Midtown Fairs are Locus for South Fork Galleries

     Although a few years ago South Fork dealers were mostly scarce at Art Miami, this year the four galleries that particpated were some of the busiest booths at the fair. For the past two years, Art Miami has held a sister fair in Southampton in July and galleries here appear to like the company's formula for selling art in a cool tent under a blazing sun.

     Mark Borghi, whose Bridgehampton gallery sells modern and contemporary masters, primarily in the secondary market, said his sales were brisk. He brought a number of works from artists who lived on worked on the South Fork, including Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, and John Chamberlain, as well as a few who are still alive such as Richard Prince.

     Stephan Keszler's brought his usual spectacle to Art Miami, with new Banksy works from this summer in prominent fair locations as well as a lounge dedicated to images of Cindy Crawford in "diamond dust" by the fashion photographer Marco Glaviano. Also in or adjacent to the Southampton dealer's booth/lounge were works by other street artists such as Herr Nilsson, from Sweden.  Adding to the glitz, Ms. Crawford attended the fair's opening night in conjunction with the show.

     Peter Marcelle, who has a gallery space in Bridgehampton, said his booth of primarily East End artists was selling well too. Those on view included Peter Beard, Cornelia Foss, Donald Sultan, Ross Bleckner, and Dan Rizzie. He sold one of the works he brought from a group by Marc Sijan, a hyper-realist sculptor and student of Duane Hanson, to the Virginia Museum. Overall, he said he was very happy with the fair this year.

     Over at Miami Project just a few yards down the street, Eric Firestone showed work by Mia Fonssagrives-Solow and John Messinger, who are from the South Fork, with other gallery artists. Mr. Firestone said on Saturday that all but one of the works he had brought by BAST had sold and that they had to reconfigure the booth several times as more and more work sold.