art – Page 2 – Art Spiel

June 30, 2026June 30, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

The Whole Water of a River at TSA Brooklyn with Byron Toledo

The Whole Water of a River, installation view

A dead opossum lying in a fetal position along a contaminated riverbank in Quito became, for Byron Toledo, both an encounter and a sculpture. That moment, tender and violent at once, is at the heart of The Whole Water of a River at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Brooklyn, an exhibition that follows the Machángara River from its mountain source through the city. Ceramic animals, distilled plant aromas, and sound recordings gathered along the watershed map the river as a living system that connects hills, ravines, plants, people, and the city itself. The project carries unusual stakes: in 2024, an Ecuadorian court ruled that the rights of the Machángara had been violated, a ruling for which Toledo’s own video work served as evidence. We spoke with the artist about walking the river, collaborating across disciplines, and what it means to make art inside an ecosystem fighting to survive.

June 26, 2026June 24, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

From A to Z and the Bodies In Between at Nunu

Borges once described a fictional Chinese encyclopedia that classified animals into categories so incompatible — beings that belong to the Emperor, embalmed ones, those that look like flies from a distance — that the whole idea of classification begins to feel like a kind of absurd fiction. Nancy Bowen’s first solo exhibition at Nunu Fine Art invokes exactly that suspicion: that the dictionary, the archive, the great pre-internet repositories of everything, are not neutral records but constructions, and that constructions can be dismantled, embellished, and made to mean something new.

June 11, 2026June 10, 2026, by Michal Gavish

Voices In Minor Keys: 2026 Venice Biennale

In Minor Keys, the central exhibition of the 61st Venice Biennale, arrived with a quiet proposition. The late curator Koyo Kouho envisioned a show that reflects practices requiring time and sustained commitment — some of them lifetime, even generational — and in doing so created a deliberate antithesis to the Biennale spectacle. Drawing almost exclusively on artists from Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean, the exhibition is anchored in political concerns — identity, immigration, the environment — yet so many of the works felt personal, while reaching toward art history and even toward Venice itself. What follows is an account of its visual depth and strength.

June 9, 2026June 16, 2026, by Taylor Bielecki

Funny Weather at Kunstraum: Upheavals and new assumptions

In the exhibition Funny Weather, curated by Imogen Aukland, four artists present distinct takes on reconstructions and uncertainty. A timely, unsettled feeling meanders through the space — sculptures that depict typically threatening objects unexpectedly softened, or photos that capture moments that physically change as you walk around them. Both the unexpected and a sense of upheaval are prominent themes throughout, whilst also giving us a “weather forecast” that changes by area, mood, and experience. This grants viewers the opportunity to question what art does: what an art object stirs within us, and how much our assumptions about something can shift when viewed from different perspectives.

May 25, 2026May 27, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

Daniel Wiener at Satchel Projects: Out in front of the back of beyond

Out in Front of the Back of Beyond, the title of Daniel Wiener’s current solo exhibition at Satchel Projects, is a perfect pitch for the work on view. The notion of “front and back” strikes a strong chord throughout — explicit in the freestanding sculptures, hinted at in the wall pieces.

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

Jaynie Crimmins: Busywork at Garage Art Center

Jaynie Crimmins’s Busywork turns junk mail, catalogs, and security envelopes into exquisite objects: cones, ovals, and circles arranged across the walls, the larger pieces standing alone and the smaller ones mounted on panels. The show fills Garage Art Center, a converted garage in a Bayside house, now a clean, narrow gallery. The work asks for close looking, and the room is built for it.

December 29, 2023December 29, 2023, by Paul D'Agostino

Some Great Books

Book Review

I didn’t have a mandate to compile anything along the lines of a ‘Best Books of the Year’ list, so I didn’t. There are plenty of those out there already anyway. Some even feature hundreds of titles. Hundreds! The restraint is impressive.

Nevertheless, I’d be remiss if I didn’t spread the word a bit about some books I really did relish reading this year, so what follows is a short list of standout titles and a few words about each. Limiting my picks to 12 – plus a couple brief extras I couldn’t resist folding into the mix – seemed logical enough, and they appear here in no particular order. My selections run a gamut and include fiction, nonfiction, essays, critical theory, humor, architecture, art, material history, and a charmingly assembled byproduct of social media. Additionally, several of the titles are books in translation, and ‘excellent syllabus material’ for various types of courses, especially interdisciplinary ones, would be a viable subcategory for nearly everything included here.