conceptual art – Page 19

September 18, 2021November 2, 2022, by Art Spiel

Fred Gutzeit Retrospective at Catherine Fosnot Art Gallery

Previewing – with gallery founder and curator Catherine Fosnot

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Description automatically generated — Fred Gutzeit (2021) Future Life Puzzle, Acrylic on paper on canvas, 72” x 72”

The Opening Fall Season at the Fosnot Art Gallery will showcase Fred Gutzeit’s body of works from 1966-2021. Although he began as a painter of found objects and landscapes, Fred Gutzeit has never been satisfied with capturing the realism we “see“ in nature. He has continually sought a realism through abstraction that would capture the hidden complexity of nature juxtaposed with a human search for structure. Musings about complexity and chaos theories, string theory, mathematics modeling, and current scientific speculation about “multiverses” are employed as he explores consciousness, interaction, identity, and searches for structure. His bold use of color and dimensionality are wonderous and aesthetically pleasing allowing us to travel into the cosmos of his world.

September 8, 2021November 2, 2022, by Amy Brady

An(other) Interview with Artist Katie Holten

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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.

August 16, 2021August 16, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Todd Bartel: an Omni-coupler

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Description automatically generated with medium confidence — *Todd Bartel in front of Pollination of Devonia, (Synterial series), 2002, gallery talk, L(and) exhibition, Room 83, Watertown, MA, photo courtesy of Ellen Wineberg*

Todd Bartel came to serious collage because of an assignment he received on the first day of his first class as a freshman at RISD. He recalls the desks were strewn with magazines, and as soon as the course started, Professor Hardu Keck gave the students a prompt, “Create five collages that work with the following sentence: Surrealism is the chance happening of finding an umbrella and a sewing machine on a dissecting table.” Keck did not mention he was quoting Andre Breton, who was quoting Comte de Lautréamont (Isidore Lucien Ducasse). He expected his students to work with the strangeness of visual combination and found imagery. That was Todd Bartel’s introduction to Surrealism and chance coupling. He fell in love with collage immediately, coming up with forty-five collages by the first week. One of the key elements that draws him to collage is that it can involve a vast array of analog and digital technologies. “I consider myself an Omni-coupler,” he says.

July 20, 2021July 22, 2021, by Katherine Earle

Overflowing Skies: Stephanie Eche at High Line Nine

Art Spiel Photo Story

../Downloads/drive-download-20210718T211005Z-001/120%20dpi/Agua-Cielo_Stephanie%20Eche%20.jpg — Agua/Cielo, 2021 Cotton, wool, indigo, wire and steel. Photo by Brian Schutza courtesy of the artist.

“…I try to follow the threads where they lead in order to track them and find their tangles and patterns crucial for staying with the trouble in real and particular places in time.”

– Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene.

The undulating asymmetry of Stephanie Eche’s weavings in her solo exhibition Handmade Landscapes: Ocean Meets Sky that ran through July 26th, 2021 at High Line Nine, leaves space for you to interpret. The first work that your eyes encounter, Agua/Cielo, mirrors staring out at an ocean horizon that becomes the air above, a direct embodiment of the show’s title. The loosely woven piece speaks to the cyclical nature of water; its evaporation and transformation into rain that returns it to earth.

July 16, 2021November 2, 2022, by Alex Feim

Jorge Otero-Pailos: Distributed Monuments at Sapar Contemporary

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Description automatically generated — *Installation view of Jorge Otero-Pailos: Distributed Monuments. Courtesy of Sapar Contemporary*

One could say that the primary medium of Jorge Otero-Pailos’s work is liquid latex, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say that his medium is time – or rather, the passage of time made visible. In Distributed Monuments at Sapar Contemporary, Otero-Pailos presents a series of latex casts mounted on canvas from the old U.S. Mint in San Francisco, California and from the pool at Lyndhurst Mansion in Tarrytown, New York. Two monumental sites on opposite coasts come together – one representing the literal creation of wealth, and the other an accumulation of it by an elite family. These latex casts have extracted dust from the sites, which are both in states of preserved ruin, but can be visited by the public.

