Contemporary Art and Culture
Back in about 2009 friends invited artist Sunny Chapman to a gallery opening in their apartment, a gallery of tiny art in an about 1 x 2 foot rectangular inset in one of their apartment walls. Sunny Chapman loved the idea and wanted to do one in her own apartment too but since they lived close by she thought it would be disrespectful. Yet, the idea of making a tiny gallery was always nagging at her.
Continue reading “Remade in Brooklyn by the Birdhouse Gallery”Previewing – with gallery founder and curator Catherine Fosnot
The Opening Fall Season at the Fosnot Art Gallery will showcase Fred Gutzeit’s body of works from 1966-2021. Although he began as a painter of found objects and landscapes, Fred Gutzeit has never been satisfied with capturing the realism we “see“ in nature. He has continually sought a realism through abstraction that would capture the hidden complexity of nature juxtaposed with a human search for structure. Musings about complexity and chaos theories, string theory, mathematics modeling, and current scientific speculation about “multiverses” are employed as he explores consciousness, interaction, identity, and searches for structure. His bold use of color and dimensionality are wonderous and aesthetically pleasing allowing us to travel into the cosmos of his world.
Continue reading “Fred Gutzeit Retrospective at Catherine Fosnot Art Gallery”Previewing – Pinch Back
Louisa Pancoast will perform her movement-based art installation Pinch Back at Main Window in DUMBO September 10th at 7:30pm. This will be the final performance on view at this non-profit public art space in Dumbo. The performance was commissioned by Main Window as a companion piece for Evan Paul English’s Inexterior.
Continue reading “Louisa Pancoast at Main Window DUMBO”In Dialogue with director and creator Clara Wiest
The theater work Exploration Of The Everchanging is an experimental interactive theater piece exploring the relationship and dynamic between audience and performer. Clara Wiest created it in 2018 and has directed it in four iterations performed in NY and Denver Fringe two years in a row. Their fourth iteration took place at FiveMyles Gallery in Crown Heights, where it has been adjusted to the gallery space and visitors. Clara Wiest says this work was created out of their love for collaborative processes and their mission to bring humanity back into the rehearsal room and on stage.
Continue reading “Clara Wiest: Exploration Of The Everchanging”Art Spiel Photo Story
In her solo art exhibition at Reeves-Reed Arboretum, Pamela Casper invites the garden-loving public to reconcile a personal relationship of guardianship that goes beyond admiring nature’s beauty. The artist says that the trajectory of the work in this show follows her own path of transformation—from observing beauty and imagining nature “above ground” to exploring the endless networks hidden below. The show is curated by Executive Director Jackie Kondel and runs through October 31tst, 2021.
Continue reading “Earthscapes: Emerging to a Brighter World: Pamela Casper at Wisner House”Judy Giera and Nathaniel Garcia In Conversation
In her first solo exhibition at SPANTZO Gallery, Judy Giera, explores the nuances of girlhood and the expectations of the feminine through painting, video, and performance. Giera’s bright colors and synthetic materials reference Barbie and her Dream House as well as the patriarchal conceits of the action painters of the 1950s. Judy Giera and SPANTZO founder and director, Nathaniel Garcia, share their reflections on the exhibition.
Continue reading “‘Til The Moon Turns Pink at SPANTZO”Annette Cords and Becky Brown In Conversation
The two-person show Dream-Restart-Experience at PS122 features collaborative and individual works by Annette Cords and Becky Brown. The two artists’ collaboration resulted in a wallpaper using three original alphabets, and vinyl lettering mounted on the gallery windows. Cords’ tapestries interlace traditional weave structures with a twist—involving urban mark-making and found text. Brown’s paintings embody artifacts of online culture while questioning their value. The show runs through August 22nd, 2021.
Continue reading “Dream-Restart-Experience at PS122 Gallery”Art Spiel Photo Story
Keren Anavy’s site-specific multi-media installation I Wish I Had a River creates a sense of a painted garden made of paintings, drawings, laser cutouts, sculptures, and video within the confines of the lobby of 10 Times Square. The artist draws on the history, architecture, and ecology associated with her installation site–the center of the bustling garment district; and Art Deco architecture of the building. Moreover, merely 40 years before its completion, New York’s biggest reservoir and supplier of all of Manhattan’s drinking water in the 19th century was decommissioned and torn down one avenue to the East. This relationship between nature, particularly water, functioning as a cultural agent and an important element of consumerism is of particular importance for Anavy, who grew up in a desert region of conflict, where the water resource was scarce. The show is curated by Lauren Powell and runs at ZAZ10TS through August 31, 2021.
Continue reading “I Wish I had a River, The Underground Lobby Garden: Keren Anavy at ZAZ10TS”Logan Gabrielle Schulman + Benjamin Behrend in Conversation
A Golem Sleeps and Wakes in the Mourning, featuring works by Philadelphia based artist Logan Gabrielle Schulman and writer Benjamin Behrend, is a collaborative interactive exhibit of images, objects, and video from the theatre of grief, on view at the Old City Jewish Arts Center in Philadelphia, PA through July 2nd. Benjamin Behrend, a writer and performer, says he has recently been straddling the worlds of comedy, performance art, and also various explorations of faith, especially these past few years. Logan Gabrielle Schulman (they/them) is a queer interdisciplinary artist, with a background in theatrical performance, directing, playwriting, and designing, while also developing over the last few years a foundation in the visual arts. They say their work “primarily investigates modern crises of faith and collapse,” which they started investigating initially by drawing on their theatrical design experience through installation work, and gradually later on, in smaller scale work as well. Schulman’s work also draws upon their experience as a Jewish educator teaching about the Jewish diaspora and Holocaust history.
Continue reading “A Golem Sleeps and Wakes in the Mourning at Old City Jewish Arts Center”Art Spiel Photo Story
Walking into The Lockwood Gallery in Kingston NY one is instantly transported into another Universe. One populated by people and things who clearly are living in a world parallel to ours, but profoundly different. Smiling figures stand tall, grinning at the world, while all the time missing a limb or two. Or having their feet nailed to the ground. Images from vintage magazines merge seamlessly with Melissa Stern’s drawings. Her world is populated with folks who exhibit a stubborn resilience in the face of cosmic obstacles. Hence the exhibition’s title – Stronger Than Dirt.
Continue reading “Melissa Stern: Stronger than Dirt: A twenty year Retrospective”