Visual Arts

By all accounts, the inaugural art fair of the Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas on Friday and Saturday was a success. Art was sold, people were hung over after the opening party and, most important, the depth and professionalism of the local art world was highlighted.

Valley House Gallery

Larry by Sedrick Huckaby

CADD is one of two gallery consortiums in Dallas, the other being the Dallas Art Dealers Association, or DADA. This weekend, 13 CADD member galleries stocked small booths on the second story of the 70-year-old Bill Reed Decorations building at Exposition Plaza, which was recently rehabbed by photographer Paul Morgan.

In many ways, Friday night's invitation-only opening bash was like any other in Dallas. Partygoers slurped Pop champagne from straws in small blue bottles and noshed limited hors d'oeuvres. The taut-skinned and well-heeled maundered about fashion and mulled what art objects to buy.

But the diversity of minglers was distinctive. Rarely do frequenters of the more traditional Valley House Gallery mix with those of the new-media And/Or Gallery. Glitzy and dapper art patrons brushed up against stylishly raffish artists.

The carefully installed art felt fresh and the crowd invigorated.

Sedrick Huckaby's wall-size portrait in heavy impasto of Larry in the Valley House Gallery's space served as counterpoint to Shepard Fairey's sleek image of an afro-empowered Angela Davis at the Public Trust. At the far end of the cavernous space, And/Or Gallery installed moving-image and sound work, such as Blood Fantasy by Javier Morales and John Michael Boling.

The most ephemeral of all was the non-art installation at the Goss Gallery space. Recently bought at an auction by Kenny Goss and George Michael, John Lennon's piano sat at center with a handwritten price tag of $14 million, its estimated value. Stacks of thin books filled with glossy atrocious war images surrounded the piano. As Mr. Goss offered the books for free to the passing crowd, he asked, "What matters most?" The answer, perhaps equally rhetorical: war and destruction or the marketplace?

Charissa N. Terranova is a Dallas freelance writer.