Cool Hunting

Scope presented as impressive a show as we've come to expect from their fairs. I appreciate the economics of including smaller galleries and less expensive work (the kind I can actually afford to buy), though I prefer a tent or hall to the difficult to navigate, overcrowded rooms and hallways of a hotel. The 70+ galleries from around the world presented works by some of my favorite artists and as always I discovered works by several artists new to me. Definitely a highlight of this art-filled week. A few images after the jump.

Sorry for the crappy photographs. The light in the hotel was really uncooperative for taking pictures. Fortunately we're providing links to artists (where we have them) and to their galleries where you can learn more about the work.

We missed the Chinese Art Invasion, a separate show dedicated to Chinese art spearheaded by Ethan Cohen Fine Arts. It features works from artists during "Supression"-era China (1980s and '90s) and "Explosion," which features contemporary work. Their room at Scope gave a small sample of the great work to see. I wasn't able to get the name of this artist, but loved their work. A lot of information is available from Ethan Cohen Fine Arts

Black Forest by William Betts is a great example of his work. He scans landscapes, assigns colors relative to the elements in them in a vertical bit map of sorts. They are painted by a printer that uses paint instead of ink. At Rudolph Projects

Twitterpated, 2005 by Amy Mayfield at Kasia Kay Art Projects

Our photo doesn't do justice to Alex Hamilton's intricate newspaper drawings at Patrick Heide Art Projects

An installation of drawings on Post-It notes by Andy Moon Wilson at Curator's Office

A major highlight of Scope was this amazing installation by Tracey Snelling. She finds inspiration in photographs of buildings, then contstructs incredibly detailed models of them. The photographs are shown alongside the buildings. At the show an entire streetscape was installed. At Brown Bag Contemporary

These Scotch tape sculptures by Joseph Davidson were inspired. The artist says, "I have developed a body of work that uses construction materials and hardware to create a fictional world of urban and household mechanisms." At Tatar Gallery

Croatian sculptor Kristian Kozul's beautiful (and painful) work stood out. At TZR Galerie

Thomas Brummett's Nocture photographs impressed. Dr. Sabrina DeTurk says of his this series "These new landscapes...are directly influenced by his earlier preoccupations with the tensions between nature and technology, man and the universe, seeing and representation." The artist photographs a scene, scans and enlarges it and then prints them in the darkroom. The effect shows both the natural and man-made elements. Sorry, it was too dark for any pictures, but more information is available from Schmidt Dean Gallery