Meet a couple from Ireland on the train to the airport. A couple guys from Portland at the airport. Sat next to very nice Missionary Richard L. Gardner from Nigeria and Beaverton on the plane. Had a seven-hour layover in Portland so I was able to drop into my gallery and eat at my favorite restaurant in the world Oba.
Drove back to Amsterdam mostly on the autobahn. If you see a black Audi in your rearview mirror move to the right. They seem like the weapon of choice on the autobahn. All told over 4,000 km on the trip mainly on the autobahn. Dropped the rental off took the train to Amsterdam. Met a KLM employee from Korea? Went strait to the Rembrandt house. They have a great virtual tour on their website http://www.rembrandthuis.nl/cms_pages/index_main.html
Met Eric Armitag who is the paint expert there. Also a guy from Birmingham Alabama filming for youtube. Then went around Amsterdam and retook some photos lost on my memory card. The streets were clear since a football game was on. I spite of that it is a miracle no one got killed in the few minutes of filming this unregulated intersection.
Meet a collector from Milan at breakfast. He thought my card looked familiar. I didn’t tell him he probably saw it on a garbage can in Basel. Met Andrzej Starmach gallery owner from Poland while in line to get a bratwurst he only recognized the same menu items I did. They serve it with a roll and a paint tube filled with mustard. Ate the bratwurst with Fernando Morales-de la Cruz founder of Brands Mission Network from Baar, Switzerland. Met a lady from Switzerland and her husband and another couple while eating a strawberry tart. Talk to a salesman at Gagosian Gallery’s booth. Left Basel early walked Mulhouse got caught in the rain and waited it out in a bar, which was part of a hotel all done in the art deco days.
Breakfast with Asai again. He is headed to Luxembourg to visit the studio of the artist he bought art from. Our language barriers kept me from figuring out what the artwork was. All of our communication was based on his command of English. The only Japanese words I can think of is kamikaze and hari-kari. It would have been impossible to communicate with my two-word vocabulary.
Taking a break from Basel head for Zurich. In Zurich I find an Internet place. Print a map for Lois’s gallery in Milan, Italy. Find where the art galleries are concentrated in Zurich. The guy there talks about going to the train station then transferring to one going to the galleries. I figure I don’t have that much time so I just start exploring. Four blocks away I find Nadja Ullmann’s studio http://www.atelieroffen.ch
I love her work and try to buy one but she doesn’t take Visa. She tells me that the galleries are just one street over. Check them out then have lunch eating sticky rice wrapped in sugar cane leaf. I incorrectly try to eat the leaf. Making the waitress laugh and run into the kitchen. The chef comes out to warn me not to eat the wrapper. The only other guest was sitting at the next table facing me and saw the whole embarrassing thing. I ask if he is also an American since his English is so perfect. He tells me that he is in finance. Head for Milan, Italy to surprise Lois. By the time I get there like 7:30 on a Saturday night I figure the most I can do is leave a card and maybe call his mobile. Pass many galleries and one studio asking directions because I can’t seem to find it. They all say Lois’s gallery is closed until Tuesday when a new exhibition starts. I round a corner to his street/alley as he is walking out. He had been working on installing the exhibition. What are the odds of that! He buys me a soda. Head back to Mulhouse.
Breakfast with Toshihuhiro Asai curator for a museum outside Tokyo, Art Tower Mito getting coffee for the panel discussion meet two New York gallerists one was Katie Rashid director at Jack Shainman Gallery. Lunch with an artist from Basel working at Unlimited building and a sales person for a New York gallery. The restaurant worker thinks I’m Richard Branson. I sit down to listen to a panel discussion on the state of the art market. A girl joins me at the table who is involved with a website devoted to video art. About have way into it she leaves saying that she will be back. Other people ask if the seat is held for someone and I say yes. About the third person to ask I notice that the girl had left her purse and a Basel V.I.P. bag. She has been gone like 45 minutes. My imagination takes hold. Why would a lady leave her purse with strangers for that long. What a perfect place for a bomb. At the most prestigious art event during a talk on the art market. I go over to the Swiss military women who control the door. None of them understand English well enough to let them know my suspicion. So I go to the main entrance. The Swiss security lady there also didn’t understand what I was saying. I even make a boom sound as I’m saying the word bomb to no avail. She directs me to the information desk the girl there understands and calls someone to check it out.
