Sara Farrell Okamura

September 22, 2024October 6, 2024

Until the Sun Goes Dark: Taylor Davis Decontructs Power

Installation view, photo courtesy of SEPTEMBER

In Until the Sun Goes Dark, Taylor Davis’s second solo show with SEPTEMBER gallery at Kinderhook, NY, the Boston-based artist takes on the question of why we exist in a violent, volatile universe. She offers no answers, but through sculpture, painting, and works on paper, elicits inquiries into the nature of brutality by researching texts ranging from 2000-year-old biblical scriptures (Job 27:13- 23, Ecclesiastics 12: 5-8 and Psalm 57: 4-5) to modern writings by Ethnographer, Edward Linnaeus Keithahn and literature by William Gass, In The Heart of the Heart of the Country. Davis does not merely execute a plan to create work but relies on systems of chance and logic. She does not force her materials to bend to her intent but defers to the inherent nature of the materials she is using. Working in a similar manner to a call-and-response practice, her final pieces sometimes challenge the viewers’ initial comprehension of what they are actually seeing.

July 26, 2024July 26, 2024

Upstate Art Weekend, If You Missed It, It is Still Here!

Pauline Decarmo, *CHAMPION*, 2024, acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 24 inches, LABspace

145 galleries, venues, historical sites, performances, and a few fashion stops and upscale grocers for foodies thrown in for good measure, all scattered across 10 counties north of New York City. This comprised Upstate Art Weekend, a four-day festival highlighting the diversity and breadth of culture in Upstate New York. This was not for the faint of stamina. This is not an art fair. It is a celebration of the creative communities lining the Hudson and the enclaves embedded in the Catskills. I have to believe the intent was never for escapees from urbanity to stop at each little circle on clustered maps. Below are some of the galleries that are the marrow, the heartbeat of the cultural community in specific regions. These are also galleries that exhibit small group and one-person shows that provide a larger window into the artist’s or artists’ thought process. If you missed Upstate Art Weekend, don’t despair; these and other sites are a stable part of the Hudson Valley, enabling anybody to make their own Upstate Art Weekend on their own time. It’s always here, 12 months of the year.

July 18, 2024October 6, 2024

Judith Braun’s, I’m Bad at Kiddie Pool is So Good

Featured Exhibition

A poster on the wall

Description automatically generated — Judith Braun, I’m Bad, installation view, photo courtesy of Kiddie Pool and the artist

Veteran, age-defying, feminist artist Judith Braun’s exhibit, I’m Bad, opened on June 28 in a pristine, Victorian-era brownstone that doubles as Kiddie Pool, a residential project space in downtown Albany, NY. As contemporary contronym phrases go, I’m Bad conjures a sense that exemplifies Braun as a person and her body of work. Through decades whether it was as a generation-defining member of the lower east side collaborative Group Material, where she created Pussy Works, as part of the seminal 1988 show, Democracy: Cultural Participation to exquisitely painted angels to her current exhibit that includes new monumental collages at Kiddie Pool, Braun consistently challenges and baits the status quo with unbridled glee.

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.

July 17, 2023July 15, 2023

Remnants of the Past As Omens of the Future at Turley Gallery

Martine Kaczynski, *Threshold,* Installation, Turley Gallery

Why is home so important? Is it like religion, where we have faith that once we turn the key in the door and step over the threshold, we are safe from all those events that we believe cannot happen to us, orhappen in the place we call home? We now live in a world where the mundane, the environment we know as home is threatened. Common places are invisible because they are part of the warp and weft of our everyday existence. Our personal landmarks such as the library, the elementary school, and the ugly grocery store we quickly stop in, are no longer safe spaces. Self help and self care are great strategies for maintaining equilibrium, but may not extract the roots of our anxiety. Art obviously cannot solve these issues, but sometimes an artist who combines intellect, skill, and personal experience can act as the parakeet in the mine shaft.

