Art Silicon Valley / San Francisco Entices Techies to Art Collecting
- October 14, 2014 12:20
This year has been rife with attempts to move the Silicon Valley tech elite into high-level art collecting. For the Bay Area's latest art-selling infiltration, techies, tastemakers, and true collectors turned out en masse for the inaugural edition of Art Silicon Valley/San Francisco. Nearly 12,500 attended over Columbus Day weekend at the San Mateo County Events Center in the San Mateo suburb. Some 4,200 people feted the event at a Platinum VIP opening on Oct. 9, when Star Wars creator George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, browsed the floor, reportedly buying a Banksy from Keszler Gallery.
Smartly located equidistant to the action of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, the fair had all the luxury trappings of a city event: A sponsored VIP lounge had Ruinart doling out its champagne alongside the latest Maserati. Models collared with big Graff diamonds milled around. And then there were the distinctly fun touches aimed at a younger, tech-centered crowd. For one, a seating area was made of motherboards. Tony Oursler's video projection, "Kin," created a talking point around a totem pole-like piece of ghoulish mouths mumbling and giant eyes winking.
A first-ever West Coast event for veteran fair organizer Art Miami, the show featured 70 galleries from 42 countries, which provided a good mix of renowned 20th-century artists, California modernists and today's cutting-edge international artists. Robust programming included a symposium on collecting and a creative area to drop-off young children.
Street artists loomed large with a monumental mural by APEX at the fair's entrance and then there was Keszler's jam-packed booth of Banksy works from his 2013 New York "residency." Some pieces were actual brick walls tagged by Banksy, and a truck door was memorably marked, "The grumpier you are, the more assholes you meet."
On opening night, interest was strong in San Francisco-based Peter Fetterman's booth where dramatic black-and-white images by noted Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado were a big draw. Also popular was the C. Grimaldi booth, lit with the neon-and-mirror installations of Korean-born Chul Hyun Ahn. His works are like a modern riff on trompe-l'oeil painting; especially intriguing was a life-size train track image that appears eerily endless.
Our favorites among the "classics" encompassed a Wayne Thiebaud of Cherry Cake, oozing with (painted) frosting, at Paul Thiebaud Gallery; the vibrant Sam Francis abstracts at Hollis Taggart Galleries (and all over the fair); and the bold color forms of Larry Zox at New York's Berry Campbell.
Quality was consistently high among the exhibitors, many of them regulars at the Art Miami fairs during December's Basel Week. Carefully-selected works by over 750 artists at varying price points (starting in the low thousands) could entice newbie collectors along with more seasoned buyers (largely, finance folks from the city).
San Francisco is a known art-hub anchored by world-class museums, although some city galleries and two art fairs have recently ceased. Silicon Valley, on the other hand, is like a new frontier for the top-tier art market. Whether access to high-end art as opposed to interest in acquiring it is the sticking point for cultivating collectors here remains to be seen.
This year, the first-ever Silicon Valley Contemporary, held in San Jose, tested the waters with a good turn-out, but middling sales. In brief stints, Christie's brought Lichtenstein, Wesselman and more to the enclave of Los Altos; Sotheby's sent William Eggleston photographs to Palo Alto; and New York's Pace Gallery popped up in Menlo Park with Alexander Calder and Tara Donovan. And a more permanent fixture, a museum, was born this fall when Stanford scored the Anderson Collection, chock-full of stellar works by Rothko, Diebenkorn and more.
The art seed has now been planted in Silicon Valley heads. If they haven't already, with that next IPO or stock option sell-off, fair-goers might consider acquiring a coppery Harry Bertoia sculpture (Abby M. Taylor Fine Art), super-cool Kehinde Wiley painting (Jerome Zodo Contemporary), or floral frieze by Alex Katz (Meyerovich Gallery), all seen at Art SV/SF.
Energy and glitz-factor were high, although Art SV/SF's "red dot" success was hard to gauge. But for its first incarnation, the fair delivered like a golden start-up, boosting hope that the tech elite will become the culture caretakers of the 21st century.
