What to See at Intersect Aspen

The annual contemporary art fair in the Aspen Ice Garden is back for an in-person experience Aug. 1-5. With a new owner and new producer, it’ll look different than it did pre-pandemic, when it was known as ArtAspen, but the new Intersect Aspen is still offering a curated selection of international galleries showing and selling postwar art and blue-chip artists.

The new Intersect Aspen is hosting 30 exhibitors from 26 cities, filling the ice rink with a sampling of works from some of the leading contemporary art galleries and also a glimpse of the insane heights of the pandemic’s commercial art market. Intersect Art and Design acquired ArtAspen in April 2020 and hosted a virtual version of the fair last summer.

The new version of the fair hits as the international art world descends on the resort for the Aspen Art Museum’s annual ArtCrush gala, which has its main events running Aug. 4-6, and as a bumper crop of leading multi-national galleries have opened seasonal pop-ups in Aspen.

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Intersect’s producers also run annual Intersect fairs in Chicago and Palm Springs. The Aspen offing will be its first in-person event since the pandemic began. Managing director Becca Hoffman said the Aspen fair’s new layout was designed with the pandemic and distancing in mind and to refresh the standard ArtAspen layout that was in place from 2010 to 2019 with a temporary tunnel running from entrance into the fair where gallery booths lined a carpeted pathway snaking through the venue.

Hoffman said she redesigned it with New York’s more spacious annual Armory Show in mind.

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“It’s much more open and cleaner,” she said in mid-June during her first visit to Aspen on behalf of Intersect. “I want it to feel like a celebration of coming back together, coming back in person.”

The fair arrives in the midst of a busy arts and culture season in Aspen where, along with the new galleries, post-vaccine demand for performance and cultural experiences of all stripes have been outpacing pre-pandemic summers. Intersect is seeing that enthusiasm from galleries as well.

“Exhibitors are telling us that they’re excited to come to Aspen and that they’re looking forward to presenting work they are passionate about,” curatorial advisor Paul Laster said in a programming announcement, “and to sharing it with an art-savvy public.”

Here are some works and booths to look out for at the new fair:

ASPEN GALLERIES INSIDE

Aspen’s own Casterline|Goodman is exhibiting in the fair with a booth that includes works by the nature photographer David Yarrow among others. The gallery is also opening a new Alexander Holler exhibition at its Durant Avenue space on Aug. 2, preceded by a talk from the young painter at Intersect at 1 p.m. Robert Casterline himself will also discuss his 25 years of experience in the art world and give collecting tips in an Aug. 5 talk at 12:30 p.m.

Aspen’s Galerie Maximillian is also producing an exhibition at Intersect while mounting its new show at its Cooper Avenue space with recent works by painter Sarah Graham.

ASPEN GALLERY NIGHT

Intersect has teamed with the Aspen Art Museum to host a gallery walk on the evening of Aug. 5 from 5-8 p.m. The walk is free, as is entrance to Aspen galleries and the museum.

LOCAL TOUCHES

Aspen Film will screen four select animated short films from the 2020 and 2021 Aspen Shortsfest at Intersects screening room, running daily at 5 p.m. Titles include standouts like Robin Frohardt’s “Bag” and Aidan McAteer’s “Streets of Fury.” Anderson Ranch Arts Center and Carbondale Arts are also running a gift shop called a Shoppable Object Space daily during fair hours, selling locally made wares.

CLYFFORD STILL

The clear must-see item at the fair is Clyfford Still’s painting “PH-568,” made in 1965 and recently unveiled for sale by dealer Emmanuel Di Donna. It is expected to sell for more than $20 million. There are relatively few works by Still in private hands, as most of it is in the collection of Denver’s Clyfford Still Museum.This one was first bought from Marlborough Gallery in 1969 and sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in April for $16.2 million.

YVES KLEIN

Galerie Gmurzynska’s booth will be showing a rarely seen Yves Klein painting, “IKB 128,” from 1960. It has been in the collection of Klein’s friend Antonio Saura since it was made and has never been sold before.

GABRIEL RICO

The conceptual artist Gabriel Rico, who staged the memorable “Discipline of the Cave” exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum in 2019, is presenting new works from his “Reducción objetiva orquestada” series in a booth organized by Perrotin.

KENDELL CARTER

Edward Cella’s booth is presenting an inter-generational exhibition of two major artists playing with text in their work — it places Kendell Carter’s recent hybrid cast paintings alongside Wosene Worke Kosrof’s renderings of indigenous African written script.

HELEN FRANKENTHALER

The groundbreaking abstract expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler is included in booths organized by Greg Kucera Gallery and by Sélavy by Di Donna. In addition to those, Berry Cambell Gallery is producing a promising group exhibition of eight women from the abstract expressionist movement including Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan and Perle Fine.

atravers@asepentimes.com