December 14, 2022December 12, 2022

Mary Ann Unger: To Shape a Moon from Bone at WCMA

A picture containing indoor, wall, floor, room

Description automatically generated — Installation view of Mary Ann Unger, WCMA

Power. Power, not bravado, not ego, but the power of intelligence, skill, fortitude, and vision is what Mary Ann Unger possessed and that is what is on exhibition at Williams College Museum of Art (referred to as WCMA). Throughout her life she defied limitations frequently imposed overtly and subconsciously on women. Attending Mt Holyoke College in the mid-60s, she studied biochemistry when few women were found in science departments, then transferred to studio art taking up welding, casting and carving. This was not the typical route for women during the mid-to late 60s. She traveled on her own to North Africa and this journey greatly influenced her work. Returning to New York she completed an MFA at Columbia and launched her career as a post minimalist sculptor, finding herself in the minority amongst a sea of men.

November 27, 2022November 26, 2022

Magic Mirror: Susan Carr at LABspace

Installation view of Susan Carr’s *Girls* paintings on top, and self-portraits below, in *Magic Mirror*

Tired of phrases such as best kept secret, finally receiving her due, and delayed recognition it is time to recognize artists, particularly women artists who are in their prime, evolving both in facility and content. Susan Carr is a quintessential example, an accomplished artist who, over decades, has fearlessly mined the history of her own existence. Her latest exhibit, Magic Mirror at LABspace in Hillsdale New York is a tribute to her dedication, talent and courage.

August 27, 2022December 30, 2022

Who Gets On The Front Cover?

*Study for “Mother/Son”*, 1984, Ink on Artforum magazine cover. (March 1977), 10.5″ x 10.5″, photo courtesy of the artist

Enter Thompson Giroux Gallery in Chatham NY and come face to face with what we as artists, curators, critics, gallerists and historians consciously and subconsciously know; we are missing greats. Arthur González’s exhibition, Ego Diaries confronts the art world and those who control the keys to the kingdom and anoint who is recognized and who is not.

May 21, 2022May 21, 2022

Pauline Decarmo: Exit – the Path to New Beginnings at LABspace

Installation view of *Pauline Decarmo: Exit* at LABspace, 2022, photo courtesy LABspace

Some artists paint stunning abstractions, some artists deftly execute exquisite realistic images, while others ingeniously develop astute conceptual work, but the truly magical art is work that can intelligently create the aura of time, space, and experience. Fortunately Pauline Decarmo, by using any means necessary, does exactly that in her exhibition, Exit, on view at LABspace in Hillsdale NY through May 29.

August 24, 2021October 4, 2021

Guzman Revisits Kurt and Courtney

A picture containing text, wall, indoor, bed

Description automatically generated — Guzman, *Kurt Cobain In Bed, Los Angeles*, 1992, Archival Ink on Mulberry Paper, 32 x 22 inches

Portraits are collaborations between the sitter and the artist. Sometimes the artist can be overwhelming or patronizing but in most cases the sitter’s vision of how they would like to be seen now and in perpetuity wins out. This is particularly seen in cases of well known personalities. Prime examples are the portraits of Andy Warhol exposing his scars after being shot to both Alice Neel and Richard Avedon. In these vastly different images Warhol clearly wanted the world to know what had been perpetrated against him and how his suffering lingered. When the portraits are images of celebrities, particularly those in the last few decades, the public has a strange sense of possession, teetering on full-blown obsession. The success of the portrait hinges on several factors from the artist including generosity, intelligence, empathy, skill, and creative facility. Fortunately this is what is on exhibition at LABspace in Hillsdale NY, Kurt and Courtney, by collaborative photography duo Guzman. Guzman is made up of Constance Hansen and Russell Peacock. In their 30+ years of photography they have solidified a reputation across all genres from conceptual and documentary work to bringing cool, enlightened, humanizing aesthetics to the commercial worlds of fashion, advertising, and celebrity portraits. As summed up in a recent discussion about their work, Constance Hansen said the intent is not to make a mean photo, but a photo that embraces the person.