MFI Art Company Inc., Michael Ingbar Gallery, and Soho Picture Framing announce a collaborative show, "Corporate Bankruptcy-Abandoned Art," a timely exhibit about how the failure of major corporate clients due to the worldwide economic "Great Recession" has directly affected these three small businesses and the art world in general.
The idea was first developed by MFI Art Company Inc., one of the leading corporate art consulting firms in New York City for the past 35 years. For the first time in the company's history they were getting more calls from corporations who wanted to sell back their art collections than to purchase new artwork! MFI will be providing works that were originally purchased by some of these now bankrupt clients including C-Bass, a sub-prime mortgage investor who was among the first to bear the effects of the economic downturn. Enron is another one of their previous clients that no longer exist. Other companies have shrunk in size and don't even have storage space to store their unused artworks.
Soho Picture Framing, located in one of the top ten most expensive zip codes in the USA, has even seen some of their well off and A-list celebrity clients unable to pay the balance due on their framing jobs. Works included are some previously owned by a Hilton family member, and will be available for sale in the show.
Michael Ingbar, the owner of the Michael Ingbar Gallery, has also seen more individuals and corporations calling to sell their own art collections than at any time in the past. In fact, the gallery purchased works which helped to put together a small collection from one of their most popular exhibitions, "Concrete Erections" which are all about architectural images of NYC, the gallery's main specialty.
The show will also include mainstay Ingbar Gallery artists such as Christopher Burkett, Frederick Frazowatz. Richard Haas, Derek Reist and Assunta Sera. Burkett is considered by many to be the Ansel Adams of color photography, using 8 x 10 transparencies and doing all his own printing in Cibachrome, makes his work a window into the beauty of nature. Haas is the most prolific trompe-l'oeil artist in America. Viewers of Reist and Sera paintings of NYC will never look at the city in the same way again. Frazowatz is known for his very long, narrow paintings on paper he calls "Monorolls".
The opening reception will take place this evening, May 11th from 6pm to 8pm and the show will run through June 30th, 2012. Open to the general public.
Videos