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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Sari Nordman


Sari Nordman, Assembling on Ancient Towers, 2020, video, video still courtesy the artist

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Sari Nordman, a native of Finland, is a NYC-based interdisciplinary artist working with dance, video and installation. She loves to travel to the isolated parts of the world to reflect on nature, history and female experience, the recurring themes in her works. She continues developing Torni-Tower, an installation work which has received support from the Catwalk Institute and NYU, The Immigrant Artist Biennial, The Amsterdam Collective and Tohmajärvi Residency, for Jamaica Flux: Workspaces and Windows 2021 exhibition and Performance Mix Festival. She worked as a performer with choreographer Dean Moss in 2009-2018, and holds a M.F.A. from NYU/Tisch School of The Arts.

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Bianca Abdi-Boragi


Bianca Abdi-Boragi, Barbary Fig, still, short film, 17 min

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Bianca Abdi-Boragi is a French-Algerian/American interdisciplinary artist who received her MFA from Yale School of Art, Sculpture, in 2017 and obtained her BFA from ENSAPC. Her solo shows include “The Heel of the Loaf” at Border Project Space and a presentation at CADAF Art Fair, she has exhibited with the Immigrant Artist Biennial, NARS Foundation, Border Project Space, VCU Arts, NURTUREart Gallery, Chashama Gallery, Field Project Gallery, Galerie Protégé, and The Clemente Soto Velez Center NY, among others. 

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Jorge Rojas

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Jorge Rojas performing tether, Performance Art Festival (PAF), Salt Lake City Public Library, 2018. Photo credit: Adelaide Ryder. Courtesy of the artist

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Jorge Rojas is an artist from Cuautla, Morelos, México. He is interested in cultural, social, spiritual and mediated forms of communication. Rojas uses performance to bring people together through participation, interaction, and active engagement. His interests include spiritual histories, interpretations of ancient rites and customs, institutional critique, and responding to abuses of power.

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Priscilla Dobler Dzul

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Priscilla Dobler Dzul, The Performance of Labor, Class, Race and Gender, 2020. Artist interviewing migrant workers. Photo courtesy Rebecca Dobler-Chale

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Born in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, Priscilla Dobler Dzul, is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, ceramic, film, fiber arts, and performance. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has shown at A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; The Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA; Consulate of Mexico, Seattle, WA; NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY; 125 Maiden Lane, NYC, NY; Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, WA; Form and Concept, Santa Fe, NM; The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA; Decentered Gallery, Puebla, Mexico, and DAC Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Yikui (Coy) Gu


Yikui (Coy) Gu, Oriental Flavor. 2019. Gouache, charcoal, acrylic, gouache on photograph, chopsticks. Ramen noodle packaging & flavoring pack on bristol board.

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continues in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Yikui (Coy) Gu was born in 1983 in Nantong, China and emigrated to the United States at the age of seven, growing up in Albany, NY. Yikui (Coy) Gu has a BFA from Long Island University and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He has exhibited his work nationally in New York, Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, and St. Louis; and internationally in London, Berlin, and Siena, Italy. His work has been reviewed in the Washington Post, KunstForum International, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Yale Daily News. His work has appeared on the cover of the Lower East Side Review, and in Fresh Paint and Art Maze. He resides in Philadelphia and teaches as Associate Professor of Art at the College of Southern Maryland. He is currently plotting in his South Philly studio, while remaining mostly harmless.

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A Studio 54 Reject Is At It Again 40 Years Later

Lisa Levy in dialogue with Art Spiel

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Studio 54 Reject Re-Performance by Lisa Levy, Photo Credit: Phil Buehler.

Right before the Coronavirus outbreak prompted a mass-shutdown of New York City’s galleries and museums, multidisciplinary artist, radio show host and (self-proclaimed) psychotherapist Lisa Levy recreated her classic guerrilla art project ‘Studio 54 Reject’. On the opening night of the “Studio 54: Night Magic” exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, Levy stationed herself outside the institution’s main entrance. Standing behind a small table encircled by red velvet ropes and four stanchion posts, she gestured toward a sign reading “Studio 54 Reject T-Shirt, $20” while imploring passersby to take pride in “reject status” with the purchase of a shirt, newly re-designed in gold glitter and the official logo.

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Artists on Coping: Meryl Meisler

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

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Meryl Meisler studied photography at the University of Wisconsin, and with Lisette Model in New York where she began to capture the city’s street life and infamous nightlife. A 1978 C.E.T.A. Artist Grant supported her portfolio on Jewish identity, after which she began a three-decade career as a NYC public school art teacher. Upon retirement, she began releasing large bodies of previously unseen work, including two books, A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick, and Purgatory & Paradise SASSY ‘70s Suburbia & The City. She is currently working on her next monograph, New York PARADISE LOST Bushwick Era Disco, and is represented by CLAMPART.

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Artists on Coping: Jeanne Brasile

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

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Jeanne Brasile is an artist, curator, art educator and writer and is also the Director of Seton Hall University’s Walsh Gallery.

Jeanne Brasile is interested in repurposed paper as a medium, especially when its original function is outmoded, and structured to communicate information that is currently transmitted in a digital format. Most recently she has been working with library card catalogues, Braille newspaper pages, vintage dictionaries and newsprint to make wall sculptures on canvas or board. She shreds, cuts, folds, weaves, sews and curls paper – reassembling the pieces to alter the data it once conveyed. Her work has been shown most recently at the Montclair Art Museum, The Pascal Gallery at Ramapo College of New Jersey and the Mattatuck Art Museum.

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Artists on Coping: Barbara Lubliner

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

Barbara Lubliner, "Two Zips" 2019, paper relief with staples and zipper, 12 x 16 inches, photo courtesy of Paul Takeuchi

Two Zips, 2019, paper relief with staples, zipper, 12 x 16 inches. Photograph by Paul Takeuchi

New York artist Barbara Lubliner transforms traditional and nontraditional materials into thought-provoking expressions that are both iconic and quirky. She moves fluidly from performance art to works on paper to sculpture, both large and small. Solo exhibitions include Gibson Gallery Museum at SUNY Potsdam; Carter Burden Gallery, NYC; Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, NJ; and Pierro Gallery, South Orange, NJ. Recent group exhibitions include City Reliquary Museum, NYC; Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY; Edison Price Lighting Gallery, L.I.C., NY; and Ceres Gallery, NYC. Performance venues include the Brooklyn Museum and the Après Avant Garde Festival on the Staten Island Ferry.

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Artists on Coping: Michael David

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

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Brenda Goodman and John Yau in conversation at Life on Mars for her one -person exhibition

Michael David, a Guggenheim Fellow artist, has been exhibiting his paintings internationally since 1981, first with the Historical Sidney Janis and then with M. Knoedler & Co. for over two decades. His work is included in the permanent public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Brooklyn Museum  in New York, The Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art and was the subject of a one -person exhibition at Aspen Museum of Art . As an extension of his painting practice over the last six years David has established two reputable galleries, Life on Mars and M. David & Co., as well as an adjunct residency program at M.David &Co.

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