Rapid Art Pulse.

Last month, I had the opportunity to visit New York for what was a mega-volt hit of contemporary art. In addition to The Armory Show, the city's most established art fair, there are now 9 concurrent satellite fairs in its orbit including Volta, Scope, Bridge and Pulse.

It was possible to see work by more than 6000 artists, from 140 cities, across 5 continents over 3 days - but only if you were superhuman. Choices had to be made. A welcome respite from this sensory overload was Volta - a tightly focused, curated event featuring 60 solo-projects by its selected artists and galleries. This fair's more intimate scale provided a welcome opportunity for engagement with individual works and artists.

Between them, these fairs attracted more than 70,000 visitors and, despite talk of an economic downturn, generated sales in excess of $US90 million, predominantly in the primary market.

Completing the contemporary art marathon was the Whitney Biennial 2008, a curatorial selection American art today. Artists working in a vast variety of media and genres presented installations and performances on 4 floors of the Whitney Museum and at the Park Avenue Armory. See links below for more info.

Of a comparably high standard yet on a more modest scale, below is a selection of some of the fine exhibitions you can access a little closer to home. Please take full advantage of their proximity and enjoy the month of May.

Jennifer Buckley
Director, Auckland Art Fair

thank you.

Auckland Art Fair would like to acknowledge the support of the ASB Community Trusts in the production of this e-news.