Interviews – Page 18

September 12, 2022December 30, 2022

Sophia Sobers: How Life Might Look

Sophia Sobers, Power Tools, 2018, artist with plush fabric sculptures

Sophia Sobers started making site-specific and installation art in what she sees as a somewhat “meandering path.” She studied Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology while taking art courses at Rutgers. There she started learning about working with space, concept, and materials. Simultaneously taking Art and Architectural History as well as Theory, expanded what she imagined as possible in the arts. Site specific works by artists like Robert Smithson and Gordon Matta-Clark as well as architectural projects like the Blur Building by Diller and Scofidio, inspired her deeply and set her on a path of wanting to create large scale installations.

August 31, 2022December 30, 2022

What’s Your Golden Spike?

Diagram from the United States Geological Survey, Harvard.edu

What’s Your Golden Spike is the third in a series of three interrelated experimental pieces that combine graphics, text, and hyperlinks based on themes coming out of my Crazy River project, for which I gave an interview on this website on May 16th. Crazy River takes a wide-angle view of the climate crisis, ranging from my own climate grief to an in-depth focus on the many causes and effects of rapid environmental changes on the West Branch of the Neversink in Ulster County. In this piece I investigate the idea of the Catskills as a region, and an incongruous bundle of contradictions and coincidences. The Lands of Kats Kill weaves three timelines together: the geologic, the historical, and the personal. This structure repeats throughout my Crazy River project. The previous piece in this series, Invaders, took apart the idea of invasive species. The following will explore the concept of the Golden Spike in stratigraphy as fact and metaphor.

August 25, 2022November 2, 2022

Ellpetha Tsivicos + Camilo Quiroz-Vázquez

Grantee of Brooklyn Arts Fund

Project Profile: QUINCE

Quince22-136 — Ellpetha Tsivicos (Director/Co-Creator) and Camilo Quiroz-Vázquez (Writer/Co-Creator) of QUINCE as Selena and Father Joaquin in QUINCE, photo courtesy of Catharine Krebs

Brooklyn Arts Council announced in March 2022 an allocation of over $1.3 million to 238 Brooklyn-based artists and cultural organizations. This year marks the highest number of grantees and awardees as well as the largest amount of funding BAC has ever distributed. Art Spiel in collaboration with Brooklyn Arts Council features some artists who received a Brooklyn Arts Fund, Local Arts Support, and/or Creative Equations Fund grant in 2022.

August 20, 2022November 2, 2022

Sensing Woman at C24 Gallery

Featured Project with Curator Christina Massey

Jung Eun Park – In the Womb 13, 2003, pencil, thread, fabrics, watercolor on coffee-dyed Korean mulberry paper, 7” x 8”

Sensing Woman is a multisensory event taking place at C24 Gallery in Chelsea, New York City, for five days and four nights of Art by 50 contemporary visual artists, along with conversation, storytelling and music – altogether around the future of being female. All profits from this event will be donated to organizations working to protect autonomy over our bodies and improve maternal and sexual health, including the groundbreaking advocacy organization the Center for Reproductive Rights.

August 15, 2022December 30, 2022

Harriet Salmon: Tracing Genologies at Heroes

Featured Project: with artist and co-founder of Heroes Gallery

Harriet Salmon with (from left) Benny Merris’ *An Other Another 196*, 2022 and an Emilio Pucci silk scarf from 1964. Courtesy: Emilio Pucci Heritage.

Hrriet Salmon is an artist, gallerist, as well as a podcast host and producer. Her engagement in art is deep and wide—in her own art she makes sculpture, drawing, photo, installation, and weaving; in Heroes, the gallery she co-founded with her partner, Jesse Penridge, they create vibrant visual dialogues between contemporary artists and historical art; in her Craftsmanship podcast she discusses technical skill in the contemporary artworld told through oral history of fabricators.

August 13, 2022December 30, 2022

Animal Well Being at the Swimming Hole Foundation Residency

In conversation with the artists

The barn studio with artists (left to right) Rick Klauber, Sky Pape, Nancy Davidson, Lyn Godley, Rebecca Welz, and David Provan, 7/23/2022. Photo courtesy of John White.

The Swimming Hole Foundation offers residencies to groups of artists, designers and educators who are exploring environmental and social justice through collaborative work. In Animal Well Being artists Nancy Davidson, Lyn Godley, Rick Klauber, Sky Pape, David Provan, and Rebecca Welz referenced the theme of birds in their collaborative project. The project was open to the public Saturday, July 23rd, 2022.

August 11, 2022November 2, 2022

Jesse Pallotta – QT Art Camp

Grantee of Brooklyn Arts Fund

Project Profile: QT Art Camp Brings Free Art Workshops to Queer and Trans Youth

QT Art Camp just announced its summer series of art workshops for queer and trans youth taking place in New York. These workshops are free and welcome to youth ages 13-19. During the workshops, youth will work with NYC-based trans artists. Workshops including vogueing, film photography, painting and drawing. Youth are encouraged to learn new skills, discuss art with their peers and mentors, and will leave with a finished art piece. QT Art Camp is starting local but hopes to reach youth nationally, especially in smaller cities that don’t currently have many resources for queer and trans youth.

July 21, 2022December 30, 2022

The Lands of Kats Kill

The Lands of Kats Kill is the second in a series of three interrelated experimental pieces that combine graphics, text, and hyperlinks based on themes coming out of my Crazy River project, for which I gave an interview on this website on May 16th. Crazy River takes a wide-angle view of the climate crisis, ranging from my own climate grief to an in-depth focus on the many causes and effects of rapid environmental changes on the West Branch of the Neversink in Ulster County. In this piece I investigate the idea of the Catskills as a region, and an incongruous bundle of contradictions and coincidences. The Lands of Kats Kill weaves three timelines together: the geologic, the historical, and the personal. This structure repeats throughout my Crazy River project. The previous piece in this series, Invaders, took apart the idea of invasive species. The following will explore the concept of the Golden Spike in stratigraphy as fact and metaphor.

July 18, 2022December 30, 2022

Jodi Hays – The Find at Night Gallery in LA

In Conversation with Jodi Hays and Night Gallery

Installation image courtesy of Night Gallery and Marten Elder

A new show at Night Gallery in L.A. explores feminine conventions in painting. Large cardboard assemblages counter the traditional stretched canvas by repurposing a commonplace consumerist material. The Find is Jodi Hays’s first solo show in L.A. and a poetic contemplation on space, landscape, and material. Working in layered and dyed cardboard, Hays creates subtle landscapes reminiscent of long drives down winding roads. These works are odes to the quotidian, evoking both nostalgia and references to femininity, while straddling the line between painting and assemblage. Contributor Jac Lahav sat down with artist Jodi Hays and Night Gallery to talk about the show.

July 14, 2022December 30, 2022

Yikui Gu and Eustace Mamba at Commonweal

Featured Project: with gallerist Alex Conner

A group of people in a room

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — Image from the opening of the exhibition at the gallery

For its final exhibition of the gallery year, Commonweal in Philadelphia is featuring mixed media works by Yikui (Coy) Gu & Eustace Mamba, whose imagery and use of material create layers of multi faceted cultural cues, prompting a nuanced glimpse at the complexity of American identity. The exhibition runs through July 30th, 2022.