Eric Fischl: “Rift Raft”
Provocative work about art fairs, at Skarstedt, New York
In his most recent show at Skarstedt, New York, Eric Fischl, known for both his lush figurative paintings of suburban life and his jaundiced eye, confronted the war between the spiritual and the commercial at art fairs. The climax of “Rift Raft” was the massive diptych of the same name (above)—more than 18 feet wide—on one side depicting the recent wave of immigrants struggling to come ashore in Europe, and on the other, a privileged bubble of female nudes, abstract paintings and art dealers looking at their phones. As Fischl observes, “Same crowd, different clothes. Always the same experience.” This series of works hearken back to the Dutch Golden Age, a time of urban prosperity when art became a commercial market in a way it hadn’t ever been before.
