this is also happening in other places of the creative landscape ie in the arts. I am mysef drawn to texture and new materials that are experienced directly or indirectly through the sense or suggestion of touch. Because of this I probably SAW such works to another extent than what I otherwise would. - It makes me think of something I heard a while ago; something suggesting that with global connection to the internet and almost instantaneous communication that connects many scenes and events into one unfolding "presence", the time factor is becoming obsolete. WHEN something happened isnt really a factor anymore, but WHERE it happened; NY, Shanghai, Venice etc. My stray thought had to do with presence as such. The physical presence of where, here, body, texture. Anyhow. Checked out his website but I think Im more into the black and whites below.

Eduardo Terrazas

Below is another indication towards this texture-idea I was just talking about.

Marika Mäkelä
Planet Garden, 2014
Galerie Anhava

That is alles.

Stockholm

140416