Heart As Arena: Frieze Out.

Editor's Note: For best effect, read this post while humming the melody to Napalm Death's classic, "Continuing War On Stupidity"

Look. It's pretty simple here at Heart As Arena. I want to see art that moves me. I don't care who made it, what medium it is, where it's shown, or who's showing it. However, the art has to be shown to be seen. When that possibility is limited the teeth of my heart come out. Not because they're angry, but because they're hungry.

One increasingly common cause for their hunger is the exclusion of prints at art fairs. These fairs are hated by many, but not by me (See above.). Stupidly expensive ticket prices and some truly horrible people are never enough keep me away. Not from a place where I can see so much art from so many galleries visiting from outside of New York.

The Frieze Art Fair's decision to exclude print dealers this year was more than a little disheartening. In Ed Winkelman's spot-on piece regarding this dumbass move, he mentioned that The Armory Show might be next. Oy. Shall I mention that some of the best work I saw at The Armory last year was in the prints section? I guess I just did.

Of course, the argument can be made that it's a free market and Frieze can do what they want to bring in the most money. Whatever. Even from that angle it's a short-sighted move. Wait. Don't take my word for it. Let's allow uber collector Martin Z. Margulies to speak for just about every collector on the bloody planet. From the first issue of Whitewall:

WW: When did you make your first purchase?
MM: It was in the mid-70's. I STARTED PURCHASING PRINTS. (Bold italic capitalization mine.)

Now the dude has a warehouse.

As usual we can't rely on the gate keepers, even those with really wonderful art magazines. Big surprise. So, in the spirit of counteracting mountains of stupidity in the world I'll be listing sources for prints and editions for the duration of Frieze. There will be no particular order or method to this but I will begin with the print dealer that schooled me on the medium, Pace Prints. A visit to their gallery on 57th street never fails to remind me what a vital medium print-making has always been and forever shall be. Amen.

Pace Prints

Tara Donovan
Untitled, 2006
Relief print from rubber band matrix

Pat Steir
Winter Fall, 2005
Handpainted monoprint with oil based paint and colored pencil on a screenprint

Crown Point

Ed Ruscha
Public Market, 2006
Sugar lift flat bite with hardground etching on gampi paper chine colle

Julie Mehretu
Local Calm, 2005
Sugar lift aquatint with color aquatint, spit bite aquatint, soft and hard ground etching and engraving on gampi paper chine colle