As San Francisco weathered two very minor earthquakes and braced against voracious rain that forecasters had classified as an “atmospheric river,” two art fairs in the city—FOG Design+Art and Untitled—went about their business of opening with nothing but signs of positivity in sight. The older, more established FOG and the newer upstart Untitled (a West Coast satellite of a fair initiated in Miami) offered different vibes but together courted collectors and curiosity-seekers to a Bay Area art scene that rose to the occasion for both.
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Thursday marked the opening of Untitled, with 55 galleries (to FOG’s 53) from 10 countries assembled for the fair’s third San Francisco edition, this year in a new setting: an enormous warehouse on Pier 35. The environs were much rawer but filled with energy, especially when it came to a show-stopping work by the entrance: a spinning sculpture by Mat Collishaw at the booth of the London/Berlin gallery Blain | Southern. “This is based on a Victorian zoetrope,” director Sarah Bourghardt said of All Things Fall (2014), which starts at a standstill and then, by way of a motor, spins at a delirious speed that makes the characters within it seem to move. Those characters are up to no good—whipping each other, throwing babies over a wall—as depicted in Nicolas Poussin’s 17th-century painting The Massacre of the Innocents.
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The booth for Denny Dimin Gallery, in town from New York, featured pastel paintings of figures swimming and lounging poolside by Jessie Edelman, priced between $4,000 and $14,000. “We’re really interested in San Francisco collectors because they are very smart but seem to not have as large a world of art at their fingertips,” said gallery partner Elizabeth Denny. “We want to try get to know them.”