Contemporary Art and Culture
Paul Mok in dialogue with Art Spiel on his show at GAIA in Dumbo
Designer, architect, and visual artist Paul Mok shares with Art Spiel the origin, idea and process behind his installation based solo exhibition at GAIA in Dumbo.
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Experiencing William Corwin’s sculptures may resemble opening a time capsule filled with mysterious objects made of familiar materials like sand, rope, clay and wood. By drawing on references ranging from architecture to archaeology, totems to teeth, Corwin’s sculptures resonate with archaic civilizations — removed yet urgently present. William Corwin shares with Art Spiel what brought him to sculpture, takes a look at some of his projects, and sheds some light on his curatorial and art writing practices.
Continue reading “William Corwin – Flattening of Time“
The NYC based artist Denise Sfraga intersects in her work photography, drawing, and painting. The evolving processes, history, and aesthetics of photography altogether inform Denise Sfraga‘s thought process and practice. This results in an abstracted biomorphic imagery resonating with botany and other organic life forms. At first glance her well defined colorful shapes appear as beautiful abstractions but as you spend more time with them, you may realize that their beauty is a camouflage for darker, mysterious and disorienting undercurrents. Denise Sfraga first elaborates for Art Spiel how her way of thinking came about and then takes us through different series of work to reflect on her process in depth.
Continue reading “Denise Sfraga: Constructing and Disclosing“
In Axis Mundi, his current painting exhibition at Elizabeth Harris, Ron Milewicz shows a body of work that reveals his continuous fascination with the mystery of trees. While focusing his gaze on a specific woodland landscape ,the Hudson Valley woodlands, Ron Milewicz is opening a portal not only to the universal meaning of trees, but also to the overall vulnerability and wonder of life on this planet. Ron Milewicz shares with Art Spiel some reflections on his approach to painting and on what draws him to his consistent thematic exploration.
Continue reading “Ron Milewicz – Axis Mundi at Elizabeth Harris“Steven Pestana in dialogue with Art Spiel
A Romantic Comedy, co-curated by Steven Pestana and Sophia Sobers , is a large-scale installation-based group exhibition which explores the mystery and ambiguity of romance in the 2020s through the actions and objects of everyday life. The opening takes place during Armory Weekend and the show runs throughout the end of March. Steven Pestana describes for Art Spiel the curators’ background, elaborates on the genesis of the show, then gives some background on its host, Wallplay, and its venue at 25 Kent street in Williamsburg.
Continue reading “A Romantic Comedy hosted by Wallplay“
The Japanese born Brooklyn based sculptor Yasue Maetake largely draws on laws of nature like gravity, as well as on her Japanese cultural heritage like Butoh dance/theater. The artist describes for Art Spiel her artistic impetus, layered ideas, and elaborate process.
Continue reading “Yasue Maetake – Intersubjective Narratives“
A favorite experience of mine is to visit the Metropolitan Museum without a show or work of art in mind to see. I enjoy wondering the galleries until I come across something I had not noticed before and then spend the time looking and analyzing the work. This experience is likened to one I have recently had at “Museum as Muse”, a show curated by Leigh Behnke, consisting of works by the artist herself, Joe Fig and Peter Hristoff. The show is not at a sprawling Chelsea gallery or at a small, but relevant Lower East Side venue. It is tucked away within the confines of an academic institution, School of Visual Art, located on 21st Street in the SVA Flatiron Gallery Project Space. As the title suggests, all three artists have used the museum in some capacity as a starting point for their work.
Continue reading “Museum as Muse at the Flatiron Project Space“
A former medical office located in the heart of Bayridge Brooklyn, hosts Magdalena Dukiewicz solo exhibition “In Every Dream Home a Heartache“, a visual, physical and poetical exercise in which the artist revisits particular objects and memories from her childhood in Poland to explore an idea of “home” that has been inoculated in her mind from an early age. For Dukiewicz, the thought of a home brings a cumulus of anxieties related to social expectations, which calls into question the preconceived ideas of how things are supposed to be in life: motherhood, marriage, work, living in a place other than your birthplace, fulfilling certain obligations.
Continue reading “Magdalena Dukiewicz at Stand4 – In Every Dream Home a Heartache“
One might find Taher Jaoui introverted the moment meeting him. It might be less about an aloof temperament commonly found in an artist than a reserved and prudent character often associated with a science person. The way in which Jaoui’s artworks act out follows a similar interpersonal pattern. Those scratchy mathematics signs and formulas are the most prominent elements of the new series of monochrome paintings featured in Taher’s current solo exhibition Controlled Entropy at 81 Leonard Gallery, co-hosted by Uncommon Beauty Gallery. The juxtaposition of the handwritings of mathematical formulas and the gestural brushwork in an abstract expressionist manner not only prompts questions about Jaoui’s background, but also problematizes the hostile split between art and mathematics. Reminding viewers of a lecturer running a mathematical calculation across the blackboard with chalk, this series of paintings highlights the performative elements in mathematics, as well as the craft aspects of labor invested in this intellectual activity.
Continue reading “Controlled Entropy, Taher Jaoui at 81 Leonard Gallery“Eva Mayhabal Davis in dialogue with Art Spiel – Beyond the Pale
Zac Hacmon‘s sound sculptures at the intimate Border project space are overpowering in size, as if cutting the air with their sharp diagonal tiled lines to create a sense of suffocating sterility. Their oddity is intriguing and repelling simultaneously, and their placement in the room forces the visitor to navigate around with considerate effort. The sound consists of a series of stories recorded at the Arizona-Mexico border, and adds another layer of urgency, creating altogether an inspired fusion of sound/form. Eva Mayhabal Davis, the curator of Beyond the Pale , elaborates on the premise behind the show.