Art Spiel – Contemporary Art and Culture

April 28, 2025April 28, 2025

William Carroll- Trees at 57w57arts
by Taylor Bielecki

Installation shot (photo courtesy of 57w57st Gallery)

Willam Carroll’s newest painting series titled Trees has found a nice place to debut in 57w57arts. Each artist has their own room within the gallery space, the other artists include: Michael Voss, Steph Krawchuk, Seth Dembar, and Christopher Boyne. The rooms are also active office spaces where employees and clientele enjoy the work during appointments. Carroll’s series of seven new paintings on wood panels find themselves in the waiting room, stoically standing alongside a wonderful view of the New York Public library right outside of a nearby office window. Seeing the work within this space, especially it being a waiting room, allows viewers an opportunity for quiet contemplation, a foil to the hustle and bustle of what is right outside. You begin to feel as if you are journeying through the forest on a silent winter day.

April 23, 2025April 27, 2025

Care / Condition / Control at 601Artspace
by Yasmeen Abdallah

In Dialogue

Works by John Coplans (left) Jarret Key (center) and Melissa Stern (right). Photo courtesy of Etienne Frossard/601Artspace

The group exhibition Care / Condition / Control, which ends its run at 601Artspace on April 27th, takes its conceptual root, quite literally, in the form of hair. Experienced by different generations, cultures, genders, and identities, one’s relationship to the very follicles that grow from us and upon us is deeply personal and unique to each of us. As each artist mines their own stories from these relationships, Chapman expands upon the inspiration and undertaking of such a complicated and tangled subject. Yasmeen Abdallah interviews curator A.E. Chapman about the ideas behind this show.

April 23, 2025April 22, 2025

DUMBO Open Studios 2025 with Tessa Greene O’Brien curating at Platform Project Space
by Etty Yaniv

Tollef Runquist, *Panther,* Oil on canvas, 40” x 40”, 2024, photo courtesy of the artist

On April 26th and 27th, from 1 to 6 pm, artists in DUMBO will open their doors to the public as part of DUMBO Open Studios, offering a rare look inside the art studios along the Brooklyn waterfront. Since the 1970s, DUMBO has been shaped by its vibrant art community. This interview series highlights a handful of participating artists in 2025. Each response offers a glimpse of what’s waiting behind the studio door. Platform Project Space has been in DUMBO since 2018 at 20 Jay Street #319.

April 22, 2025April 22, 2025

Night Shades
by Etty Yaniv

Featured Exhibition

*Nancy Baker, Pretty Circles, 2020, Oil on Canvas, 48 x 48 inches*

Night Shades, a new exhibition presented by daphne:art Gallery and Advisory in collaboration with ODETTA, brings together three artists—Nancy Baker, Claire Seidl, and Geoffrey Parker—whose paintings and photographs explore the uneasy edge between perception and memory, hinting at alternative realities, and brushing against dystopia.

April 22, 2025April 21, 2025

DUMBO Open Studios 2025 with Jenny Polak
by Etty Yaniv

*Mattress 2 (We Who Believe In Freedom Cannot Rest) 2024*, detail. Photo courtesy the artist

On April 26th and 27th, from 1 to 6 pm, artists in DUMBO will open their doors to the public as part of DUMBO Open Studios, offering a rare look inside the art studios along the Brooklyn waterfront. Since the 1970s, DUMBO has been shaped by its vibrant art community. This interview series highlights a handful of participating artists in 2025. Each response offers a glimpse of what’s waiting behind the studio door. Jenny Polak has been based in DUMBO since February 2025, previously participated in the BRIC residency in 2022, and returned this year to 20 Jay Street—now working from Studio #310B—through the Cultural Space Subsidy Program.

April 21, 2025April 20, 2025

DUMBO Open Studios 2025 with Peter Drake
by Etty Yaniv

A person holding a picture frame

Description automatically generated — Peter Drake in his Dumbo studio. Photo courtesy of Janice Faber

On April 26th and 27th, from 1 to 6 pm, artists in DUMBO will open their doors to the public as part of DUMBO Open Studios, offering a rare look inside the art studios along the Brooklyn waterfront. Since the 1970s, DUMBO has been shaped by its vibrant art community. This interview series highlights a handful of participating artists in 2025. Each response offers a glimpse of what’s waiting behind the studio door. Peter Drake has been in DUMBO since January 2016. Peter Drake’s studio is at 55 Washington Street, #254.

April 20, 2025April 14, 2025

DUMBO Open Studios 2025 with Ellie Krakow
by Etty Yaniv

Ellie Krakow with several pieces from her series *Comfort Corners*, Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, photo by Kay Hickman, courtesy of the artist.

On April 26th and 27th, from 1 to 6 pm, artists in DUMBO will open their doors to the public as part of DUMBO Open Studios, offering a rare look inside the art studios along the Brooklyn waterfront. Since the 1970s, DUMBO has been shaped by its vibrant art community. This interview series highlights a handful of participating artists in 2025. Each response offers a glimpse of what’s waiting behind the studio door. Ellie Krakow has been in DUMBO since 2024. Her studio is at the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, 20 Jay Street, #720.

April 19, 2025April 19, 2025

Beauty is a Blast: a tribute to Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe
by Art Spiel

Featured Exhibition

Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, installation view, *Beauty is a Blast* at Art Cake

The exhibition Beauty is a Blast, on view at Art Cake in Brooklyn, brings together the work of more than 200 artists in a posthumous examination of the life and influence of Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe (1945–2024). It documents a network of relationships, of pedagogy, of influence. Conceived by artist and curator Christian Haub in 2021 as a modest acknowledgment of Gilbert-Rolfe’s legacy, the project was paused, then resumed in late 2024 in collaboration with Gilbert-Rolfe’s family and the Art Cake team. As word spread, the exhibition grew, not by design, but by response. The scale—over 250 works—became a measure of the reach of an individual who spent decades thinking through the terms and implications of contemporary abstraction.

April 19, 2025April 19, 2025

Art Spiel Picks: Boston Exhibitions April 2025
by Andrew Fish

Highlights

*If They Told You, Would You Listen?* at Thayer Academy, Braintree, MA

Spring has sprung and many beautiful exhibitions are in full bloom across the city of Boston. Several exhibitions celebrating fiber art are on view along with multiple shows that highlight the season of rebirth. One of my favorite things about Spring in New England is seeing the trees awake from their dormancy and plants sprouting from the earth. The area thaws out and inspires a creative push toward summer. This means a lot of play, or spiel, for artists who experiment with unconventional materials and new media. This is wonderfully evident in the work on view this month as artists and galleries display playful and profound creations for a new season. Here’s some Art Spiel for you.

April 18, 2025April 16, 2025

DUMBO Open Studios 2025 with Kate Teale
by Etty Yaniv

A person standing next to a cart with tools

AI-generated content may be incorrect. — Photo: *Kate in studio M01, 20 Jay St. with the wall drawing “Falls The Shadow” in progress. Photo courtesy of David Henderson*

On April 26th and 27th, from 1 to 6 pm, artists in DUMBO will open their doors to the public as part of DUMBO Open Studios, offering a rare look inside the art studios along the Brooklyn waterfront. Since the 1970s, DUMBO has been shaped by its vibrant art community. This interview series highlights a handful of participating artists in 2025. Each response offers a glimpse of what’s waiting behind the studio door. Kate Teale has been in DUMBO since January 2019. Her studio is at 20 Jay Street #M01.