#I only hope my edit is able to capture 1/4th of her manic and beautiful aura

[fahclove]

cw: flashing lights //

Root the Character that you are….

[accessthearts]

Satellite Art Fair

Satellite Art Fair 630 Flushing ave. Brooklyn, Ny

October 2nd, 4th and 5th

Edited October 31st

Setting up on Wednesday was like walking in on to a stage the night before opening. The sound of power tools and ladders filled the room. Fala explained that in order to keep the booth fee low, the host of the art fair asked each booth to create its own unique environment. Our environment was composed of 3 white walls made from large white canvas, stage lights with filters on them to set the mood and the (primarily sculpture) work of our two artist.

The five of us, Arpi, an Arminian woman in her 30′s, Vincent, an Asian man in his 20′s, Suzy, an Arminian woman in her 20′s, Fala and I unpacked the pieces and moved them into place. We all helped erect the roof of our booth which had to be sewn on. We were missing some essential materials in our setting up such as tape, a ladder or a chair. So me and Suzy grabbed a couple of the beers we had been sipping on and went around to the other booths hoping to do an exchange of beer so that we could get the materials. The people in the other booths were male and female, in there mid to late 20′s and 30′s and ethnically diverse but primarily white. The people we approached to borrow things were receptive and friendly even though everyone was pretty immersed in setting up. One booth did play loud Metallica like music that drove my booth crazy but other than that no problems. There was no connectors or common themes in the different environments or art works.

As we set up I got to know Vincent, Arpi and Suzy. Suzy was Fala’s classmate in their NYU Arts Administration graduate program. Arpi and Suzy had known each one another for a long time as they were apart of a small young, Armenian - American social group. Vincent was pursuing his MFA at NYU. While talking to Vincent about his studies he lamented that the education system was “ keeping artist in the dark” intentionally by not requiring artist to take classes in arts administration so that artist remain ignorant to the business practices such as consignment agreements. We agreed that the system would be better if all players had to be crossed trained.

Suzy and Fala expressed excitement and appreciation to Satellites practice of keeping exhibitors fee affordable in relation to any other fair. To be apart of the fair you had to submit a request, put down the $500 fee, with no other commission cut taken from the art and create your environment. Suzy and I hypothesised that Satellite was able to do this because of their crazy high drink prices at the bar.

The day before, Thursday, was the opening of the show were our booth first got put to the test. Apparently the first day went smoothly with no glitches or complaints however nothing had sold. Arpia and Fala expressed that they expected more foot traffic.

The Satellite Art Fair had over 30 exhibitors in a mix of performance programming, panel discussions, screenings and exhibits. It was being held in a ware house of the Pfizer building with large hallways, a sitting space and ramps leading up to / around the space but limited standing room and aisles space amongst the booths. The space in its entirety gave me the same feeling as a black box might, probably because of the black walls that boxed in the space. At the entrance of the fair was a desk off to the side with a woman collecting admission and checking wrist bands. Admission was $10. Those who were apart of the fair got smiley face wrist bands and patrons got ones with red stripes. The people manning the front table were in there late 20’s and were beautiful. They were friendly but only in a way they needed to be, engaging with patrons in a transactional way.

Instrumental music played from the venue as around 80 people walked in-between the spaces when I arrived around 4pm. Most engaged in conversation with each other or the people in the booth.

