Art Spiel – Page 26 – Contemporary Art and Culture

July 28, 2024December 7, 2024

Spiritual World at RAINRAIN
by Etty Yaniv

Photo story

Installation view, photo courtesy of the gallery

Spiritual World, the title of the current group show at RAINRAIN, references Alfred Stieglitz’s Spiritual America, a 1923 photograph of a harnessed, castrated horse. The powerless restrained stallion—a traditional American symbol of unstoppable prowess—symbolized for Stieglitz the loss of spirituality in his contemporary American culture. The organizer of Spiritual World, Theodor Nymark, a Copenhagen-based artist who also shows work in it, brought together seven artists from Denmark, Korea, and the USA to explore how spirituality can exist today outside conservative religious ideals and ultra-liberal new-age paganism. In a text for the show, Nymark specifies further how he sees spirituality—”like a multifaceted metaphor, many-sided, a prism with no central outpost, only imagination. Not just a lake, a mirror. Not just a car, a vehicle.” These notions reflect the overall premise of this show.

July 27, 2024July 27, 2024

Art Spiel Picks: Lower East Side in July 2024
by MICHELE JASLOW

HIGHLIGHT

Installation view, Shadowland, at Marc Straus, photo courtesy of the gallery

Summer 2024 shows in Lower East Side galleries offer many super solo and group exhibitions. We will highlight three that range from an inaugural show at a new NYC flagship gallery, a solo show of a veteran NYC artist, and a group show of Eastern European artists. That Dog in Me at Jupiter Gallery is a solo exhibition featuring seven new paintings by Travis Fish, who continues their exploration of fandom. Susan Eley Fine Art features the work of the late artist James Moore (1938 – 2013) in the second posthumous exhibition, Something Beautiful Happened. The group show at Marc Straus features Eastern European artists of the post-communist era and their responses to the rapid acceleration of technological development.

July 26, 2024July 26, 2024

Upstate Art Weekend, If You Missed It, It is Still Here!
by Sara Farrell Okamura

Pauline Decarmo, *CHAMPION*, 2024, acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 24 inches, LABspace

145 galleries, venues, historical sites, performances, and a few fashion stops and upscale grocers for foodies thrown in for good measure, all scattered across 10 counties north of New York City. This comprised Upstate Art Weekend, a four-day festival highlighting the diversity and breadth of culture in Upstate New York. This was not for the faint of stamina. This is not an art fair. It is a celebration of the creative communities lining the Hudson and the enclaves embedded in the Catskills. I have to believe the intent was never for escapees from urbanity to stop at each little circle on clustered maps. Below are some of the galleries that are the marrow, the heartbeat of the cultural community in specific regions. These are also galleries that exhibit small group and one-person shows that provide a larger window into the artist’s or artists’ thought process. If you missed Upstate Art Weekend, don’t despair; these and other sites are a stable part of the Hudson Valley, enabling anybody to make their own Upstate Art Weekend on their own time. It’s always here, 12 months of the year.

July 26, 2024June 19, 2024

The Sam & Adele Golden Foundation Auction’24: Dedicated to the Art of Paint
by Art Spiel

Featured Project

A group of people sitting at a table

Description automatically generated — Artists in residence in a training session at the Golden Lab

In 2012, the Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts introduced a one-of-a-kind residency program dedicated to the art of paint. Situated in the heart of central New York, mere steps from the Golden Artist Colors manufacturing facility, a 19th-century barn was transformed into a space that seamlessly blends history and modernity. It offers spacious studios and private apartments, providing a haven for artists to engage with materials and technologies that define contemporary artistic practice. The Golden Foundation Residency Program is a deliberate endeavor to aid professional artists in their quest to explore and master innovative materials and techniques. Each year, the Foundation hosts six Exploratory Residency Sessions, each lasting four weeks and accommodating three artists at a time.