June 25, 2021November 2, 2022, by Art Spiel

A Golem Sleeps and Wakes in the Mourning at Old City Jewish Arts Center

Logan Gabrielle Schulman + Benjamin Behrend in Conversation

Gallery View of Exhibition *A Golem Sleeps and Wakes in the Mourning*, 2021

A Golem Sleeps and Wakes in the Mourning, featuring works by Philadelphia based artist Logan Gabrielle Schulman and writer Benjamin Behrend, is a collaborative interactive exhibit of images, objects, and video from the theatre of grief, on view at the Old City Jewish Arts Center in Philadelphia, PA through July 2nd. Benjamin Behrend, a writer and performer, says he has recently been straddling the worlds of comedy, performance art, and also various explorations of faith, especially these past few years. Logan Gabrielle Schulman (they/them) is a queer interdisciplinary artist, with a background in theatrical performance, directing, playwriting, and designing, while also developing over the last few years a foundation in the visual arts. They say their work “primarily investigates modern crises of faith and collapse,” which they started investigating initially by drawing on their theatrical design experience through installation work, and gradually later on, in smaller scale work as well. Schulman’s work also draws upon their experience as a Jewish educator teaching about the Jewish diaspora and Holocaust history.

June 21, 2021July 22, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Vick Quezada: Interconnected Matter

Artist photographed with their work, *Tabled Remains,* 2018. Currently on view at El Museo del Barrio. Photograph by Jill Richards

Vick Quezada (they/them) is an Indigenous-Latinx artist, they queer the archaeological through hybrid forms and aesthetics. Inspired by the guiding principles of Aztec Philosophy, Quezada integrates the theory of interconnected matter and how it’s embedded in the cosmos, planet earth, ecology, and all lifeforms. These elements of matter cannot be governed by sovereign powers as they are inherently queer and infinte. Quezada activates these themes and histories through their work, and this is conveyed by way of digital photography, video, performance and sculpture.

June 18, 2021July 22, 2021, by Elizabeth Meggs

Twenty Twenty Twenty One

Art Spiel Photo Story

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Description automatically generated — Partial view of gallery installation, photo courtesy Jon Bunge

Twenty Twenty Twenty One is a group exhibit and corresponding artist book created by 18 artists. During the darkest days of the past year, the fellowship this group of artists built became a beacon of hope. The artists initially congregated in early April of 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, via weekly Zoom meetings launched by artist Mike Sorgatz, that continued through the year and up to the present. Inspired by their camaraderie, in late summer of 2020 they began casually discussing making a book to share artwork loosely relating to themes of community and connection. This book expanded into a corresponding exhibit, with Janice McDonnell generously taking the initiative in early December of 2020 to curate the exhibition at Sweet Lorraine Gallery.

June 4, 2021June 2, 2021, by Iara Pimenta

An Installation to Immerse and Reconnect

Installation view. “To Ripple with Water” at The Border Project Space, 2021. Image courtesy of the artist

In unstable and changing times, haunted by a pandemic and conflicts unfolding worldwide, the installation by artist Bel Falleiros creates an introspective space that allows us to pause and reflect on how we relate to ourselves and the environment. Presented at The Border Project Space and curated by Jamie Martinez, “To Ripple with Water” is an invitation to be present, to disconnect from the frantic times we live in, and reconnect to our bodies and to the earth, in a quietly performative experience.

June 3, 2021June 3, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Alyssa Fanning: A Thousand Moons and Suns at Platform Project Space

In Dialogue with Alyssa Fanning

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Description automatically generated with low confidence — *Alyssa Fanning in her studio in northern NJ, 2020. Photo courtesy of Emma Fanning.*

A Thousand Moons and Suns at Platform Project Space in Dumbo, Brooklyn, features Alyssa Fanning’s elaborate and richly layered graphite and colored pencil drawings on paper, focusing on the duality of strength and fragility of the natural world. The work includes drawings from two related series, created through a process of combining projection, stencil and improvisation. The pieces range in size from 2.75 by 4.75 inches to 16 by 20 inches and within these intimate boundaries, Alyssa Fanning creates intricate worlds which invite you to plunge in. The exhibition opens June 5^th with an opening reception June 4th, and runs through July 3^rd, 2021.