Art-o-rama 2023:
Four Artists to Scout Out
Touted as the premiere art fair in the South of France, Art-o-rama returns to Marseille for its 17th edition, from 31 August to 3 September.
Devoted to 60 emerging galleries, with 28 solo and 8 duo presentations, Art-o-rama is a fair that's made for discovering new artists.
Ocula Advisory headed to Friche la Belle de Mai, a former tobacco factory turned cultural centre, to seek out the top four artists showing at the fair.
1. Alex Margo Arden at Ginny on Frederick, London
The walls of Friche la Belle de Mai were floor-to-ceiling with paintings but it was the intimately rendered frames of London artist Alex Margo Arden that caught our attention (and that was before we heard the backstory).
His Hand (I) (2023) was one of four hands adorning the walls of Ginny on Frederick's booth. The oil painting was captured from a photograph that had been in the possession of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office and has since been repossessed.
The photograph was used as evidence in a criminal trial relating to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was shot on the set of Rust with a revolver held by Alec Baldwin in 2021.
In painting this hand, alongside an almost identical painting of the same photograph, Margo Arden brings into question the evidentiary merits of representations. Even the faintest reconfiguration, or omitted information, could change the course of justice.
2. Camille Bernard at SISSI club, Marseille
Another favourite, in light of their solemn yet alluring palettes, were the paintings of Glasgow School of Art graduate Camille Bernard.
In Bernard's work, characters appear to be at one with the landscape, transfixed by the water, sky, or foliage that surrounds them. Seuil (Plongée) (2023) was among the smaller works cropped to show only a portion of each torso.
The whites of their eyes re-direct your attention to other specks of white illuminating the dark canvases—dew on a blade of grass, the tip of a fingernail, or a rolling water drop.
3. COBRA at Good Weather, Chicago
A welcome change from the 2-D features were the birdcages of Japanese artist COBRA, founder of XYZ Collective, an artist-run gallery based in Tokyo, Japan.
The series on show, 'Bird Gallery for Birds', featured numerous bird cages attached to the wall and adorned with acrylic-on-canvas paintings of eggs either whole or in various cracked states. Beneath them lay other materials such as straw and a climbing frame.
Initially puzzling, a quick read teaches you COBRA's caged sculptures stem from concerns about humanity's relationship with animals. We share basic needs and desires, yet have divergent aesthetics and conceptualisations of time and freedom. These hybrid paintings and readymades seek to frame and transform these contradictions.
4. Pedro Almodóvar at Marlborough Gallery, New York, London, Madrid and Barcelona.
Known for black comedies and melodramas, Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar's lesser-known photography practice features at Marlborough's booth.
Almodóvar says his experience as a director has made it easy for him to construct his compositions, which capture wilting flowers, vases, and wilting flowers in vases.
'I find it relatively straightforward because I'm very used to arranging colour and objects. I'm the art director of all my movies. I really feel like a painter whose palette is a range of three-dimensional objects, with their colours and their shapes,' he told Artnet News in 2019.
The result is an array of pop-coloured, elegantly arranged sets that feel like they could be inspiration for Nicolas Party's next still-life series.
Main image: Alex Margo Arden, His Hand (I) (2023). Oil on canvas. 30.48cm x 40.64cm. Courtesy Ginny on Frederick.
