Contemporary Art and Culture
Chicago based artist Rita Grendze draws, sculpts and makes large scale installations that bring the two and three dimensional forms together in imaginative ways. She creates visceral environments utilizing mostly found materials, ranging from music sheets to textiles.
Continue reading “Rita Grendze: Material Exploration”
Davalois Fearon in rehearsal for Finding Herstory – Photo by Anya Kress
PLG Arts (Prospect Lefferts Gardens Arts), in collaboration with Davalois Fearon Dance (DFD), presents Music and Dance at Parkside Plaza, an outdoor, block party-style event that celebrates the rich Caribbean heritage of Flatbush/ Prospect-Lefferts Gardens (PLG) and the growing community of local artists. The free performance will take place on October 17th at 2 pm at Parkside Plaza, located at Parkside Ave and Ocean Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11226. The event will feature live drumming by Ryan Greenidge, Agyei Phillip, and Rasaan Green, and the music of composer and woodwind player Mike McGinnis, Dancehall, and Reggae facilitated by D.J. Ayanna Heaven, and a site-specific performance of Finding Herstory and community dance-along led by Davalois Fearon, the founder and artistic director of Davalois Fearon Dance Company. In addition, she shares with Art Spiel her reflections on this public project.
Continue reading “Playarts: Cultivating Creativity in our Community”
Whilst The Factory Project runs through the most commercially driven week of the London art calendar, Frieze week, it is championed as a non-profit museum scale multi-disciplinary exhibition that has been produced by the duo Thorp Stavri with the aim of amplifying underrepresented voices of emerging to mid-career artists and curators, offering them the opportunity to exhibit new work without the constraints of commercial bias. It is set to open from October 9th to the 22nd, showcasing 10 exhibitions by 10 curators and over 110 artists within the former Tate & Lyle 67,640 sq ft warehouse and yard complex at Thameside Industrial Estate by City Airport. ” We’ve been thinking of the project as a sort of music festival, where you can travel from stage to stage (exhibition to exhibition), catching your favorite acts while discovering loads of new ones,” The Factory Project producers say.
Continue reading “The Factory Project during London Frieze Week”
In this issue I have for you my second interview with artist Katie Holten. We first spoke back in 2019, when she created the NYC Tree Alphabet to draw greater attention to the threats that New York-area trees face. Now she’s created an alphabet for the trees of Ireland, her home country. In our interview below we discuss what inspired her latest alphabet, how she’s developed an accompanying tool for use in schools, and what to expect from Learning to be Better Lovers, her forthcoming exhibition about learning to love all creatures on the planet.
Continue reading “An(other) Interview with Artist Katie Holten”In Dialogue with Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen
Common Frequencies brings together a group of Mexican artists whose work explore the intersection of art and science through sound, urban ecology, language, and collective imageries through performance, installation, photography, sound, and drawing. The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of free bilingual educational programs that encourage the participation of families. The exhibition runs through October 16th. 2021.
Continue reading “Common Frequencies / Frecuencias Comunes at BioBat Art Space”
Tina Marais Struthers’ work develops from a rigorous, personal, and highly technical consideration of fiber as an evocative medium deftly addressing subjective experience, memories of place, and processes of change and growth. Struthers says she is fascinated by how fabric reflects and absorbs light, how it can entice us to touch, and feel comfort, or discomfort, by visual directing textures—”In this world during the pandemic, this need to touch, to feel textural comfort I think has really been amplified. I often challenge the notion of textile as being soft, in manipulating it to appear as metal sculptural forms.”
Continue reading “Tina Struthers: Life in Fiber”In Dialogue with Klaudia Ofwona Draber
The idea for KODA has already germinated in Klaudia Ofwona Draber’s mind during her graduate degree at Sotheby’s Institute of Art New York. While researching extensively for her business plan, it has occurred to her that mid-career artists are not getting enough support and something needs to be done about it. She founded KODA in 2019 guided by her initial observation regarding the needs of mid-career artists. KODA focuses on artists who explore social related topics through rigorous research, providing them with exposure and enhancing their opportunities for scholarship through residencies, survey exhibitions, and community-based activities. Klaudia Ofwona Draber, KODA Founder and Board President, shares with Art Spiel the vision behind the organization and sheds some light on some of the affiliated artists.
Continue reading “KODA – A Focus on Artists”In Dialogue with Eirini Linardaki
For Greek based artist and activist Eirini Linardaki, who had been born and raised in Athens than moved and resided in France, cognitive diversity is at the forefront of her art projects. She sees her strength in building networks with different voices which help create an environment where diverse Ideas matter more than individual achievement. Through diverse social engagement methods, she aims to show that art is activism. She strongly believes that art can create direct channels for feeling and understanding within public spaces and communities, building trust and hope.
Continue reading “Eirini Linardaki: Occupying Public Spaces”
Unveiled on June 9, 2018, the core object in the multidisciplinary public art project Ziemia (“Earth” in Polish), takes the form of a ceramic orb. The orb was created by the Greenpoint based artist Martynka Wawrzyniak in collaboration with The Polish Cultural Institute of New York, NYC Parks, and most importantly – Greenpoint residents.
Surrounded by the rolling meadow in McGolrick Park, the orb represents the collective portrait of the diverse Greenpoint community, with an emphasis on participation of the many Poles who have lived in the neighborhood for generations. Martynka Wawrzyniak shares with Art Spiel the ideas behind her intriguing public art project, as well as some thoughts regarding her overall art practice. Continue reading “Martynka Wawrzyniak – Ziemia: From Warsaw to Greenpoint”