Curatorial visions at Montclair Art Museum

Tom Nussbaum: But Wait, There’s More!, Montclair Art Museum, installation view, photo courtesy of Jason Wyche

During her more than thirty years at the Montclair Art Museum, Dr. Gail Stavitsky, Chief Curator, has shaped the institution’s vision through exhibitions that deepen public understanding of art history while highlighting under-recognized artists. Her work extends beyond the galleries to publications that introduce new scholarly perspectives — including the recent catalogue accompanying Tom Nussbaum: But Wait, There’s More! In this interview, Dr. Stavitsky discusses her curatorial approach and the ideas guiding the Museum’s current exhibitions by Tom Nussbaum and Christine Romanell.

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Womanhood 102: Lesley Bodzy and Katie Commodore Challenge Gender Norms

Installation view Womanhood 102 (with Lesley Bodzy’s Soft Embrace I, 2022. Acrylic. 69 x 43 x 11 inches, on the left and works by Katie Commodore in the middle and on the right). Courtesy of the curator.

A golden, shimmering drapery cascades from the wall—the skin-like surface of Soft Embrace is from Lesley Bodzy’s experimental work with acrylic paint. She uses the liquid pigment as a sculptural material, shaped into a malleable cloth, reminding of Lynda Benglis’s poured latex on the floor or Eva Hesse’s visceral and alluring sculptures. The sensuous object evokes a tactile experience, an imagination of how touching it might feel, through looking. Matter surprises, entering a threshold between fluid and solid, elasticity and delicacy. Jamaica Kincaid’s 1978 story Girl tells a mother-daughter dispute about how a girl should behave. “…on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming…” The mother’s advice seems endless and castigating, instructing every aspect of daily living. Side-by-side, Bodzy’s curved drapery recalls ‘how girls should behave,’ as it seemingly hides things beneath and its smooth surface presents an image of flawless elegancy, concealing feelings in a muted position.

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Blue As An Orange

Tristeza II, 2024, installation view

The mysterious elevator door facing the busy corner of Broadway and Canal takes you to the vast and brightly lit space of Ulterior Gallery, which is currently presenting Keren Benbenisty’s second solo show with the gallery titled Tristeza II. A continuation of a 2021 show by Benbenisty, named after the same lethal virus that infects citrus trees, comprises a series of new works in various media. At the center is a 14-minute video narrating the artist’s attempt at cultivating a blue orange, a project she has been occupied with for the past several years: The bluranj, as she named it, or Tapuchol, from the Hebrew word for orange, “Tapuz” and blue, “Kachol”. The video takes us through footage from her visits to an Israeli agricultural research institute, where she met with scientists who specialize in grafting new citrus species. They questioned her ambition – why a blue orange? Benbenisty does not offer a logical explanation but rather a poetic one. The works in the exhibition tell her personal story and provide a window into the larger narrative of the region.

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Emily Culver: The Idea of a Thing

In Dialogue

Portrait, photo courtesy of the artist

Virginia-based artist Emily Culver’s background is as multifaceted as her artwork. With a father who is a carpenter and contractor and a mother who transitioned from being a midwife to a nursing professor, she was raised in a world that merged craft and body. This upbringing influenced her own creative direction. Adept at procedural tasks, she nonetheless felt a pull towards a less constrained form of expression. College introduced her to painting, but she soon sought more than just surfaces, finding herself intrigued by the interplay of gravity, physics, and mechanics.

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Pablo Garcia Lopez – Fibrous Neuroplasticity


Brainvolution 1, natural silk, PLA filament (3D printing) and fabric. Shadow Box (plexiglass covered) 48x29x7 inches, 2019

The Spanish born, New York based artist Pablo Garcia Lopez makes mixed media reliefs and sculptures which evoke hybrid forms resonating with Baroque imagery, biological forms, and at times Victorian delicate ornaments. His Spanish heritage, coupled with his background in biochemistry and Neuroscience largely inform his visual vocabulary and themes.

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Controlled Entropy, Taher Jaoui at 81 Leonard Gallery

Taher Jaoui: Controlled Entropy installation view, photograph by Hannah Rozelle, photo courtesy of the artist

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.

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Amulets Ethereal at Barney Savage

Amulets Ethereal, partial installation view, photo courtesy of Barney Savage gallery

“Amulets Ethereal,” the thought provoking group exhibition curated by Jenny Mushkin Goldman at Barney Savage features works by Kharis Kennedy, Adam Krueger & Tableaux VivantsVictoria Manganiello & Julian Goldman, Qinza Najm, Cheryl R. Riley, and Ashley Zelinskie. The artworks in this show run the gamut from manipulated found objects, like Cheryl Riley’s old farm tools and Qinza Najm’s carpet, to fabricated sculptures like Ashley Zelinskie’s 3-d printed futuristic cyborgs and Victoria Manganiello / Julian Goldman’s computerized weaving; from wearable art like the sewn tattooed silicon mask by the duo  Adam Krueger and Tableaux Vivants to Kharis Kennedy’s mysterious painting of a masked figure with a goat. Collectively the artworks are recontextualized as open-ended ritualized objects and images endowed with the questionable power to shield the viewer from the most tenuous of perceived dangers. Continue reading “Amulets Ethereal at Barney Savage”