View the Gallery: (13 photos)
It was ladies night at Canyon Ranch Living, a sprawling North Beach resort where collectors, artists and exhibitors gathered at the NADA party to celebrate the satellite fair's first ever sculpture garden showcasing seven emerging female artists and the 7 For All Mankind Best Booth Prize Winner -- a tie between New York's Kate Werble and L.A.'s François Ghebaly. A block from the NADA fair, Canyon Ranch, the fair's official accommodation sponsor, felt like the suburbs -- worlds away from the well-oiled locals that dominate South Beach. Guests such as dealers Zach Feuer and Matthew Higgs, artists Jen DeNike and Justin Lowe took advantage of the open bar. A few partygoers danced to the sounds of Le Baron's Kolko, but most, exhausted from a long day of art viewing and selling were just focused on when and if they'd ever get dinner.
Work by Nicole Soden, Allyson Vieira, Sarah E. Wood, Sarah Braman, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Amelie Chabannes, Rachel Foullon, and Liz Magic Laser with Felicia Garcia-Rivera lined the entryway leading to the poolside party. Why only ladies in the garden? NADA director Heather Hubbs explained that the exhibition was an extension of a panel discussion held last month on why women artists aren't more commercially successful. "We thought it would be a nice way to follow up on these issues surrounding gender equality in the field by presenting the work of women artists."
Highlights of the exhibit included Viera's beautiful "Center Me, Edge Me, Corner Me" -- plaster, concrete and drywall columns tumbling into the resort's walkway -- and "Bend" a clever video collaboration between Liz Magic Laser and Felicia Garcia-Rivera featuring the infamous motorcycle gang Rough Riders performing a variety of modified yoga and military poses incorporating their bikes. "Both yoga classes and motorcycle gangs boast a simultaneously communal and individual experience of wholeness. The two practices carry opposing gender and class connotations that we wanted to interrelate," Laser explained. But a video in a sculpture garden? Laser asserted, "The logic being that the video deals with a sort of subject-object relation." Whatever the logic, it was a good excuse to sip cocktails overlooking the ocean with a bevy of talented women.
