Contemporary Art and Culture
Kit Warren‘s works on paper present complex and elaborate visual cryptography – patterns of lines, dots, and bold colorful shapes. They evoke layered associations ranging from microcosmic to cosmic. Kit Warren shares with Art Spiel some of her ideas and work process.
In dialogue with Jason Urban & Leslie Mutchler on their collaborative project at Nars Foundation
Artists Jason Urban and Leslie Muchler who have been collaborating on art projects since 2012, share with Art Spiel their ideas, process, and ways of collaborating on their current exhibition, Geochromatic Studies, at NARS.
Continue reading “Intermediate Geochromatic Studies at Nars”In Dialogue with Nina Mdivani on her curatorial project at Kunstraum LLC (Brooklyn) and The Assembly Room (LES)
Nina Mdivani is an independent curator, art writer, and current Curator-in-Residence at Kunstraum located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard neighborhood. Her rigorous curatorial process and research have recently culminated in a two-part exhibition, New York Meets Tbilisi: Defining Otherness. This dynamic group show pairs the works of Georgian and American artists to create multilayered dialogues across cultural identities. Nina Mdivani shares with Art Spiel some of her background, and elaborates on the premise for the upcoming group show she has curated.
Continue reading “Nina Mdivani – NY Meets Tbilisi: Defining Otherness Part I & II”
Milcah Bassel is an avid art learner whose curiosity leads to cross disciplines and techniques such as sculpture, performance, and bookmaking. She probes deep into her subjects and investigates her forms with rigor, but also with a playful approach. That playfulness is revealed throughout her diverse body of work, giving us a distinct flavor of her thought process and sensibility.
Continue reading “Milcah Bassel – Poetic Documents”Anna Mikaela Ekstrand in dialogue with Mumbai-based artist Akshita Gandhi
Miami Art Week is bigger than any other global fair as it attracts a wide range of audiences. Centered around Art Basel Miami, Miami Art Week is the catch-all term for the seven day art world bonanza in December packed densely with art fairs, public art, interventions, activations, pop-ups, parties – basically all forms of art shows – often sponsored by companies who capitalize on the opportunity to reach art world professionals, art lovers, celebrities, and trend-setters. You might already know this, great. What you might not have considered is what it feels like to be an artist within this bustling eco/nomy/logy.
Continue reading ““Now You’re Looking” – Akshita Gandhi at Pulse”Art Spiel in Dialogue with Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen
Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen has curated The process of calculating one’s position at NARS Foundation. This group show features NARS 2019 season IV residency artists: Esther Hovers, Niklas Asker, Jiin You, Tavi Meraud, Fiona McGurk, Dominique Doroseau, Martin Vongrej, Joonhong Min, Ella Weber, Martin Désilets, Sophie Dupont and Tali Keren. It runs through December 13th. The curator shares with Art Spiel the ideas behind the show, the artists, and a bit about the NARS Foundation venue.
Continue reading “Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen on The process of calculating one’s position at NARS Foundation”
Tim van den Oudenhoven is a Belgian-born artist who currently lives and works in Berlin. His photo-based depictions of desolate landscapes with a strong suggestion of surveillance inspire conversations on the dynamic between the visible and the invisible, the witness and the witnessed: in brief, the nature of being seen.
Continue reading “Tim van den Oudenhoven – A Land For Man’s Absence”
Throughout her multi-faceted installations, the German-born Canadian based artist Iris Häussler has been slipping in and out of multiple characters. Her invented underdog protagonists live through diverse historical periods and traverse vast geographies. Häussler’s rigorous installations transform any categorization. They are placed between life and art, coalescing multi-disciplinary collaborations including performance, literature, and richly layered visual vocabularies such as drawing, installation and sculpture. The visitor is invited to experience an individual’s life within a specific context of place and history, to decipher the clues from the artifacts and materials throughout installations that reflect on fiction, history and the meaning of a creative identity.
Continue reading “Iris Häussler – Invented Biographies”
Peter Gynd is an artist, curator and gallerist whose recent curatorial project is currently on view at Radiator, a solo show featuring new works by the Canadian born and NYC based Jody MacDonald. MacDonald’s sculptural dioramas explore a set of characters on the fringe by merging fact, fiction, and art history. In this Art Spiel interview Peter Gynd elaborates on the genesis of the exhibition.
Continue reading “Peter Gynd – Jody MacDonald: Freaks, Geeks, and Strange Girls at Radiator”
Message in a Bottle, installation view at Ground Floor Gallery, 2019, photo courtesy of Jordan Rathkopf
In Message in a Bottle, the current solo installation show at Ground Floor Gallery in Park Slope, the Gowanus based artist Karen Mainenti transforms the gallery into what at first glance looks like an upscale beauty boutique. Mainenti uses this platform to explore the mechanisms at work in the packaging and marketing of beauty products over time, drawing on her own complex relationship to the products themselves. Much of Mainenti’s work examines the subtle but powerful societal expectations of women that show up in ordinary objects. The delicately cast porcelain replicas of her own cosmetics highlight the way objects can be gendered, even when reduced to their elemental forms. Often using humor as a sly way to invite the viewer in, her drawings of creams, lotions and serums using marketing language from real products highlight the inherent contradiction in the ways we read these messages as absurd, yet suspend that disbelief at the cash register when we buy them. Having visited the show when it opened, I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat with Karen about how this exhibition came together and how the various series within it have developed over time.
Continue reading “Karen Mainenti: Message in a Bottle at Ground Floor”