I received an email from Robert Dimin of Denny Dimin Gallery, New York, while writing this note, inviting me to tune in to a web-based panel discussion that afternoon. The discourse would examine Hong Kong Tales Of The City, a gallery show curated by Isaac Leung that displays works by members of Videotage, a Hong Kong–based artist collective. “It is an aptly timed show,” Dimin wrote, “as the works on view explore ideas of Publicness and Everydayness, which in this moment, I am trying to process more than I have in the past.”
A Dallas Art Fair exhibitor, Dimin got me thinking about the unique ways we will communicate this month. Part of me rejoices that people will now be reading more, but, like the rest of the art world, I worry about the impact on irreplaceable visual and performing arts institutions, and art galleries. Our support will keep the arts ecosystem thriving despite temporary closures. There are ways to do that: make donations; resist requesting refunds for events, galas, exhibitions, and performances (look for rescheduled dates); and acquire art.
In that spirit, we moved forward with some Dallas Art Fair coverage—consider it a print exhibition, although the fair itself has been postponed to October 1–4. Solo Show will catch readers up with Kennedy Yanko, whose sculptures will be available at Denny Dimin’s booth. Read about her practice, which combines her signature paint skins with vigorously reworked metal objects, along with the practices of five other disparate artists: Issy Wood, Jessica Dickinson, David Benjamin Sherry, Scott Kahn, and the late Georg Karl Pfahler. Their work will be displayed by eight Dallas Art Fair exhibitors this fall.
March was tough, but the opening of Mark Bradford: End Papers, on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, was unquestionably a highlight. The genre-defining artist’s enormous fan club, including this editor, showed up in force to opening engagements for the chance to meet the Los Angeles artist. For A New Kind of Content, Dallas’ own Darryl Ratcliff—an arts writer, poet, and artist whose practice emphasizes community engagement—was uniquely prepared to interview Bradford and discuss the exhibition.
Psychic Wounds: On Art & Trauma unpacks the work of over 60 international artists whose distinctive memories of historical trauma inform the affecting exhibition on view at The Warehouse. Curator Gavin Delahunty writes: “The proliferation of violent imagery since World War II has led to new kinds of artworks that marshal consciousness of traumatic events and their cultural processing.” Read Chris Byrne’s informative interview in Imprints of Trauma.
Virginia Shore’s thoughtful curation of HALL Arts Hotel’s common areas further exemplifies the need to look beyond the surface of great collections; artists often have a story to tell. Shore, who led the first art acquisition program for the US Department of State’s Office of Art in Embassies, offers insight in Public Prowess. Down the street, Brian Bolke, chair of Art Ball 55 (postponed to 2021), invited friends and arts patrons to select favorites among the Dallas Museum of Art’s vastly rich holdings.
In frivolous style, fashion rockers arrived at the new Virgin Hotel with Bill Hutchinson and an English bulldog champion named Ridley. Enjoy the less-serious side of fashion in The British Are Here, captured by fine arts photographer Thom Jackson with styling by Diamond Mahone. In keeping with Publicness, we urge you to use your mother’s always prudent wash-your-hands advice, then visit our cultural institutions when they reopen. During these unprecedented times remember that your favorite retailers are hoping to see you too; maintain their businesses as well. At Patron, we want to thank all of our advertisers for taking part in this issue. This keeps the arts, and our issues, alive in print and in our digital edition online. We dedicate these pages to you.
-Terri Provencal
Patron Magazine