Art Spiel – Page 16 – Contemporary Art and Culture

February 11, 2025February 11, 2025

Judy Pfaff Taught Them to Break the Rules—Now They’re Sharing the Stage
by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

A room with art pieces on the wall

AI-generated content may be incorrect. — Installation view

Judy Pfaff has never played by the rules—her art bends them, her teaching breaks them, and her career is proof she never needed them. A MacArthur “Genius” who reshaped installation art, she has spent five decades throwing order out the window in favor of energy, movement, and sheer creative force. That ethos is on full display at Art Cake in Brooklyn, where Pfaff and three former students have reunited—not in a classroom, but as equals in a space that refuses to sit still.

February 10, 2025March 11, 2025

T.D. Motley: The Art of Farming
by Etty Yaniv

In Dialogue

Thomas Motley’s first novel, The Art of Farming: Sketches of a Life in the Country, is rooted in stewardship—a shared responsibility for the earth, animals, and one another. This theme has become more central to his paintings over time, though respect for nature has always been part of his work. His non-fiction writing and lectures on organic farming have also reflected this idea.

February 6, 2025February 5, 2025

Keisha Prioleau-Martin: Recenter at Olympia
by William Corwin

Recenter is a delightful return to Impressionism in many ways. Prioleau-Martin chooses for her subject matter decidedly impressionistic themes—moments at home, moments of introspection, and unrehearsed tenderness, all the casual yet poignant subject matter that marked painting’s initial move from the historic and fantastical to the everyday and human in the 1870s. She also employs the paint with a focus to capture the spur of the moment and the unexpected. Her small-scale ceramics, composed on the templates of stock sculptural types—odalisques, Rodin-like romantic poses, and busts, are, by virtue of their Lilliputian size and wit, Impressionist re-interpretations of dry classic forms. They start out as one thing and shift mid-stream into another: this is particularly evident in Prioleau-Martin’s bust Self-portrait (2024) which masquerades as a planter with fabric and wire vegetal tendrils emanating from her cranium along with her braids.

February 5, 2025February 5, 2025

Emergent Strategies: In Defense of Weeds at Stand4 Gallery
by john ros

hot air

Kariann Fuqua, *Emergent Strategies: In Defense of Weeds*, 2025. installation shot: front gallery. Image credit, Brad Farwell

In her latest exhibition, Emergent Strategies: In Defense of Weeds, Kariann Fuqua invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with the natural world—specifically the wild plants we so often dismiss as nuisances. Through a collection of drawings, photographs and found objects gathered from her acre of land in Mississippi, Fuqua examines the ecological and cultural narratives tied to “weeds,” challenging the capitalist obsession with control that underpins the American lawn.

February 4, 2025February 4, 2025

Margaret Koval: The Uncanny Valley of Everyday Life at ArtWRKD
by Art Spiel

In Dialogue

Margaret Koval in her studio. Photo courtesy of Kate Hammett.

The paintings in Margaret Koval’s latest exhibition, The Uncanny Valley of Everyday Life, capture a sense of disorientation—recognizable urban and suburban scenes where something is slightly off. They are rich in color and composition, drawing viewers in with pleasing views, yet an underlying unease lingers. Like waking up to find someone has rearranged your furniture overnight, they create a feeling of estrangement within the familiar.

February 3, 2025February 2, 2025

Jim Condron: Collected Things at the New York Studio School
by Etty Yaniv

Installation view, photo courtesy of Etty Yaniv

Jim Condron’s exhibition at the New York Studio School, curated by Karen Wilkin, continues his consistently thoughtful Collected Things series, inviting viewers to see everyday objects as vessels of personal and cultural memory. The sculptures, varying in size from around 20 to 96 inches, playfully transform seemingly ordinary items into layered narratives that bring unexpected elements together.

January 31, 2025February 1, 2025

Art Spiel Picks: Manhattan Exhibition in February 2025
by Yasmeen Abdallah

HIGHLIGHTS

Hassan Sharif, Gathering at Alexander Gray Associates

Alternative worlds abound, collide, and gravitate in a transfixing lineup that is circumspect of the new year and ruminations of what lies ahead. Unique in presentation, yet united in exploring the vulnerabilities of coexistence amidst a delicate balance, their clandestine orbits intersect and align around the precarity of humanity. Shape-shifting, portals, relics, and worlds collide and mystify in alchemical formulations. As our planet spins on an axis beyond human capacity, one can find solace and pleasure in the mystery and adventure that awaits through these masterful and delightful odysseys of discovery. Michael Brennan and Matthew Deleget create pathways of knowledge through otherworldly means. David Dixon melds stories seamlessly that serve as portals into realms that might exist in such a world.

January 30, 2025January 31, 2025

The Art of Kimbap: A Reflection on Trust and Vulnerability
by Terra Keck

*My Right Hands and Your Left Hand, Cooking with Joshua Kun Kyung Sok. 2025.*

Kun Kyung Sok’s latest performance, “My Right Hand and Your Left Hand,” held at Space 776, invites audiences into an intimate and aromatic exploration of collaboration, creativity, and trust. The performance centers on Kun and her co-performer (a rolling cast of artists and non-artists) working together to prepare kimbap, a traditional Korean dish, using only her right hand and the other participant’s left hand. On opening night, while the salted streets of the Lower East Side froze, Kun’s audience huddled in close to witness a warm scene of clumsy vulnerability and palpable humor. “Armed” with a single knife, the two performers navigated the challenges of mutual control, toppling salt shakers and spilling rice, all the while the hypnotic scent of freshly prepared food permeated the space.

January 29, 2025January 30, 2025

Snowed-In: Katerina Lanfranco at Sweet Lorraine
by Anna Shukeylo

In Dialogue

A person standing in front of a mural

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Katerina Lanfranco is a painter most known for her magical and fantastical colorful paintings. She recently embarked on a new challenge in her solo show Snowed-In, which is one of her most ambitious projects yet, as she let her viewers in on the process.

January 28, 2025January 27, 2025

Beijing Stories at the Liu Shiming Art Gallery
by Art Spiel

A sculpture of a building

AI-generated content may be incorrect. — Residential Building. 2005. Copper. 12.2 x 10.3 x 8.7

In 2021, a group of friends, family members, and former colleagues of the renowned Chinese artist Liu Shiming (1926-2010) banded together to form the Liu Shiming Art Foundation, an organization dedicated to both preserving the artist’s legacy and furthering his dedication to the power of the arts. The Foundation has undertaken an ambitious program of granting scholarships to university students around the world with a goal of funding 100 scholarships per year. They also have opened a gallery space on 15 East 40^th Street in Manhattan to showcase Mr. Liu’s work and eventually to showcase the work of pan-Asian artists.