art history – Page 2

October 10, 2024December 7, 2024, by Paul D'Agostino

Fall Reads: Nine to Note

Book Review

Here’s a set of reviews of nine recently published and forthcoming books I’ve enjoyed reading, reflecting on, and recommending of late. In the mix are two emotionally trenchant novels, a narratively enigmatic novella, a gauzily glowing volume of poetry, a vast survey of contemporary text-based art, a history of groundbreaking women photographers, a critical examination of the sociopolitics of walking, a collection of interdisciplinary essays about narrative slowness, and a revised historical glimpse into the early days of US comic strips. They’re all worthy titles to add to your fall reading list. Several would also make excellent additions to a fall or spring syllabus.

July 14, 2023May 12, 2024, by Saul Ostrow

It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby

Opinion

Left: Pablo Picasso, 1920. © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Right: Hannah Gadsby, 2018. (Photo: Alan Moyle). — Left: Pablo Picasso, 1920. @2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Right: Hannah Gadsby, 2018. (Photo: Alan Moyle).

In our current era where historical and critical thinking are on the wane, one can’t complain about a show being ahistorical, but one can be faulted for lacking a cogent dialogue. Consequently, though mashing things together can produce interesting results, the parts must communicate with one another in a meaningful manner. Problematically, the exhibit, It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby at the Brooklyn Museum resembles Gadsby’s stand-up comedy routine—it rambles from subject to subject, and in this case, its cohesion relies on the audience’s attempt to understand how it is all connected to the red-herring Picasso. Considering Gadsby has been put in the position of playing auteur in a medium she is unaccustomed to, one which is visual and not language-based, it might have been a more interesting exercise in a post-way of thinking to present solely the exhibition’s wall texts, or conversely just the works themselves without commentary rather than clinging to the conventions of theme based exhibitions.

June 5, 2023May 29, 2023, by Amy Talluto

Whisperings from the Wormhole with @talluts

The (Real) Dream in Art

A picture containing painting, drawing, illustration, art

Description automatically generated — Cadavre Exquis with Valentine Hugo, André Breton, Tristan Tzara, Greta Knutson *Landscape* c.1933, Museum of Modern Art, Purchase

In an online artists’ talk in January 2022 between artists Chie Fueki, Alexi Worth and Catherine Murphy at DC Moore Gallery (produced by Painters’ Table), Murphy mentioned that her paintings were occasionally based on dreams. She revealed that her most recent show at Peter Freeman Inc. included two dream paintings: Flight (2020) and Begin Again (2019). “Flight” shows a gingham apron splayed at the bottom of four carpeted stairs and “Begin Again” shows five blue hand outlines on yellow-green wallpaper. During the course of the conversation, Worth also noted that Jasper Johns’ Flag painting came from a dream. And it got me wondering: How common is dream inspiration in art?

November 14, 2022December 6, 2024, by Sally Brown

Feminist Connect

Curator Sally Brown in conversation with artists Marie Bergstedt, Amy Chaiklin and Laurence de Valmy

In conversation with the artists

A picture containing text, fabric

Description automatically generated — Marie Bergstedt: *Fading*, Hand embroidery on cotton fabric, 2017, 22”H x20”W x 1.25”D

Marie Bergstedt, Amy Chaiklin and Laurence de Valmy were featured artists in Feminist Connect, on view at Charles Adam Studio Project in Lubbock, Texas, in March, 2022 and as part of a larger online exhibition by the same name, running through February 2023. The artists Bergstedt (fabric), Chaiklin (drawing/painting) and deValmy (painting) discuss their processes, concepts and relations with the co-curator, Sally Brown, expanding on the discussion the exhibition provokes around the feminist lineage of art.

May 14, 2020May 6, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Julian Kreimer

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Julian Kreimer is an associate professor of Painting and Art History at SUNY Purchase. Solo and two-person shows have included TSA LA (CA), Lux Art Institute (CA), and Weeknights Gallery (Brooklyn) and his work has been included in group shows at Fluc space (Vienna), Hotel Pupik (Austria), Curator Gallery, Alexandre Gallery, Von Lintel Gallery, and TSA. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, Hyperallergic, Artcritical, and Two Coats of Paint. He is a repeat fellow at Yaddo and MacDowell Colonies and received a 2018 NYSCA/NYFA Painting Fellowship. He is a frequent contributor to Art in America.

April 22, 2020March 27, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: David Borawski

During the coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

David Borawski with his work *You go forward I go backward somewhere we will meet*, 2020, in the exhibition Mill St. in New Haven. Photo by Peter Brown.

David Borawski is a multi-media installation artist and an independent curator living and working in Hartford, Connecticut. His artistic practice is comprised of sculpture, video, drawing and digital prints. Conceptually driven, the work reflects upon pop culture, radical politics, art history and the dark alleys of society while drawing upon lived personal experience.

March 2, 2020May 30, 2020, by Riad Miah

Museum as Muse at the Flatiron Project Space

*Museum as Muse, Installation, Image courtesy of Leigh Behnke*

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 21^st 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.

January 30, 2019February 1, 2019, by Etty Yaniv

Ashley Norwood Cooper – Grappling with Color of the Ordinary

Ashley Norwood Cooper, Deviled Eggs and Pink Cake, oil on panel, 16” x 20,” 2017, photo courtesy of the artist

Ashley Norwood Cooper is having a solo painting show at First Street Gallery in NYC. The show title, “The Likes of Us,” is taken from a line in “Waiting for Godot,” about the moon looking down on our ordinary lives. The first thing that caught my attention in Cooper’s work was the just right mix of raw quality and subtle sensibility to detail, depicting narratives that both intimate and universal. In this interview the artist talks about her process of painting from the imagination, her approach to color, and how she got to art.

December 18, 2018June 4, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Anne Sherwood Pundyk With Art Spiel – Part 1

Art Spiel’s Interview with artist and writer Anne Sherwood Pundyk has evolved into a cohesive and richly layered personal essay that will be published in sections over three days – one part a day. Anne Sherwood Pundyk’s essay in three parts seals Art Spiel’s Interview series for 2018, while opening a portal into 2019 with fresh insights and new writing formats.