As I stepped into the bustling expo hall at Artexpo 2023, a crouching figure sight immediately caught my eye.
Amidst the throngs of art-goers, a man was prostrated over a large black mat, etching a black-and-white symbol onto papyrus. Sanmu Kunisada, the master behind this mesmerizing display, offered patrons the opportunity to request their favorite word and feeling, which he would then transform into a broken but beautiful kanji character before our very eyes. Rugged and distorted, it was a singular piece that captured the beholder’s intention, desire, and instinct, creating a tangible expression of those unique moments in which artist and audience are united and create beauty together.
This past weekend, Pier 36 was alive with the vibrancy of the global art community. Patrons, purveyors, and pioneers of fine art from around the world gathered together to revel in the beauty of the creations on display. The venue was a veritable cornucopia of paintings, sculptures, and drawings across the imaginable (and surely unimaginable) genres. I had the great pleasure of meeting more than a handful of artists, including Changnam Lee and her lively gradient photographs, ZhanChuan Long and Yong Pan’s surrealist and lonely pieces featuring faceless humans floating in ambient spaces, Tina Ngo’s bird’s eye views of Manhattan constructed from electrical tape, and of course Sachie Yoshino’s human-sized goat scientist mannequin on proud display.
Art reminds us that, despite the persistent mundanity of modern life, each of us have infinite pools of creativity that ebb, flow, and cascade throughout our life. Mégane Fortin has developed a unique abstract style in conjunction with a layer of materials that, when using 3D glasses, makes her work literally pop. At the ripe age of 15, she is an award-winning wunderkind whose work can be found in galleries across the world.
Shortly after meeting her, I had the great pleasure of talking to Abraham Gelbart and his companion. Another abstract artist, we mused about his stylistic combination of bright, playful colors with muted, brutalist landscapes that almost created a liminal feel. In his companion’s words, his style of “whimsical cubism” is the product of a life of architectural design, but is not something he forces or created knowingly. Heidrun Klimmey, another artist at the expo, can offer us advice here: her multi-piece series that creates multiple iterations from the same starting point, entitled ‘never stop playing.’ — a salient reminder that we should strive to play, trifle, and create wherever we can.