The first conversation I walked into was between Arpi and Fala, it was about the HyperAllergic article that had been written up the night before on the Satellite Art Fair. The immediate reaction of the group to our artist being included in HyperAllergic was joy and shock. HyperAllergic was a publication that frequently had begun to appear in my life as Latchkey Gallery tried to be in its press pool and other relevant contemporary artist in my life had either been featured in the art magazine or were hopeful to be as it is a prominent magazine. Yet, there in virtual publication form was an article reviewing the Satellite Art Show. It talked about most of the artist featured in the show in a line or two summary with a photograph. I thought the photos they had captured and used of Vincent and Arpia’s work were so gorgeous and really captured the essence of the space that we had curated. However Arpi expressed dismay because of the writers description of her work. Arpi described her reaction as, “I was happy and then oh.” The article gave some background of the art fair and an over view of the fairs mission to be “inclusive and non - pretentious”, inclusive to who was unclear. It critiqued some of the work for being too made for instagram but celebrated most works mixed media approach. The last line of the the article was “Surrealist, sci-fi fantasy is a reoccurring theme throughout, represented best by the lush biophilic paintings of Anthony Padilla, and the slightly sexual, slightly escapist sculptures of Arpi Adamyan.” Followed by a close up of Arpi’s work of one of the sculptures. Arpi explained to me that her work did involve ideas of felinity and sexuality but in no way did she consider her work sexual. Her work featured a close up image of a placenta through a kaleidoscope, waves crashing the background, sculptors of objects that almost looked like coral or a penis or a building or a space ship ( this was intentionally interpretative). Arpi also felt her work was not escapist, Arpi was from Arminia and seemed to take cultural offence at being labeled as something romantic and frivolous. There was no saying why the writer garnished this impression from the works, Fala assured Arpi that Suzy, the other curator who spoke to HyperAllergic, would not have given them any false information. The article did not write up anything on Vincent’s work but it did include a photo of his piece. The article also did not mention any of the curators but Fala was still very pleased about her artist being shown as it increased press and hopefully demand for her artist work, which she would get commission for. There were roughly 10 different art work photos included and maybe 15 different artist name drops.

As a volunteer for the space at this point my main responsibility was to supervise the traffic around the booth, ensure that the works were maintained and secure and be a welcoming face around the booth. Fala, Suzy, Vincent and Arpia all gave talks to the various people that entered the space. I could tell Fala and Suzy’s talks were of a more curatorial nature that gave a vibe of the entire space and highlighted the most interesting points of each works. Vincent and Arpia, the two artist, gave much more back story of their own piece and dedicated much less time to the overall booth. As the foot traffic increased through out the night though I got the feeling that my standing or sitting was more in the way so the next night I took a step back from the booth and did exploring of the rest of the fair.

Friday was an even busier night were my only task in the booth was to be available to rotate in if the others needed a break but the four of them were so proud and held so much confidence in their work that I think it carried them through the whole fair. When I would pass our booth there was always between 2-5 visitors looking around or being talked to by one of the team members who were usually facilitating questions about the pieces and providing background on them. Visitors to our booth most seemed to be my age or in their 20′s. I did note a hand full of young children accompanied by adults, some of Arpis professors who were older and one dog. The visiting crowd was about as ethnically mixed/primarily white as the exhibitors. I would also say that the visiting crowd did not need financial help as the vast majority of visitors crowded around the bar area to buy $12 cocktails.

I visited each exhibit, there was art of a variety of mediums on a huge range of topics, from McDonalds to Donald Trump. The thing I noticed connecting the art and artist was that once of the them usually belonged to the queer community or dealt with ideas of sexuality. When I asked Fala about this common theme she said it could be coincidence because she had not heard anything explicit about queer representation (even though 5/5 of our group was queer).

The one social enterprise gallery that caught my eye was Treat Gallery who collected art from over 100 artist for this exhibit where 1/3 of the proceeds would be donated to PULSE organisation in Florida, who was the victim of a mass shooting last year. Treat gallery however seemed to be the only gallery advertising its social initiatives.  

There was one performance piece in the showing room of a topless woman in a ballerina outfit who was very manically applying make up and making gestures. She asked for a volunteer from the crowd, so of course I found myself on the stage. I was shaving this woman head in front of a crowd of 30 people and one dog. Everyone seemed more shocked about the dog than this woman free nipples or newly shaven head.

Another booth that caught my eye was a guy doing flash tattoos. I watched him for awhile, reviewed his work, talked to other customers and sat in his created environment until I felt comfortable enough to get my first tattoo and pull down my pants in this dark room of over 100 people on a Friday night so he could ink a cartoon on my butt. All of the patrons who witness the event were very pleased about my placement and the design.

The night went on until 3 am and I stayed for every moment of it, for research purposes of course. Once all of the works were away and the lights went down in the exhibition space , nearly 70 people danced in the performance space to a DJ who was preforming a set.