Installation view “The Age of Ambiguity.” © Rashid Johnson, Courtesy the Artist and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles; © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Private Collection, Florida; © Jacqueline Hum- phries, Courtesy the Artist and Greene Naftali, New York; © 2017 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Private Collection. Image Courtesy Vito Schnabel Gallery. Photographer: Stefan Altenburger.
Writer Bob Colacello is likely best known for his Vanity Fair scribblings and his bestselling book Holy Terror, which chronicles his 1980s adventures with Andy Warhol and his time as editor of Interview magazine.
Now he has added a new title to his repertoire—curator. A just-opened show (January 29–March 5) at Vito Schnabel’s St. Moritz gallery was an A-list affair on opening night with top collectors, including Aby Rosen, Stavros Niarchos, Alberto Mugrabi and his new wife Colby, Dasha Zhukova, and Doris Ammann in attendance, according to reports and pictures in Vanity Fair and Page Six. Both Schnabel and his father Julian were in attendance for the opening dinner soiree in the Swiss Alps.
The show is titled “The Age of Ambiguity: Abstract Figuration/Figurative Abstraction,” and it features a diverse range of work by artists including Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Jeff Elrod, Jacqueline Humphries, Rashid Johnson, Jeff Koons, Adam McEwen, Sterling Ruby, Borna Sammak, Julian Schnabel, and Jonas Wood.
“As the 21st century grapples its way through its second decade, America seems to have entered what may be called ‘The Age of Ambiguity,’ a time when everything is fluid and nothing concrete, and confusion overwhelms certainty,” wrote Colacello in a statement about the show. “It is said that the best artists are the antennae of their society, the prophets of their era.” Colacello concluded that many younger artists have “abandoned the bygone absolutisms of Minimalism on one hand and Hyper-Realism on the other.”