Tag: collage

Posted on , by Etty Yaniv

Small Myriad: Sharon Horvath at Bookstein Projects

Installation view, detail, photo courtesy of Etty Yaniv

Sharon Horvath’s paintings in Small Myriad, her current exhibition at Bookstein Projects, create a sense of an alluring universe where dazzling colors, interflowing shapes, and tactile surfaces merge, meander, and as a group form an enigmatic universe unified by a mysterious code. Horvath’s spiraling lines and patterned forms create ebbing and flowing movements echoing Theodor Schwenk’s anthroposophical approach to the unifying principle of all movement and form. In his book Sensitive Chaos: The Creation of Flowing Forms in Water and Air, Schwenk posits that water movements reveal fundamental, archetypal patterns in natural and human-made environments. This deeper order finds resonance in Horvath’s paintings, but simultaneously, her imagery and use of collage also lean toward the enigmatic, paradoxical, and absurd.

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Posted on , by Noa Charuvi

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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Posted on , by Art Spiel

Ceramics+ Drawing Into Sculpture at LIC

photo story
A colorful paper ball with barbed wire Description automatically generated with medium confidence
Sok Song,- SoNoBe: Legermain Barbed and Coiled. Clay, paper, plastic, 16”x16”x16”.2023, Me, Mom, and the War on Identity. Acrylic, screen print, collage on paper, 36”x28” 2023 ( on wall)

The Long Island City Artists, an art non-profit known as LIC-A, is currently presenting a bold exhibition that brings together artists who work simultaneously in two media not always thought of as compatible. Curator Matt Nolen has gathered a fascinating group of artists from the NYC metropolitan area who work in both clay and drawing–one influencing and bouncing off the other. The synthesis is a fascinating and genre-bending exhibition.

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Posted on , by Amy Talluto

Whisperings from the Wormhole with @talluts

Let’s Be Nothing Burgers

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Photo of Pandora’s Cluster showing ancient galaxies from the early universe by the James Webb Space Telescope, Feb 15, 2023, Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ivo Labbe (Swinburne), Rachel Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh)

Recently I was watching a guy on TikTok gently freak out about all the revelations coming back from the James Webb Space Telescope. His panic was so relatable because the images returning from deep space only reinforce how utterly minute we Earthlings are in the cosmos. The JWST is so powerful that, looking from Earth, it can sense the heat signature of a single bumblebee on the moon. And, of course, faced with this, he just shrugged helplessly and said, “We’re a total nothing burger.”

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Posted on , by Melissa Stern

Stéphane Mandelbaum at The Drawing Center

A drawing of a person Description automatically generated
Ernst Röhm, 1981, Graphite, gouache, marker, and color pencil on paper. 54 3/4 x 47 1/4 inches

Who was Stephane Mandelbaum? A closeted gay man? The child of Holocaust survivors? A liar? A thief? A brilliant artist you’ve never heard of? All of the above and perhaps more.

The Drawing Center is presenting the first-ever show of Mandelbaum’s work in the US, and it is a show that left me gob-smacked. The combination of Mandelbaum’s brilliant drawing, deeply personal vision, and the complexity of his backstory is a tale made for cinema. Born in 1961 to a family of paternal Polish Holocaust survivors and maternal Belgian Armenians, Mandelbaum grew up in the town of Namur, about an hour and a half from Brussels. His Father, Ari, was a well-known painter, and his mother, Pili, was an illustrator. There is no record of siblings. A gifted draftsman from a young age but dyslexic and eccentric, Mandelbaum moved from Namur to Brussels, where he seemed to devote his time to making drawings and engaging in what is termed “petty crime.” He married a woman from Zaire (now called The Democratic Republic of Congo) and lived between the worlds of Belgian Africans, the Belgian crime underworld, and his own artistic imagination.

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Posted on , by Etty Yaniv

Shay Arick: Demons and Fields

Featured Exhibition
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In Demons and Fields, Shay Arick’s solo show in Tel Aviv Artists’ Studios Gallery, most sculptures are made of dried Ficus leaves he collected near his home. The vertical constructions are like linear drawings of delicate figures—they sway gently with the air or rotate in place through an automated mechanism. Each has its rhythm and character, evoking wonder and awareness of life’s fragility. Arranged along an extended white platform reminiscent of a road, these characters appear as if caught in a paused procession—some still move but remain anchored as part of a collective entity, an undefined network, or an intricate matrix. It is a nuanced and powerful metaphor for life’s transience in a complex reality. It is the second exhibition by Shay Arick since his return from New York City to Israel a year and a half prior. The show, curated by Eitan Bognim, opened on October 6th but was closed the next day on October 7th, due to the devastating Hamas attack on southern Israel and the subsequent ongoing war. The conversation with Shay Arick focuses on his art and his process.

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Posted on , by Anat Or Magal

The Kite Runner from Kfar Aza

מצילומי הלילה של אביב קוץ
Night Photographs, Aviv Kutz

This article was initially published in Portfolio Magazine in Hebrew on October 17th, 2023. It was translated into English by Sharon Yam Sananes and Ariane Goldberg Davidson and edited by Art Spiel. This publication in Art Spiel is in collaboration with Portfolio Magazine.

The Kutz family had always found hope and solidarity in their ability to create. It was their way of managing and flourishing as a family and as individuals. Aviv, Livnat, Rotem, Yonatan, and Iftach Kutz were murdered in their home. Aviv’s sister, Talya Kutz Shamir—artist and art therapist—talks about the family on her Instagram account, using their art as a jumping-off point for conversation.

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Posted on , by MICHELE JASLOW

Joanne Ungar on beauty and pain

Featured Artist

Joanne Ungar is a singular talent. Her work is a luminous masterclass in the manipulation of color and wax. A gifted encaustic artist with a scientific approach to her art practice, she speaks directly through her chosen medium to address questions of beauty and pain. We spoke about living in analog and digital worlds, women’s beauty, and finding your own art world.

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Posted on , by Art Spiel

PE Pinkman: Two Solo Shows at Watchung Arts Center

Featured Project
A collage of a couple of images of a person Description automatically generated with medium confidence
(l) Mona Brody, Getting Answers, 60” x 48”, 2023, and (r) Anne Trauben, a section of the installation, Step Up on a Stool to Reach the Sky, 2023

PE Pinkman, the chief visual arts curator and executive director of the Watchung Arts Center in New Jersey, notes that two exhibitions — Mona Brody: Portals, Apparitions, and Other Voices and Anne Trauben: Step Up on a Stool to Reach the Sky — emerged from separate discussions with each artist. For over 45 years, the nonprofit Watchung Arts Center has been a prominent stage, showcasing works from regional artists in New Jersey and New York. Their central mission is to provide visual artists with a platform for engagement, promoting arts education while offering unique exhibition opportunities. At a first glance, both Mona Brody’s paintings and Anne Trauben’s installations appear straightforward. However, Pinkman emphasizes that they reveal deeper layers upon closer inspection. He observes a fascinating contrast: while Brody’s art unveils forms from the shadows, Trauben emphasizes light and shape within a darkened setting.

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