Hotel art fairs are terrible places to see the art, stuffed as it is into rooms where the dealers have to make decisions such as whether to use the bed as a platform or remove it entirely (and where to? their vans?) and whether to display smaller pieces on the tops of the air conditioner and the bedside table.

At the Jupiter Affair two weekends ago, there wasn’t much in the way of great installation (the installation at these things is so bad, and so much of the art small and commercial, that one artist recently suggested to me that hotel art fairs should be advertised as the IKEA for condos), but Seattle dealer Scott Lawrimore went looking for inspiration for his upcoming installation at Aqua Art Miami, and Jupiter Affair next year.

He came up with something like a Hotel Art Fair Manifesto.

Don’ts: 1. Lots of small work = A.D.D. 2. Videos in closets are disingenuous, if not disrespectful. 3. Looking like you are there to sell work doesn’t sell work. 4. Dealers sitting in chairs in the corners of rooms are not dealers. 5. Putting up work and praying for an audience is lazy. 6. Salon-style hanging of every artist represented should be confined to museums and avid collector’s homes…oh, and salons. 7. Selling work at hotel fairs shouldn’t be the end goal.

Do’s
1a. A few large, iconic pieces = focus.
2a. Video installations in bathrooms are revered.
3a. Looking like you are there to support your programming sells work.
4a. Dealers engaging people in the art, not the price, are dealers.
5a. Knowing your audience and getting them excited about seeing the work in advance is sedulous.
6a. Devoting entire walls or rooms to one artist’s work is noble.
7a. Getting people to invest time with the ideas of the artists at hotel fairs should be the end goal.

Maybes:
One rottenly made work can spoil the whole stable.
Handwritten tags for the artists, although aloof and quaint, devalue the artist.
Pee-chee art just won’t go away.
Pencil to paper, brush to canvas, finger to shutter isn’t enough.
Really good work is being made in every state in our fair Union, not just its coasts.
Really good work not from the coasts have a chance because of events such as these.
The visual arts are, unfortunately, still quite visual.
Only a few things stood out, so either my filter is clogged, or it is working perfectly.