Artist: Melissa Staiger

Artworks

Articles & Reviews

Posted on

Still Abstract at 90: American Abstract Artists 

American Abstract Artists turns 90 this year, an unusual achievement for an artist-run group. Its anniversary show, Abstract by Definition: An Index, opened in April at Art Cake in Brooklyn, curated by Saul Ostrow, who brought 88 current members together under a single roof: a curatorial puzzle, an organizational feat, and a long-running argument about what abstraction can be. A companion exhibition at D. Wigmore Fine Art on West 57th Street focuses on the group’s founders and work made between 1936 and 1950 and runs through July. Here, painter Jacob Cartwright, who serves as AAA’s Secretary, reflects on the group’s nomination-only structure, how a show this size actually comes together, and where he wants AAA to go next.

Posted on

Mark Dagley at Abaton Project Space

In Conversation

Mark Dagley is an artist who has exhibited his paintings and sculptures, which explore the intersection of abstraction and materiality, in New York and Europe since the 1980s. Lauri Bortz is a playwright and author whose farcical tragedies have been performed in theaters in New York, and over the past decade, she has created a series of children’s books. Abaton Project Room, or APR, is a temporary exhibition space conceived by Lauri, located at 11 Broadway, in the historic Bowling Green Office Building in Lower Manhattan. Over a one-year period (August 2024-2025), APR is alternating monthly presentations of Mark Dagley’s work—paintings, sculpture, and works on paper—with thematic group exhibitions as well as selections from Mark and Lauri’s personal collection.

Posted on

All Tomorrow’s Parties: M. David & Co. at Art Cake

photo story

Lou Reed’s song All Tomorrow’s Parties, featured on the Velvet Underground & Nico’s debut studio album, was allegedly inspired by the musician’s observation of Andy Warhol’s ‘Factory,’ an epicenter where camp, craze, and creativity flowed in abundance. With a tangible sense of energetic exploration, M. David & Co.’s mega-scale group show at Art Cake echoes this creative exchange by articulating the dynamic intergenerational connections between emerging and established artists across media.

Posted on

STREAMING at Stand 4

In Dialogue with Melissa Staiger

In March 2020 the New York art world shut down and soon went online for exhibition opportunities. Like many artists, Mike Childs was furloughed from his job, and stayed at home, drawing as well as supporting his 6th grade son. To foster a sense of community, he reached out to fellow artist and curator Melissa Staiger to see if she was interested in combining their skills. They came up with the idea to create an online group of artists who worked on paper. The collective identity of this group was envisioned as eight individuals who reflect the creative New York community and exhibit a compulsive nature towards the making of images. Childs referred to these image makers as “producing work via a stream of consciousness in the modernist literary tradition”. In referencing this type of creative approach, Staiger immediately seized on the word to title their project Streaming, referring both to a creative thought process and the online reality of contemporary artistic existence. This led to the creation of the website https://s-t-r-e-a-m-i-n-g.com, which was the foundation for the current exhibition at Stand 4 Gallery.

The group exhibition at Stand4 Gallery, brings together work by Mike Childs, Deanna Lee, Keisha Prioleau-Martin, Rafael Melendez, Benjamin Pritchard, Sharmistha Ray, Melissa Staiger, and Julie Torres. The show runs through July 10th.