Scope Art Fair
On my daily commute to Basel I get the idea to write on the back of a business card a note to Jay Jopling offering to give him the grand tour when he comes to Montana. I don’t want to get in his way of doing business. I figure that he wouldn’t even get the note if I give it to an employee. He doesn’t show up at his booth for a couple hours after the opening. I spot him near the booth eating a sandwich. I figure this would be a good time to give him the card. When I get to him I see that he has his blackberry/phone up to his ear. He seems to be using it as a decoy and isn’t talking or even listening to it. I set the card on the bench next to him and leave. Dessert at Basel with gallerist from Galerie Charles Bailly in Paris. Lunch with artist Martine Thoelen. Met a very kind couple from Zurich? While waiting for the tram. They help me find the Liste fair. They have come to the fair for most of the last 25 years >
Art Basel
Run into Benito and buddies four times through the day. Standing in line at the ATM at Basel I met the Curator of Contemporary painting for the Art Institute of Chicago. I tell him about having just seen the Hopper show and my thought about continuing where he left off and my father’s scholarship to the Art Institute. See Charles Cowles from New York three times and on the third offer to buy him lunch or a drink. He was leaving town tomorrow for a couple days then returning. I said he had to know more about the art world than anyone I’ve met and I would like to hear what he thought. Since I’m so isolated. I asked about his Art Forum days. He was the publisher for 15 years. Then introduced myself to Jay Jopling of White Cube. I told him that it was breathtaking how he has mastered the art world. He has always wanted to come to Montana. He asked if I had seen the show with paintings at his gallery.
Met a couple from Dusseldorf who said the museums are clustered together but not the galleries.
Drive to Frankfurt to get a feel of the galleries, and then drive to Mulhouse, France. Listen to a techno radio station, perfect for driving the autobahn
http://www.kanalk.ch/default.aspx?tabid=142
Can’t find the hotel. I thought Mulhouse would be a sleepy little town. They had a shipping dock with cranes. Rough neighborhoods with dock workers. About the size of Denver. I drive around for a while and at one point drive down a street that dead-ended at the police station. Two policemen were standing there so I asked for direction to the hotel. They say follow them. We pass another police car driving with lights and siren blaring. Then an ambulance parked with its lights on. The police car I was following pulls up behind the ambulance. I keep thinking that they are going to be needed for something more important than escorting me. They roll down their window to say follow us. We wind all over for 15 minutes. Finally arriving. Get there too late to check in, can’t even get in the building. Start to get ready to sleep in car.
I really need to pee so I drove to the train station. Pass the police car. I’m sure they wondered why I didn’t stay at the hotel. The train station was closed. Drove back to the hotel. Open my trunk and grab my contact case. A man is three stories above on the balcony and I am wondering how I was going to be able to pee in a water bottle. Two men walk past Lois Di Falco a gallery owner in Milan and one of his artists. Lois sensed something was wrong and I told him of my dilemma. He lets me into the hotel so I could use the lobby bathroom, he knew the code to the door. There isn’t a lobby bathroom. He’s suggesting I sleep in the lobby on the couch. Then another gallery owner and his entourage walk in. Lois tells him my dilemma. He walks over to a small safe and punches in the combination. Pulls out some envelopes and says Mr. Smith? Hands me an envelope with my name on it. My first thought is I came too late for the preview that I now have an invite to. Probably even better, it contained my room key. He had called the hotel earlier letting them know he would be late. So they had given him the code to the door and safe. Later I came down to get my suitcase. Locked outside in the same dilemma I had was Benito Padilla gallery owner of Imaginart and two coworkers from Barcelona. I let him in. he calls the hotel emergency number. They come down and pull his key from the safe.
Do the walking tour of the wall, Holocaust memorial, checkpoint Charlie etc. Go to Potsdam and then northeast Berlin, where the American artists live.
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Law closes all of the galleries and other non-essential businesses on Sundays. I cover the Charlottenburg and zoo areas. I go to an opening at the Georg-Kolbe Museum to meet an artist friend from artreview.com then search the zoo area for backup galleries. This neighborhood is the cleanest part of Berlin I've seen so far. Berlin has the worst graffiti problem I've seen anywhere. My opinion is that celebrating an artist like Banksy only encourages it.
