On one of my customary Sunday afternoon meanderings through Friedrichshain to the Boxhagner Markt, I dropped by Strychnin Gallery. I had missed Art Fair 21 and was interested to hear how Strychnin went. As a side note, Strycnin’s director, Yasha Young, is now on the selection commity for the Art Fair 21.
The most entertaining story was how one of Madeline Von Foerster‘s artworks, “Amazon Cabinet” was held by customs in Frankfurt Germany, because they thought that it was an Old Master’s artwork and not painted by a living 35 year old American artist. While in hindsight this is a great compliment to Madeline, the clock was ticking and the painting was due to hang at the art fair.
The situation proved farcical as they demanded a huge import duty to release the painting. Customs had unwrapped the top half of the artwork, but not the complete thing, which if they had done so, they would have perhaps noticed the chainsaw in the bottom right hand corner of the painting. After many phone calls it was finally proven that artwork was indeed a modern work by Madeline. Her painting finally made it to the art fair, hung on the opening night and duly sold.
Congratulations of Madeline on all counts.
Madeline has an up coming show at Strychnin’s Berlin Gallery on Friday 7th. More details can be found the the Strychnin Gallery website.
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