Will Kaplan – Art Spiel

January 23, 2025January 30, 2025

Prayer / Pattern / Prayer at Morgan Lehman

Installation view of Prayer / Pattern / Prayer

Prayer / Pattern / Prayer at Morgan Lehman offers a mesmerizing view of patterns as a deeply seated human instinct. Fittingly, a radial symmetry unfolds from the vertex of the L-shaped room. Yet curator Jan Dickey balances this evenness with a syncopated rhythm of paired artworks and bold standalone pieces. In creating a pattern of patterns, this show offers a metonymic view of artists running with different strands from the fabric of a species-wide impulse toward order and adornment.

November 18, 2024December 7, 2024

Aggregate at Studio 9D

Installation view of Bradley Milligan’s *Scrimmage*, 2023, tinted joint compound, scrap wood, used drop cloth, oil on panel, cotton thread, hardware. 79 x 49 x 51 inches; *Down the River*, tinted joint compound, scrap wood, automotive polish, hardware. 85 x 71 x 5 inches

In the three person show Aggregate at Studio 9D, artists Sammy Bennett, Bradley Milligan, and James Bertucci channel New York streetscapes and detritus to relay an earnest and affecting impression of the city. Bertucci’s trompe l’oeil paintings, Bennett’s fabric installation, and Milligan’s rugged sculptures overlap in a reverence for craftsmanship. Labor and construction are this show’s subject and, in many ways, its medium. In its use of material and representation Aggregate is boldly literal in its translation of the city’s chaos and beauty.