The free buffet in the morning was worth it though. It had everything you could even imagine for breakfast. Every kind of meat, fruit, cereal, yogurt, bakery, cheese, juice etc. The chef kept coming out to stock it. She was tall dressed all in white. Looking like across between a Kazak, nurse, Scandinavian, military commander. With a military kind of hat and boots. With a very serious attitude. I ask about keeping my car there and taking the mass transit into Berlin. The hotel clerk warns me that in an hour there will be thousands of bikes showing up for some exhibition. That was why the rate was so high.
Find the booked hotel/hostel Inn Berlin. The owner gives me the rundown on where the galleries are. I set out looking for Loop gallery that I talked to at the Miami and Chicago fairs. Can’t find it so I go to the two gallery streets the hotel owner pointed out in the mitte (central) neighborhood. The first gallery on the street is Galerie Leo.Coppi. It looks like a perfect fit. The Coppi partner is in agreement that it is a good match. The Leo partner was out of town until Monday. We agree that I will look at the other galleries just to be sure. I return before she closes to confirm that her gallery is the right one.
While writing this I realize that I fly out in an hour. I had just woken up with plans to hit Buckingham Palace and Albemarle and other galleries. So I head for the airport fully rested for the flight to Amsterdam then six hour drive to Berlin. By coincidence my car rental is for noon. My original arrival time. I changed it to ensure getting to Berlin by 8:00 since the hotel reception closes then. I would have had to get up at 4:00am and been very tired driving into Berlin which would be dangerous. It was dangerous anyway. The autobahn doesn’t really have a speed limit. Your choices are the right lane with the trucks, which freaks them out since they can’t pass you. The middle lane, with the cars from both other lanes weaving into your lane constantly. The left lane, which I got up to 200km then having to move out of the way of the “Audi division of NASCAR” suddenly showing up in your rearview mirror.
Find Max Wigman’s gallery. It is upstairs and the only sign of it is a buzzer at a doorway. I get buzzed in thinking that maybe Max himself is there and I can see if he remembered me from Miami. I walk up the flight of stairs. Arriving to the first floor there is a gallery space with art on the walls. Nothing else. No desk or gallerinas or even an office or doorway to anywhere. If you had a question about the artwork or wanted to buy something, tuff. You would have to walk down to the buzzer and talk to the hidden gallerina there. Leaving the gallery space, the next floor up is roped off. Your only option is to go back down.
Go through Sotheby’s galleries. Meet a Russian? collector interested in art with weapons. Have high tea in their café. They use the café as an extension to their offices. They seemed to conduct more business there than in their offices. One man, who I’ve seen in the media, but don’t know who he is, kept looking at me like he wondered who I was. Or who let this “scrub” in. I’ll never know which. See a painting about 15 feet high by 20.
Highgate Fine Art will take me if they can work out their lease. They are up on the high part of London and have been open 35 years. I think hey have accumulated too many artists for the space he currently has though, so I doubt I'll do it. The new building owner is trying to raise his rent 56%.
Stumbled into a temporary gallery opened and run by a dealer for a month just to pump up an artist’s CV. Also a vanity gallery on Cork Street open for just one week by three artists for the rent of about $4000. There was also one I found in Berlin ran by eight artists open permanently. All three looked and functioned just like any other gallery.
Stop into Maddox Arts a newer gallery run by Edward Cutler. See Jack again at Timothy Taylor Gallery and send him the Miami email. He was at either Miami or Chicago and a very nice guy.
All day galleries in west end of London.
Go to Alan’s opening at Medici.
Get an email from Jenny at Medici saying I’m not suitable at this time. So I start looking again.
Look in White Cube area
Go to the Tate Modern, do floors 3 & 5 it is very crowded again for the bank holiday. Lots of special fun events for the kids. I did just one event. I took the illegal audio tour. It consisted of listening to the artist Willem de Ridder taking you on a tour of the Tate. The video clip below is a sample I made by holding my camera next to the headphones. I figured nobody back home would believe how cool this was. Pointing out “secret” works of art. He would instruct you to stand in a certain spot and look in a certain direction. Thus pointing out a blob of plaster that looks like a butterfly. A flaw in the mudding of sheetrock is a sculpture that looks like a penis, etc. Looking for about the eleventh secret artwork he instructs you to go in a door marked “employees only” he says it’s ok this one time. I walk in and as I am coming in contact with employees the artist is reassuring me that it’s ok. Just tell them you are on the audio tour. The fourth employee Christopher Tom Lewis isn’t per swayed and ushers me out. He is one of the long-term Tate staff. A gallery supervisor, we talk for a while outside the employee door. I tell him about my gallery luck. He asked me to let him know if I show in London. I give him my cards and explain my trilogy. He said they looked like Hoppers. I tell him about seeing the show in Chicago a month ago seeing them in chronological order. I felt that my style sort of continued where his left off. His later work had more people in them. He said they had a Hopper show two years ago that was very successful. I ran into him again about five hours later. He said that he showed the cards to the head of the painting department who liked them and said they look like Hoppers. He was again adamant about letting him know about the galleries. I asked about donating a painting he said to email the director.
