An Expansive Vision From Coast to Coast
Passion is contagious.
Charting Transcendence has a knack for delivering meaningful art that engenders passion, connection, and joy.
Preceding Miami’s rise as an international art magnet by almost two decades, the May 1983 project Surrounded Islands by artist duo Christo (1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009), in which they wrapped several uninhabited islands in Biscayne Bay in pink polypropylene netting, is now the subject of a retrospective show at Ft. Lauderdale’s NSU Art Museum.
Recent tours at fairs have deeply impressed and impacted participants, and momentum is building towards building meaningful relationships in beautiful ways.
Before December, when 2025 culminates in the Western Hemisphere’s grandest caravanserai in Miami, opportunities to join these tours will be by invitation only.
For now, limited slots are still available to experience the unique way this advisory practice creates meaning and magic around contemporary art.
Art at the Nexus of the North American Continent
Recently, I spent a week at EXPO Chicago. which as an art market destination cannot quite compete with New York in terms of volume and heft nor Los Angeles or Miami in sex appeal.
Yet as the country’s central transportation hub, whose cognoscenti and moneyed class have traditionally gravitated towards both avant-garde art as well as architecture and design, the Windy City not only has a ton of world-class art; it is quite possibly the continent’s most hospitable, welcoming, unpretentious destination.
A Sense of Place
Axiomatic to an art collection that allows those who live with it to transcend the everyday are artworks that convey a strong sense of place, whether real, imaginary, ordinary or exotic.
Not really a cliche, “art that takes you places” is something all collectors, whether avid travelers or homebodies, ought to consider for their collections.
A standout at EXPO Chicago this year, admired for their unusual delicacy and intimacy, were monochrome watercolors by Mongolian-born, Paris-based artist Odonchimeg Davaadorj (b. 1990), shown by San Francisco’s re.riddle. Owls are sacred to Mongolians, as legend holds that they saved Genghis Khan in time of need.
Los Angeles’s aura is unmistakable in this acrylic painting, View of Ascot hills from Boyle Heights (Fire season with evening haze) (2025) by Manuel López (b. 1983). The artist is represented by LA’s Charlie James Gallery, which excels in showing work by emerging artists.
A drawing by Richard Carter (b. 1946) that copies a very famous ukiyo-e woodblock print by Hiroshige (1797-1858), Sudden Shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge, a highly influential image that inspired French impressionist painters as well as Vincent Van Gogh. Carter, based in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado, shows with Aspen’s Hexton Gallery
Flavors of Abstraction
Although Western art evolved into abstraction much later than other traditions (some of which had embraced it for centuries), there are too many styles of abstraction out there to count.
Our clients take interest in abstract artwork not only to match form of color to the decoration of their house but to provide a focal point for open-ended reflection and a continual exploration of consciousness.
Richard Tinkler (b. 1975) has a methodic and unique abstract painting and drawing technique that has garnered attention from several galleries. Currently showing with both New York’s Canada and 56 Henry, who put on a full booth of Tinkler’s work at EXPO Chicago, these wet-on-wet oil paintings are gradated by color and generally completed within a single day.
A mixed-media work (acrylic, assemblage, color pencil, image transfer) on handmade paper by Steven Schmid (b. 1987), shown at EXPO Chicago by Nassau’s Tern Gallery, whose roster of Caribbean and Bahamian artists is impressive.
A contemporary reinterpretation of a 1930s and 1940s Santa Fe-based movement called the Transcendental Painting Group, celebrated a few years ago in a museum show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is this oil on linen painting, Fire After Rain, (2021 by Angela Heisch (b. 1989) shown by Santa Fe’s Addison Rowe Gallery.
My pick for the best $2.5 million dollar little painting money can buy at EXPO Chicago would have to be this 1969 painting by Alma Thomas (1891-1978) shown by Michael Rosenfeld.
Threads and Fiber
Art that incorporates or is based primarily on fibers, whether synthetic, natural, or a blend of both, is more than just trend: it’s a robust category to be considered. I’ll also note that it competes surprisingly well with the traditionally more prestigious medium of painting for size and appeal.
Much of it honors the labor of women, whose contributions to craft have been underappreciated for centuries, but is the backbone of creative energy on the contemporary art market.
Kandy G. Lopez (b. 1987) has garnered attention for her yarn portraits, shown by ACA Galleries. They are monumental, honoring ordinary people, friends of the artist, or people she encounters in her daily life.
Fiber doesn’t get much sexier (or more curvaceous) than the punched wool on cashmere figurative paintings of Cheryl Pope (b. 1980), who for a time herself worked in a strip club. This piece was shown by Chicago’s outstanding Monique Meloche Gallery.
LA’s Patricia Sweetow Gallery showed colorful tapestries by John Paul Morabito whose beaded threads allude to work by the legendary Cuban-American artist Felix Gonzales-Torres (1957-1996). Morabito is a talented weaver who heads up the textile program at Kent State University whose work channels the spirit of queer safe spaces, such as nightclubs.
Making her debut at a major art fair for the very first time, Tia Keobounpheng (b. 1977) abstract geometric use of threads to explore identity is particularly captivating and deep.
Excitement Builds for New York Art Week (5/7-5/13)
Charting Transcendence expects a bustling New York Art Week May 5-11, headlined by Frieze New York and a dozen other art fairs, flanked by the year’s best museum and gallery shows.
This late painting by Cy Twombly (1928-2011), The Rose (III) (2008) headlines a fantastic thematic show on roses at the Flag Art Foundation in Chelsea.
Scott Covert (b. 1954) maintains a unique practice of slowly compiling canvases and works on paper through tombstone rubbings, many from cemeteries where celebrities are interred. His current show at Derek Eller Gallery in Tribeca is worth seeing. Covert was celebrated several years ago in a museum show at Ft. Lauderdale’s NSU Art Museum entitled I had a wonderful life.
Currently on display in the courtyard of the Lehman Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest example of art that I have ever seen of kintsugi (repairing broken porcelain with gold) by Korean artist Yeesookyung (b. 1963).
The most overly political art exhibition I’ve seen this year is on at Chelsea’s Galerie Lelong, featuring new work by veteran feminist activist artist Martha Rosler (b. 1943)
The rotunda of the Guggenheim has been transformed into a hanging garden for superstar African-American artist Rashid Johnson’s (b. 1977) retrospective, A Poem for Deep Thinkers. Johnson’s multidisciplinary practice is as rich as it is difficult to summarize in a caption, making this show one of NYC’s “must sees” of 2025.
It is difficult to understate the influence of Romare Bearden (1911-1988), primarily due to his collage-style technique, on contemporary artists today. This Bearden collage is estimated to sell at Sotheby’s on May 16 for between $200k and $300k.
With an estimate of $70,000.000- $90,000,000, Alberto Giacometti’s painted bronze sculpture Grande Tete Mince (1955) is likely to be the most expensive work of art to come to auction this month. Sotheby’s will auction it off in their May 13 evening sale.
Hiba Schahbaz is a Pakistani-American Instagram darling who has exhibited her unique style of contemporary Indo-Persian miniature painting in a number of galleries, including Almine Rech. Several new works are still available in a show at Adler Beatty above David Zwirner’s space on East 69th St.
