Art Spiel – Page 105 – Contemporary Art and Culture

November 26, 2019May 30, 2020

Actual and Implied – Gregory Coates at Monica King Contemporary
by Etty Yaniv

Gregory Coates, My Big Brown Peace, 2019 deck brushes 76 x 252 x 3 inches

Each of Gregory Coates’s wall-based assemblages in Actual and Implied, the artist’s solo show at Monica King Contemporary, commands the space with its own powerful presence. Altogether, the show features over a dozen new mixed media assemblages made of found objects created with post-minimalist sensibility, for which Coates is mostly known for. It is a bold encounter with the objects of art at first, but the longer you look, the more subtle and fragile it becomes. The seemingly simple monochromatic surfaces from afar transform to complex arrays of color, line and dot from close-up.

November 25, 2019November 15, 2020

Tim van den Oudenhoven – A Land For Man’s Absence
by Tansy Xiao

Surveillancescapes, Archival pigment print on cotton paper, 2019

Tim van den Oudenhoven is a Belgian-born artist who currently lives and works in Berlin. His photo-based depictions of desolate landscapes with a strong suggestion of surveillance inspire conversations on the dynamic between the visible and the invisible, the witness and the witnessed: in brief, the nature of being seen.

November 22, 2019November 15, 2020

Isabelle Garbani – on Artifacts of Place
by Etty Yaniv

Place and Cultural Heritage at Stand4 Gallery

Isabelle Garbani curated the group show Artifacts of Place at Stand4 gallery in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, running through December 15^th. The show features work by Joyce Dallal, Dalia Baassiri, Mary Tuma, Daiffa Dessine, Arghavan Khosravi, Reem Bassous, Armita Raafat, Helen Zughaib, and Ekram Alrowmeim- all women artists who are of Middle Eastern and North African descent and who are dealing in their art with related cultural or political issues. The curator shares with Art Spiel her ideas behind this group show and some information about the participating artists.

November 21, 2019November 21, 2019

Plastic Expressions in Particularity: Nature Moves in Tracy McKenna’s Shift at Able Baker Contemporary
by Julien Langevin

Elise Ferguson. Pebble. Pigmented plaster on MDF panel, 2018. Photo courtesy of Able Baker.

“Wisdom was the feeling for what is high, great, broad, sharp, even, heavy, bright, light, colorful . . . Wisdom was the feeling for an essentially shared reality, for the mystical, for the indeterminate indeterminable, for the greatest determinacy of all . . . but art is reality, and the reality we share must assert itself beyond all particularity.” Hans Arp, Introduction to a Catalogue

November 20, 2019November 2, 2022

A History of Digital Photography – Lucien Samaha at Pioneer Works
by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Prototype for the Kodak DCS 100, floppy discs, and Kodak film

The exhibit at Pioneer Works is called “A History of Digital Photography” and features some of the first images taken with Kodak’s earliest digital camera. The show includes that camera, its maquette, and the ever sharper, smaller cameras Lucien Samaha worked with over the years, plus ephemera. But at its heart, this show is less about technology than an artist’s journey, and is deeper and far more human than its title suggests.

November 19, 2019November 15, 2020

Juliette Dumas – Whale Flukes Paintings at The Neue House New York
by Etty Yaniv

In Dialogue with gallerist Silas Von Morisse on the Whale Flukes Paintings and beyond

Installation view, Juliette Dumas, Whale Fluke (Night) at The Neue House New York

Silas von Morisse founded a reputable gallery in Bushwick in 2014. Then, in 2018, due to notable shifts in the art world for small venues like hers, she decided to drastically change her model: from exhibiting in a physical venue, to featuring art as a mostly online presence paired with events which enable viewing in person. Silas von Morisse shares with Art Spiel her changed mode of operation, while highlighting the current show featuring Whale Flukes paintings by the French artist Juliette Dumas.

November 18, 2019September 10, 2023

Iris Häussler – Invented Biographies
by Etty Yaniv

Throughout her multi-faceted installations, the German-born Canadian based artist Iris Häussler has been slipping in and out of multiple characters. Her invented underdog protagonists live through diverse historical periods and traverse vast geographies. Häussler’s rigorous installations transform any categorization. They are placed between life and art, coalescing multi-disciplinary collaborations including performance, literature, and richly layered visual vocabularies such as drawing, installation and sculpture. The visitor is invited to experience an individual’s life within a specific context of place and history, to decipher the clues from the artifacts and materials throughout installations that reflect on fiction, history and the meaning of a creative identity.

November 16, 2019November 15, 2020

Juan Puntes – on WhiteBox Harlem
by Etty Yaniv

In Dialogue with Juan Puntes on PERFORMA 19 @WhiteBox Harlem and beyond

A group of people in a room

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Juan Puntes, who founded WhiteBox as the original Chelsea non-profit alternative art space in 1998, built a highly reputable venue known for its thought-provoking exhibition with cutting edge contemporary artists vis-à-vis little known avant-garde historical influential producers. While focusing on site-specific work, performance, and video projects, WhiteBox is also offering a wide array of programming including readings, lectures, and panel discussions. Juan Puntes is sharing with Art Spiel some of WhiteBox’s history, his vision, and his upcoming programs.

November 12, 2019November 2, 2022

BOS Studio Spotlight: Yolande Heijnen
by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Yolande Heijnen was born and raised in Luxembourg, and has lived in New York since 1998. She has an MFA in painting from the New York Studio School, has won the Edward G. McDowell Travel Grant of the Art Students League, and is a three-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant.

All photos byCatherine Kirkpatrick

November 11, 2019November 15, 2020

Peter Gynd – Jody MacDonald: Freaks, Geeks, and Strange Girls at Radiator
by Etty Yaniv

In Dialogue with Peter Gynd on Jody MacDonald’s upcoming solo exhibition he curated at Radiator

Jody MacDonald, Conjoined Twins, 2019, mixed media, 26 x 26 x 24 in.

Peter Gynd is an artist, curator and gallerist whose recent curatorial project is currently on view at Radiator, a solo show featuring new works by the Canadian born and NYC based Jody MacDonald. MacDonald’s sculptural dioramas explore a set of characters on the fringe by merging fact, fiction, and art history. In this Art Spiel interview Peter Gynd elaborates on the genesis of the exhibition.