Art Spiel – Reflections on the work of contemporary artists

September 29, 2023September 23, 2023

Mimi Graminski: Between Shadow and Light at Window on Hudson

Featured Project

Window on Hudson *Between Shadow and Light* Photo: Jeremy Bullis

Mimi Graminski started her work for Between Shadow and Light with small textile sculptures, using remnants from other projects. She pinned these pieces to the wall and experimented with light to produce pronounced shadows. Graminski was invited to create a new installation for her second exhibition at Window On Hudson. She magnified these small textile sculptures, suspending them using monofilament (fishing line), a method she had previously applied with other materials.

September 28, 2023September 28, 2023

Manet and Degas as Realists

Opinion

Technically, Edouard Manet (1832–1883) and Edgar Degas (1834–1917 are not Impressionists; instead, they are Realists whose works owe a debt to Gericault, Goya, and Daumier and the invention of photography. Unlike Monet, who sought solace and inspiration in nature, which can be seen as a reaction to the urbanization associated with the rise of the bourgeoisie, Manet and Degas instead embraced the industrialization and urbanization driven by bourgeois economic interests. They were unconcerned with the dehumanizing effects of rapid technological advancement. Realism is aimed at depicting scenes and subjects based on the everyday lives of ordinary people.

September 25, 2023September 3, 2023

Peter Eudenbach: From Cricket Songs to Solar Panels

In Dialogue

A framed picture of a person sitting in a chair

Description automatically generated

Virginia-based artist Peter Eudenbach says that while he has always been interested in making things, his pathway to studio art was through the humanities. The history of art and ideas became part of his language even before he found his voice as an artist. His belief that studio practice has the most potential to make sense of human experience was a significant driver in his choice to pursue an art career.

September 20, 2023September 14, 2023

PE Pinkman: Two Solo Shows at Watchung Arts Center

Featured Project

A collage of a couple of images of a person

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — *(l) Mona Brody, Getting Answers, 60” x 48”, 2023, and (r) Anne Trauben, a section of the installation, Step Up on a Stool to Reach the Sky, 2023*

PE Pinkman, the chief visual arts curator and executive director of the Watchung Arts Center in New Jersey, notes that two exhibitions — Mona Brody: Portals, Apparitions, and Other Voices and Anne Trauben: Step Up on a Stool to Reach the Sky — emerged from separate discussions with each artist. For over 45 years, the nonprofit Watchung Arts Center has been a prominent stage, showcasing works from regional artists in New Jersey and New York. Their central mission is to provide visual artists with a platform for engagement, promoting arts education while offering unique exhibition opportunities. At a first glance, both Mona Brody’s paintings and Anne Trauben’s installations appear straightforward. However, Pinkman emphasizes that they reveal deeper layers upon closer inspection. He observes a fascinating contrast: while Brody’s art unveils forms from the shadows, Trauben emphasizes light and shape within a darkened setting.

September 18, 2023August 18, 2023

Norte Maar’s CounterPointe10 – Alejandra Seeber and Sarah Yasmine Marazzi-Sassoon

Dance

The impetus for this series of conversations between a visual artist and a choreographer comes directly from my recent collaborative work with a choreographer as part of Norte Maar’s CounterPointe10. In this unique project a choreographer is paired with a visual artist to create together over two months a dance performance that integrates the two disciplines into a cohesive vision. Here is the conversation between artist Alejandra Seeber and choreographer Sarah Yasmine Marazzi-Sassoon.

September 15, 2023August 18, 2023

Tempestry Project: Emily McNeil and Asy Connelly with Amy Brady

hot air

Amy Brady published in her newsletter Burning World a conversation with Emily McNeil and Asy Connelly, a knitter and data scientist who founded the Tempestry Project, a fiber art collaboration that uses yarn and other fibers to create artful representations of climate data. This summer, they are partnering with Colossal Magazine and the Design Museum of Chicago in two different ways: first, their “Paleo New Normal Tempestry” will be exhibited in the museum’s group show, At the Precipice. And secondly, they’re collaborating with the museum to develop a Chicago Tempestry Collection that will be exhibited along with the Paleo piece. Amy Brady asked Emily and Asy about their work and what they hope viewers take away from their art.

September 13, 2023September 13, 2023

Noa Charuvi: Gal’Ed at York College Arts Gallery

Photo Story

A painting of a landscape

Description automatically generated — Noa Charuvi, *Cairn*, 2023, oil on canvas, 36×72 inches

45 Jacob took a stone and erected it as a pillar. 46 He instructed his kin, “Collect some stones.” They gathered stones, formed a heap, and shared a meal beside it. 47 Laban named it Jegar Sahadutha, while Jacob named it Galeed. 48 Laban declared, “This heap stands as a witness between us today.” Hence, it became known as Galeed.
Genesis, Chapter 31, Verse 45

A Gal’Ed symbolizes a location marked by significant events—deathly moments or sacrifices. As it appears in the Old Testament, it signifies a covenant. In Hebrew, ‘Gal’ is a heap of stones, and it is the same word for ‘wave.’ ‘Ed’ means a witness. This heap of stones becomes an emblem of the pact between Jacob and his father-in-law: their agreement not to harm each other’s possessions or families. Serving as a symbol of shared promises, Jacob sanctifies it, offering to God on this stone.

September 11, 2023September 11, 2023

Armory Show 2023: Focus on the Not-For-Profit Section

A group of black and white paintings

Description automatically generated — SKOWHEGAN, Diana Al-Hadid, *Hindsight*, 2020

New York City- On a canicular early September day, the much-anticipated 2023 Armory Show, known to many as the “essential New York art fair,” launched the fall arts season and transformed the Javits Center into a sanctuary for creativity.

September 7, 2023September 6, 2023

Myth Maker: Laleh Khorramian at SEPTEMBER Gallery

Installation view. Photo courtesy of Alon Koppol

Finally! What a joy to meander through a show that is not just a formulaic scaffolding rendered to execute a marketing plan rather than make art. Walking into the building that houses September Gallery’s new space in Kinderhook, NY, The first thing you see is not a wall or architectural ornamentation but a monumental scroll that immediately hints you might be here for a while. This colossal collage introduces Myth Maker, the second exhibition at September Gallery by Laleh Khorramian.

September 6, 2023September 4, 2023

The Art of Getting It Together

Jesse Benson, *Packaging*, 2003/2023. Ephemera from all projects completed in grad school, vacuum-formed plastic, plexiglass, silkscreen on board. Installation dimensions variable, individual dimensions 21 x 28.8 x 3 in. Photo by Jeff McLane. Courtesy As-Is LA.

In Organizer, Jesse Benson’s first solo gallery show since 2017, the Los Angeles artist unpacks the “dialectic of order and chaos” by introducing heterogeneity to organizing systems.