`Art 1998 Chicago,” the latest installment of the international trade fair that makes its home at Navy Pier each spring, is one of the more stimulating bazaars devoted to modern and contemporary art in recent years.
Including more than 200 art dealers from Europe, Asia and the Americas, the fair is too large to allow meaningful comprehension of its more challenging pieces, but the number of visual one-liners is down from 1997, the percentage of modern masterpieces is a bit higher, and photography surpasses even last year’s dominating contingent as the best-represented medium of any work, old or new.
Five years ago, when the fair was held in a tent at North Pier, nearly everyone agreed the representation of 87 dealers provided just enough art to be exciting but not wearying. Now the number of pieces — by more than 2,100 artists — works against sustained concentration, shortchanging much of the art and the conceptual efforts in particular.
Even tightly focused museum exhibitions have a difficult time illuminating the socio-political strategies that are among the most favored in art of our moment. A sprawling commercial exposition sheds no light at all, and many will leave the fair awakened but without a clue as to how to begin coming to terms with the more timely pieces.
The work in easier-to-grasp conservative or historical styles is, however, profuse enough to give some consolation. And it’s a relief to find the same artists are not represented again and again, as was the case during the epoch of relentless starmaking.
The rawness of art shown by more daring exhibitors also has had some of its edge taken off. Reasons for this are difficult to determine beyond the fact that exhibitors are dedicated to selling, and last year it was difficult to imagine just who might consider a purchase of, say, gigantic stuffed animals with human genitals.
Here are a few picks of unusual interest:
Kent Bellows realist drawing (Forum Gallery).
Christopher Bucklow unique dye-destruction print (Fraenkel).
Edouard Vuillard, Leon Spillaert paintings (R.S. Johnson-International).
Pierre Dubreuil, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston vintage photographs (Howard Greenberg).
Euan Uglow paintings, drawings (Browse & Darby).
Alexei Jawlensky semiabstract painting (Leonard Hutton).
Mona Hatoum video installation (Jay Jopling/White Cube).
Thomas Struth large-scale cityscape photographs (Galerie Nachst St. Stephan).
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“Art 1998 Chicago” continues noon-8 p.m. Sunday and Monday; noon-6 p.m. Tuesday at Festival Hall, Navy Pier. 312-587-3300.