July 25, 2024July 24, 2024

Intimate Space, Entangling Threads – Sharon Liu and Hanna Hirakawa with Naomi Okubo
by Art Spiel

In Conversation

Naomi Okubo, *Little Mama – Closely Glazed Space*, 2024, acrylic on canvas, ©Naomi Okubo, courtesy of Fou Gallery

Naomi Okubo has been creating works that explore the themes of identity and relationships with others. Her paintings, sculptures, and installations often feature multiple portraits of herself in imaginary, fantasized settings full of decorative patterns and vibrant colors that blur the boundary between the self and the surrounding environment. This ambiguity regarding identity stems from her experiences of struggling to establish selfhood in relation to others during her adolescence. One of her turning points was when she developed her interest in Wardian cases or what she calls “closely glazed spaces.”

July 24, 2024July 22, 2024

Art Spiel Picks: Boston Exhibitions in July 2024
by Andrew Fish

Highlights

“Untitled (United States Marine Hospital)” by Firelei Báez at The Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston

There are many excellent art exhibitions to visit in and around Boston this summer. Museums and galleries have created an abundance of programming that’s playful and profound. Dance parties, concerts, salons, and festivals supplement what’s on view, making summertime feel even more celebratory for the arts community. A visit to the Cape and Islands is a must for a reprieve from the heat, but also a great place to see brilliantly curated shows and satellite exhibitions. Within the city you’ll find most galleries foregoing their beach time to maintain regular hours and offering a rich selection of dynamic shows. Here are some highlights.

July 23, 2024July 23, 2024

July in NY – In & Outdoors Around the City
by Yasmeen Abdallah

Elizabeth Insogna and Jesse Bransford, photos courtesy of Tappeto Volante, ended on July 21st.

Many wonderful artists wielded their prowess in and around New York this month, in a myriad of ways and media. Moving around the city in the height of summer can be a daunting task, but these shows draw you into other realms that make you forget all about humidity and glad you made the trip. From Brooklyn to Governors Island to Storm King, here are some standouts that were definitely worth the journey.

July 22, 2024October 6, 2024

Josh Kline’s Greatest Emergency
by Santiago Zabala

Josh Kline, Unemployment, installation view, 2016

This is part of a series of articles for the upcoming exhibition, The Greatest Emergency at the Circulo de Bellas Artes of Madrid. The exhibition is based on Santiago Zabala’s book, Why Only Art Can Save Us: Aesthetics and the Absence of Emergency. In this exhibition, ten contemporary artists rescue us into our greatest emergencies, that is, those we do not confront as we should. Each article in the series will contextualize these artists’ practices and explore how they are linked to Zabala’s aesthetic theory and the exhibition’s themes. The second article in this series highlights the work of American artist Josh Kline.

July 18, 2024October 6, 2024

Judith Braun’s, I’m Bad at Kiddie Pool is So Good
by Sara Farrell Okamura

Featured Exhibition

A poster on the wall

Description automatically generated — Judith Braun, I’m Bad, installation view, photo courtesy of Kiddie Pool and the artist

Veteran, age-defying, feminist artist Judith Braun’s exhibit, I’m Bad, opened on June 28 in a pristine, Victorian-era brownstone that doubles as Kiddie Pool, a residential project space in downtown Albany, NY. As contemporary contronym phrases go, I’m Bad conjures a sense that exemplifies Braun as a person and her body of work. Through decades whether it was as a generation-defining member of the lower east side collaborative Group Material, where she created Pussy Works, as part of the seminal 1988 show, Democracy: Cultural Participation to exquisitely painted angels to her current exhibit that includes new monumental collages at Kiddie Pool, Braun consistently challenges and baits the status quo with unbridled glee.

July 15, 2024September 22, 2024

Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in July 2024
by Claire Haik

HIGHLIGHTS

*Wind Challenge III* at Fleisher Art Memorial, partial installation view, Alexis Granwell (left) and Brynn Hurlstone (right)

There are many thought-provoking shows in Philadelphia this July. Beginning at Fleisher Art Memorial, three innovative Philadelphia sculptors combine materials in unexpected ways to reflect on intimacy, vulnerability, and natural phenomena. At the Fabric Workshop in center city, artist John Jarboe brings her cabaret aesthetic to create a stunning immersive experience titled Rose Garden following her life and gender journey. In Kensington, at Peep Projects Todd Stong’s delicate drawings and wall-sized multi-panel monotype reflect on the complexities of history, contemporary life, and what the artist terms queer cultural production.