Contemporary Art and Culture
Loren Eiferman sees her work as the “ultimate recycling”. She collects sticks and branches that have fallen to the ground and typically forms her sculptures by joining together hundreds of small pieces of wood into a cohesive whole through a unique technique she has developed for over 25 years.
Continue reading “Loren Eiferman: Drawing in Wood”In Dialogue with Melissa Joseph
Intergenerational, 42 x 131 in, needle felted wool and sari silk on inkjet print on Indian duppioni silk, 2020-2021
Née, Melissa Joseph’s first solo show in New York, features 27 wall based works and 5 sculptures, utilizing mostly wool felt and textiles assembled through a highly intuitive process. The show runs at REGULAR•NORMAL through May 2, 2021.
Continue reading “Melissa Joseph: Née at REGULAR•NORMAL”In Dialogue with Katya Grokhovsky
Katya Grokhovsky ‘s site-specific installation FANTASYLAND at Smack Mellon explores the rise and fall of a fantastical empire and its uncertain future. Giant plush toys, inflatable beach balls, deconstructed and re-assembled mannequins, an unfinished carousel structure, recycled parachute canopies, wallpaper, a glowing neon sign, and performance videos, altogether underscore American society’s surplus of objects, and unbridled desire for material possessions, ironically, the capitalist symbol of freedom. The artist scrutinizes the American Dream through an immigrant lens, exposing a desirable yet unattainable mirage. Katya Grokhovsky’s work is currently on view in the solo exhibition FANTASYLAND at Smack Mellon, through May 2nd, 2021.
In his stop-motion animation and mixed media installations the Brooklyn based artist Brian Zegeer creates fantastic landscapes which draw on his domestic family life, dissecting what is the meaning of identity – body as an organism, cultural heritage of childhood in Appalachia with Lebanese roots –altogether fuse into a mysterious and complex system where the viewer is prompted to get immersed.
Continue reading “Brian Zegeer: Porous Identities”In Dialogue with Mira Dayal
In her inaugural solo exhibition with Spencer Brownstone Gallery, Brooklyn-based artist Mira Dayal has rubbed by hand the entire gallery floor in graphite, resulting in a map of the space’s topography – all lines and no borders. Drawing on Borges’s “On Exactitude in Science”, the show explores notions of scale, control, ethics, materiality, and simulation. The show runs through April 4th, 2021.
Continue reading “Mira Dayal: In that Empire at Spencer Brownstone Gallery”In Dialogue with Laura Mega
Laura Mega is an Italian visual artist based in Rome and New York. As everything around her in Rome became sad and empty when Europe was hit by Covid-19, she felt the need to connect with the outside world through the language she is most familiar with, art. As all the museums and galleries were closed, she thought —what if I video project the art outside, connecting people trapped at home around the world? In Laura Mega’s mind, ideas have no value if there is no one who believes and supports them. Her international project Art Heals, presented by LAZZARO_art doesn’t sleep, is a video projection exhibition offering an element of brief happiness.
Continue reading “Art Heals: LAZZARO_art doesn’t sleep”Local Artists and Cultural Organizations in Each Borough to Host Outdoor, Socially Distanced Press Conferences with Performances March 18-19
One year after New York City’s arts and cultural sector suddenly shut down over the period of one week in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, events in each borough will mark the somber anniversary. Comprised of speeches by local elected/cultural leaders and performances by New York artists, this day of programming memorializes the shut down while looking forward to the needs of a resilient NY artistic community. The events are united by the dual themes of #CultureRemembers and #CultureForward, and will take place on Thursday, March 18, and Friday, March 19. Local leaders and artists will participate in all of them.
Continue reading “Public Events in all Five Boroughs”
At a time when one would have to work 78 hours at minimum wage to afford a studio apartment in most of the US, the idea of a rusting laundromat provides a fitting theme for an exhibition to reflect the struggles faced by so many in the US. While the show curated by Jamie Martinez evokes layers of meaning, the sagging laundry machine of Chelsea Nader, provides an ethos for the current state of the world grappling with economic stress in a pandemic.
Continue reading “On the Beauty of Collaboration – The Border and Home Gallery Co-Exhibition “Last Wash at Midnight””
Joy Curtis was born in Valparaiso, Indiana, and grew up in rural Indiana and Iowa. In college, she studied painting while making objects outside the medium. Later, Curtis earned her MFA at Ohio University where she studied sculpture. In 2002, she moved to Bushwick, Brooklyn, and has been living and working there since that time. Curtis has been represented by Klaus von Nichtssagend since 2010, and has had 5 solo shows with them. She has been included in other recent exhibitions at the Pelham Art Center, Ceysson and Bénétière, the Aldrich Museum (CT), and T.S.A (Brooklyn). Curtis is the recipient of fellowships from Socrates Sculpture Park and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Her work has been reviewed in the New Yorker, Hyperallergic, ArtCritical, and Saatchi Online, and she has been featured on Gorky’s Granddaughter and James Kalm’s Rough Cut video blogs. Currently Curtis is working on a large, outdoor sculpture made of fabric that will be included in a summer show.
Continue reading “Joy Curtis: With Every Fiber at Pelham Art Center”
Shari Urquhart produced visual narratives from candy-like yarns that seem to glow. Each piece presents sensual fields that we can easily get lost in, absorbing each story as it slowly unfurls. The colorful works are made from fibers of wools, rayons, angoras, mohairs, metallics, fake fur, plastic and even Urquhart’s own dog’s hair. Each of her tapestries exhibits a brevity of controlled execution, awareness of composition that is meticulously constructed, making each piece monumental.
Continue reading “Shari Urquhart: Selections from the Fuzzy Museum and other warm worlds”