Contemporary Art and Culture
at Griffiss International Sculpture Park , Rome, NY
Linda Cunningham – Divisions
… hunger and fear can vanquish all human resistance, and all
freedom … Freedom consists in knowing freedom is in danger.
But to know … is to have time to avoid & prevent the moment of
inhumanity … the infinitesimal difference between the human
being and the non-human being …
————–Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity
Continue reading “Divisions: To Be Human Is To Act Humanely”
Bat Ami Rivlin, who has lived in New York City for over a decade, finds her artistic practice profoundly shaped by the city’s relentless cycle of object turnover. The daily expulsion of waste from restaurants, buildings, and homes onto the streets, followed by the inevitable clear-out, is a stark reflection of urban existence. This phenomenon sparks contemplation on how these transient objects organize our spatial interactions, both during their use and after their disposal.
Continue reading “Bat Ami Rivlin: Functional Narratives”
The second-floor Sarah Crown Gallery in Tribeca features a group exhibition with work by Stefano Caimi, Rachel Frank, Gayoung Jun, and Kirstin Lamb. The show immediately draws viewers in as 3 drawings by Gayoung Jun grasp the eye with striking blue tones and dual circular shapes that seem to be moving in the optical illusion. The work is only made more impressive upon closer inspection as the eye reveals the minor flaws of the hand.
Continue reading “Nexus, Echoes, and Connections – Stefano Caimi, Rachel Frank, Gayoung Jun, Kirstin Lamb at SARAHCROWN Gallery”
When Dai Ban first traveled from his native Japan to the United States, he was struck by the nonchalant vibrance of American street art. The year was 1985, and although the golden age of graffiti had come and gone, its ethos had indelibly permeated the fine art world. Imagery that had been considered lowbrow just ten years prior became astronomically salable, so long as it decorated a canvas and not a subway car. Ban was bemused by the transformative power of gallery spaces. “Anything you show at the gallery looks like some kind of art,” he observed.
Continue reading “The Sublimity of Simplicity in Dai Ban’s Sculptures”
Collected Things, Jim Condron’s terrific solo exhibition at Art Cake in Brooklyn prompts us to question our relationship with the objects we interact with—objects that we use, discard, and transform through memory and art process. At the heart of this exhibition are Condron’s recent series of sculptures, which brings together everyday objects and ephemeral materials he has collected from artists, writers, and thinkers who participated in the project—these individuals include personal acquaintances like Graham Nickson, Lucy Sante, Rebecca Hoffberger, Carl E. Hazlewood and Cordy Ryman. Among them is the pioneering painter Grace Hartigan, who was Condron’s teacher and for whom he also worked as a graduate assistant in 2004, four years before her death. This body of work highlights how Condron’s process of collecting, editing, and adding other materials, activates the lineage and history of everyday objects, transforming them into playful art objects with renewed vitality and psychological presence.
Continue reading “Jim Condron: Collected Things at Art Cake”
In her solo exhibition at Asya Geisberg Gallery Gabriela Vainsencher exhibits wall hanging porcelain reliefs, referencing the nuts and bolts of motherhood entangled in layers of epic mythological context—Medusa reveals a worried woman with a frying pan and a baby’s pacifier as weapons at hand. The show runs through April 8th, 2023.
Continue reading “Gabriela Vainsencher: Epic, Heroic, Ordinary at Asya Geisberg”Featured Artist
Long Eclipse, Kahori Kamiya’s NY debut solo exhibition currently showing at Amos Eno Gallery, delves into the artist’s deeply personal experience of motherhood, breastfeeding, and the impact of the pandemic. Through paintings and sculptures, Kamiya explores the emotions and challenges of this unique time in her life, while also reflecting on themes of racial discrimination and grief. Her organic shapes run through semi-figurative drawings and painted sculptures, resonating with ancient Japanese spirituality and its relation to nature. The show runs through March 26, 2023.
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Habby Osk’s work rests upon basic physics—gravity, balance, movement, time and force. These concepts are the concrete medium for her artistic practice which toys with the limits of balance and stability using gravity and force. Through sculpture, photography, and installations, Osk reveals a tension between movement and stillness by placing objects in seemingly unstable positions, capturing a moment of perpetual precarity. These compositions of fragility emphasize the potential for destruction but within an equally mirrored state of balance and stability using a variety of materials such as concrete, wood, aluminum, wax, sugar and jello. Her work references impermanence and the contingency of an action—probing how far objects can go without tipping over, to capture the moment of stillness before a looming collapse or transformation over time.
Continue reading “Habby Osk: No Tricks Involved”During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.
Cecile Chong is an Ecuadorian-born, New York-based multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture and installation in which she layers material, identities, histories and languages. Her work addresses ideas of culture interaction and interpretation, as well as the commonalities humans share both in our relationship to nature and to each other. Inspired by materials as signifiers, Chong is interested in how we acquire and share culture, and how world cultures now overlap and interact in ways previously inconceivable. With uncertainty looming in everything from our economies to our weather patterns, she’s concerned with the fragility of our civilization despite the universality of its cultural underpinnings.
Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Cecile Chong”During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.
Manju Shandler creates symbolic art that speaks to current events. Building upon established storylines from myth, religion, science, and contemporary events her mixed media artworks create a richly layered narrative reflective of our dense and complicated times. Manju Shandler has shown at The National September 11th Memorial & Museum, The Hammond Museum, Brown University’s Sarah Doyle Gallery for Feminist Art, The ISE Cultural Foundation, The Honfleur Gallery, The Governor’s Island Art Fair, The Untitled Space, and throughout the US, Amsterdam, Berlin, Tel Aviv and Hong Kong. She regularly shows in her community of Brooklyn, NY.
Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Manju Shandler”