First of all, you have to check out Peter Sarkisian's website, www.petersarkisian.com.  Now that you have done THAT, you may sort of get what Sarkisian’s art looks like in person.It is colorful, intricate and thoughtful. The videos here don’t capture this but there are better ones you can find on Youtube.

I didn’t shoot these, which is why they are marginally steady-handed (Marcela Aguero shot them with my Flip).  I took rather limited notes excepting to write the artist’s name and that Marcela shot the videos.

The works were part of Art Miami.

Sarkisian lives and works in Sante Fe, New Mexico. He is originally from California. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts and the American Film Industry. Unsurprisingly his resume includes work in the film industry.  His works are visual, even when they are not videos.

I first saw Martin C. Herbst’s globes in Chicago either at Next or Art Chicago. I immediately recognized them and recalled his name as soon as I saw them at Scope Miami (one of those I saw during Art was titled, Brain, but given my admittedly poor note-taking I am not sure which one…my handwriting looks like a 1st grader riding on a bus through the Andes).

These pieces were part of Christopher Cutts Gallery’s exhibit at Scope Art Show. I tried to videotape the backs of these. The front are globes with faces but the backs, in the interior are skulls.  These are the sort of art that, I believe, will impress art lovers and folks who are less into art. My 12 year old, for instance, was suitably impressed by these in Chicago (boys like creepiness).

Herbst lives in Vienna and is a native of Salzburg. He has exhibited regularly over the past 8 years and has several upcoming exhibitions in 2011. These include exhibitions at Fabian & Claude Walter Galerie in Zürich and at Jacob Karpio Galeria, San José in Costa Rica. It isn’t all about the people’s visages on orbs but represented in different ways that bend figuratively and change in mood.  You might look at a piece from one angle and find its mood changes when you move to another.

I am not going to begin this by writing that my video doesn’t do this justice. These are photos of massive structures built by Andrew Rogers. Many books and art book stores have the photographic collections of these remarkable works. Not only are they architectural but the photographs are captivating in and of themselves. These were part of Scope at Art Basel.

When I went to his website and saw that many of his works are in private and public collections I was startled. How do you own a sculpture that is the size of a locomotive? You would really need a big yard for that.

In truth these sculptures are not in anyone’s yard (that I know of) but are part of a massive bit of land art called, Rhythms of Life. This consists of 47 massive stone sculptures all over the world. Rogers’s website states that nearly 7,000 people in 13 nations and on every continent participated in the project. Thousands of years from now archeologists will be looking at these wondering; who the hell built these? I love the idea. It is Herculean.

As usual my videos do not do justice to the pieces pictured here; especially Lee Kyung Ho’s Somewhere, a photograph of a plastic bag far above a city, carried on the wind. Those photos are large and quite haunting.  The word that appears most in explanations of his work is “indeterminate.”  I saw these two photos as brilliant examples of the beauty of the mundane. A plastic shopping bag floating like a sentinel above a city strikes me somehow. I have seen them, twenty stories up, blowing out to become, well, garbage, after their flight is complete.

While I was looking at them the representatives of Gallery Sejul (of Seoul, Korea) came and talked to me and gave me information on their artists and gallery. I tried to talk to them but I think I was largely not understood. People whose first language is English often do not understand what I am saying. They were very gracious.

They also handle Chae Sung Pil whose textured paintings caught my eye at Booth D33 first. His abstracts call to mind the sea, despite the completely different color schemes, but then everything calls to mind the sea to me in a certain mood. Be sure to check out the gallery website at www.sejul.com.

These pieces were part of the Scope Art Show during Art Basel week.

Yes, yes Art Basel 2010 ended almost a month ago and I am still posting videos. Although I will confess the videos I have left are (mostly) even shakier-handed than most of my videos. This video, however shaky-handed, is of several really remarkable pieces of art by Kris Kuksi.

As I have noted before I love art that changes depending on your position; Be you close up, across the room, from one angle or another, from passed out below or hanging from your feet above. When I first saw these I thought “marble” but when I got close they were all plastic or other odds and ends placed together thematically and in remarkably intricate ways. These were some of the most unique pieces in..I think it was Scope Miami…I am pretty sure anyway but my notes are iffy. You should try to read my handwriting. It is like a monkey wrote the notes.

Regardless of my own note-taking incompetence, I do know when an artist has a vision that is beyond simple technical skill. I cannot tell you if his pieces will make your grandchildren rich if you buy one but I can tell you they will amaze you, your kids, grandkids and anyone who lays eyes on them. You cannot take your eyes off these sculptures and when you look at one piece and go back to it later you will see more, different aspects from what you saw the first time.

Kuksi has been featured in over 100 exhibits throughout the world. His work is also in private collections including those of Fred Durst, Guillermo del Toro and Robin Williams.

Anyway, Kuksi, is originally from Springfield, Missouri and more extensive information on him (he does more than sculpture) and his work is available at his website.