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First thing in the morning and last thing at night I do something disgusting. I go to McDonalds. It is the closest free Wi-Fi. (my Microsoft Word spellchecker thinks “Wi-Fi” is misspelled suggesting wife as the right spelling) I still think a foreign McDonalds is the worst form of Americanizing and graffiti on the European landscape. That being said I still counted on it to check email and research galleries. I got hooked on Virgin Radio which played at McDonalds. I can still listen to it back home at http://www.virginradio.co.uk/?source=listenpage
Fly to London.
Ride bus down to Bond street area looking for galleries. Don’t see any. Ask a few people. No one knows of any gallery areas. I see a lady photographing a manikin in a window and ask her. She says to head down Bond Street. The first one I find is a disgusting Gilcee store. Then the Opera Gallery. I mention that the gallery name seemed familiar, were they at Basel? He says they are in NY, Zurich etc. I leave a card saying that when I’m dead/famous he can say I was here. He said Carlyle? Like three times.
Walk down to Piccadilly Circus. Can’t go any further without eating something. Go into Ponti’s get a Parma take the tray to a table next to a guy sketching. I asked if I was blocking his view and he grumbles no. He looks very frustrated and unhappy. He was sketching the back of the head of a girl sitting with her boy friend. Then the artist hangs the sketch on the wall so the boyfriend can see. The boyfriend keeps looking at me and smiles a knowing look that sketcher is a whack-job. They leave and the sketcher examines a piece of ostrich leather. Then the artist turns his attention to another lady who doesn’t seem happy to be the model. They leave. I go to the bathroom. On the way out I ask if there is an area of private galleries. He happily answers to go to the other side of Piccadilly Circus. And turn either on Regent or the opposite direction. And also Cork Street. He says Cork Street is “key”. I turn on Regent and don’t see any galleries so look for Cork Street since it was one of the few addresses I got out of the phone book from my list. See the Medici gallery. They are having an opening of an artist who is similar to my work, Alan Kingsbury. http://www.medicigallery.co.uk/artists/Kingsbury.htm
His work is lined up on the floor getting ready to be hung with many red dots already.
Richard the gallery person said the show was almost sold out. He was very excited about my work and stayed open late to talk to me. He was really fun to talk to and had a great energy. He told me to email Jenny the gallery owner.
Went to the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum Museums. Then gallery hunting again. Headed back to the Modern Art quarter with the map card I got at Go stopping at Galerie George C-ent. It contained only paintings by Henk Hofstra. No sign of any other artist so I assumed it was artist ran. A man and a woman were talking. She asked if I had a question. I asked if one of them were the artist. She said no that they were having an opening Saturday. I gave her my card which she claimed to love and said very Hopperish. She ran over and insisted the man leaving on the bike took one of my cards. He then recognized my skinny legs as the artist that dropped in the Go Gallery last night. He is the partner of the man I gave my card to at the Go Gallery. She was also there at the meeting. She thought my prices might be too high for her clients since she has only been open four years. She still seemed to be the most agreeable to represent me. Next going back the Go Gallery the man hadn’t looked at my site yet and was friendly but not as much as the night before. Go is bigger and seems like the leading gallery. Then to Galerie Buuf a notch below the other two on a corner off the beaten track. Nice enough though. Kockxbos had empty walls maybe too edgy.
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Sit with a very nice computer guy Eric Aarts on the plane to Amsterdam.
Walked all over Amsterdam looking for galleries. Finally stumbling into the Go Gallery open late with people holding a meeting. The door was open and I was waved in. Looked around and then a man left the group to ask if I had any questions. I gave him my card, which he claimed to like. Then said he needed to rejoin the meeting. It later turned out to be a meeting of the six best fitting galleries in Amsterdam.
