| In a narrow niche alongside an inner wall of the booth plays a video of
what viewers have spontaneously come to refer to as the “red dot lady”
movie. It’s called “Virus,” by an artist named Liuba, and
depicts a woman wearing a dress covered with red dots. She wanders a show
very like SOFA, in and out of the aisles, trailed by a photographer snapping
shots of her standing alongside the works, as if she herself were part of
their exhibition. Then, peeling a dot off her dress, she places it on the
wall next to each piece. Sold? Video of the gallerists gives us their reactions,
from wonder to bemused consternation. She has owned the works herself, merely
by juxtaposition of life with living art. It’s perhaps as good a metaphor
as any for the experience of this year’s SOFA NEW YORK, a show that
concludes with all the enthusiasm for return to a creative core that no
art-loving New Yorker in good conscience could miss.
Michael Workman is a writer and editor living in Chicago, IL. |