Contemporary Art and Culture
Trish Tillman flirts with materials. She fuses in her sculptures elements of fashion and interior décor like leather, vinyl, studs, ropes, and chains, to create art objects which are often both humorous and enigmatic. While her sculptures bring to mind old relics, early symbols, or mysterious calligraphic forms, they also embody the allure of faux luxury. Continue reading “Trish Tillman – Souvenirs of a Moment”
In 2008, The National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the LES on their list of America’s Most Endangered Historic Places. “LES YES!” at The Storefront Project upcoming exhibition features Meryl Meisler’s photographs of the Lower East Side during the 1970’s & 1980s. Meisler, who was born in the Bronx and raised in Long Island, captured in her photos a tight knit immigrant and working-class neighborhood during difficult times in NYC history. Continue reading “Meryl Meisler – LES YES!”
Helen O’Leary‘s sculptural paintings are delicate and rough, subtle and raw, literal and metaphoric – they embrace and prick the viewer at the same time. Her current exhibition “Home is a foreign country“ at Leslie Heller indicates not only clear incisiveness and impressive mastery of form, but also a deep generosity- sharing with the viewer her rigorous process of grappling with material: visible jointing, disjointing, bending, folding, knitting. She says that somewhere through the struggle some magic happens. And magic does happen in her artwork. Continue reading ” Helen O’ Leary: No Place for Certainty”
Andrew Cornell Robinson ‘s website indicates: “art + crafts research studio.” Largely known as a prolific ceramicist, Robinson’s oeuvre embraces a wide range of craft and design methods – resulting in an extensive body of drawings and diverse mixed media installations, all the way to performance. Throughout our multiple conversations I have been increasingly intrigued by his multi faceted imagination and asked him to learn more about his visual explorations. Continue reading “Andrew Cornell Robinson – Transgressing Across Time and Line”
Gregory Coates’ bold and colorful installations raise questions rather than offer explanations. Through his abstracted forms and unabashed use of alluring colors he creates “social abstractions” which can be read as affirmations of life – beautiful and poignant at the same time. Continue reading “Gregory Coates, Claiming Feathers”
Jamie Martinez, who has just launched THE BORDER at the 56 Bogart building in Bushwick, is a prolific artist, curator, blogger, and now – gallerist. In his interview with Art Spiel, Martinez shares a bit about himself, the genesis of his multiple activities and his exciting plans for the near future. Continue reading “Jamie Martinez, a Triangle on Its Own”
Kanad Chakrabarti’s sense of cultural rootlessness translates into his video and installation work in complex and thought provoking ways, combining analytical approaches with visceral sensibility. After a stimulating conversation about his installation work at SpringBreak art fair, curated by Jason Andrew from Norte Maar, we had the following interview. Continue reading “Kanad Chakrabarti: Sites of Exchange”
I have been following Farrell Brickhouse’s work since 2014, when he showed his work at Life on Mars in Bushwick. You do not just “view” Brickhouse’s paintings, you experience them on a deeply intimate level. He unabashadly talks about painting in relation to “soul” and “subconscience”. As a painter who can show an outstanding body of work which convincingly resurects these modernist notions from oblivion, he also freshens these notions for the next generation of artists. Farrell Brickhouse graciously conducted with me the following interview. Continue reading “Farrell Brickhouse: Counter – Punching with Paint”
In response to Arshile Gorky’s colored drawings exhibition, an ARTnewsreviewer back in March 1947 declared that Gorky is in no sense a draftsman and that his drawings “must be appraised as doodlings, for psychological rather than formal interest.” More than sixty years later, an exquisite Gorky drawing from 1946 on loan to Outlet gallery, serves as a starting point for a vibrant dialogue between more than thirty contemporary artists with strong and distinct personal iconography and some shared formal concerns. Continue reading “Dialogue between Art and Life: suggestion, that is the dream”
Charged with urgency, precision and an acute sense of place, Tirtzah Bassel’s luminous oil paintings at Slag capture figures lingering in uncannily familiar public spaces. Whether the subject matter of these canvases are crowds, couples, or single figures, the related verbs are of present continuous tense; standing, sitting, resting. These paintings, waiting in line at Trader Joe’s, sitting on an Ikea sofa to check a text message, or stretching horizontally on a bare mattress in the bedroom section, all entail the action in non-action. Although the commercial spaces these figures populate are filled with utilitarian objects such as red (and empty) shopping carts and a row of colorful sofas or beds, these interiors convey a strong sense of void. Objects multiply, proliferate and are caught along with their creators at the same space in an odd symbiosis. Continue reading “An Odd Symbiosis: Action in Non-Action”