Anna Shukeylo at James Howe Gallery at Kean

Featured artist
A person holding a child in front of a painting

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The solo exhibition Reflections in James Howe Gallery at  Kean University features Anna Shukeylo’s latest body of work from 2022- 2023. Shukeylo has always combined in her artwork private, autobiographical moments inter-spliced with imagined elements. Since becoming a mother, she has documented and deeply explored in her paintings and drawings the chaotic routine of early parenthood, including her attempts to balance her art career and the day-to-day rigors of two toddlers.

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“KIDNAPPED”

In Dialogue
A street sign on a pole in a city

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New York City

Shortly after the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas, flyers suddenly sprouted on New York streets. These flyers were attached to streetlamp posts, tree trunks, and subway stairwells, showcasing photos of infants, children, teens, and grandparents. beneath bold red banners that read “KIDNAPPED.” These photos capture moments from everyday life of people prior to the Hamas attack on October 7th—babies being fed, grandmas smiling, and teens taking selfies. This public art campaign was the brainchild of Israeli street artists Dede Bandaid and Nitzan Mintz. The couple, partners in life and art, have a history of engaging with public spaces globally in places like Tel Aviv, Berlin, Warsaw, and New York. They have recently arrived in New York to pursue their art. However, the events of October 7th shifted their focus. While trying to grasp the enormity and brutality of the terror attack on Israel, they felt compelled to respond by using the street art techniques they were proficient in. Art Spiel had the opportunity to speak with graffiti artist Dede Bandaid over the phone about the inception of this guerrilla street art campaign, which went viral and all over the globe.

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial – In Dialogue

Dreams and Rituals: Mia Enell, Chiarina Chen, and Jamie Martinez

When does rational agency relinquish its control over the human psyche? In poetic dreams? During nightmares? Or during meditative rituals? In their work, Mia Enell, Chiarina Chen, and Jamie Martinez explore how meaning is derived from out-of-the-ordinary experiences.

Enell, whose work will be exhibited in Excavated Selves: Becoming Magic Bodies, approaches image-making “with humor and a surrealist bent.” Bodies transformed into vibrant geometries as “a proxy for survival” seem simultaneously physical and non-physical in her work. Chen, an independent curator whose workshop Heal Me Through Your Nightmare will take place on October 22nd, grounds her practice on exploring posthumanism and proposes a collective reconsideration of relationships—with oneself, others, and society. Participating in the group show Enmeshed: Dreams of Water, Colombian-U.S. artist Martinez taps into his creative process through intuitive inquiries that are spiritual and ritualistic. He speaks about the encounter with transcendental artistic guidance by opening up to what’s beyond one’s faculties.

As part of The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Contact Zone, the three creatives come together with Xuezhu Jenny Wang, TIAB’s writer-in-residence, to discuss the intangible and the inexplicable: dreams, rituals, bodies, and metaphysical relations.

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Armita Raafat: Traces and Silences at High Noon

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Untitled, 2023, resin, Styrofoam, paper mache, subway tiles, mirror, fabric, mesh, acrylic, and Sumi ink 58” x 41” x 7”, photo courtesy Max Yawney

In Traces and Silences, exhibited at High Noon Gallery in New York, Armita Raafat showcases multimedia sculptures and handmade paper works. By blending elements like the historic Muqarnas from Islamic architecture with subway tiles from her current base in New York, Raafat offers a juxtaposition that liberates and challenges traditional associations of these materials. Here, the artist elaborates on the insights behind this body of work.

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A Stage Within a Stage- Ye Qin Zhu at Dimin

A person walking past a large art piece

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A Stage Within a Stage-mixed media on eight fitted panels. 5 x 27 feet. 2022-2023

There’s a riot going on. That’s what I thought as I stood in front of Ye Qin Zhu’s large-scale installation piece at Dimin in Tribeca. The gallery space painted a matte black that seems to absorb all the light in the room, is dominated by one wall-mounted assemblage that is 27 feet long and five feet tall. There is a bench placed in front so that the viewer can take a few minutes to absorb the full volume of information and energy radiating from this piece.

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Whisperings from the Wormhole with @talluts

Unblocking Creative Block
A drawing of a person lying in pyramids

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Louise Bourgeois Fear 1999 Drypoint from 11 Drypoints

Recently, I was making coffee, and I know it’s bad, but I love sweetening it with granulated sugar. I was trying to pour some out from a box, but only a few grains were coming out because the whole thing was full of clumps. And those clumpy lumps became for me an analogy for artist’s block, a condition I was suffering from at the time. As artists, we are like the sugar box with our sweet, sweet creativity trapped inside of us. Those heavenly granules are abundant and want to pour out to make coffee more delicious, but they can’t because their own selves are blocking it. And, as I was squeezing the box, trying to crush the bigger blobs, or choosing violence and stabbing a spoon handle in there, I started to wonder what other artists do in this predicament. So, I went up periscope, past the crystallized chunks, and spied about to find ideas for overcoming it.

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Mimi Graminski: Between Shadow and Light at Window on Hudson

Featured Project
Window on Hudson Between Shadow and Light Photo: Jeremy Bullis

Mimi Graminski started her work for Between Shadow and Light with small textile sculptures, using remnants from other projects. She pinned these pieces to the wall and experimented with light to produce pronounced shadows. Graminski was invited to create a new installation for her second exhibition at Window On Hudson. She magnified these small textile sculptures, suspending them using monofilament (fishing line), a method she had previously applied with other materials.

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Manet and Degas as Realists

Opinion
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Technically, Edouard Manet (1832–1883) and Edgar Degas (1834–1917 are not Impressionists; instead, they are Realists whose works owe a debt to Gericault, Goya, and Daumier and the invention of photography. Unlike Monet, who sought solace and inspiration in nature, which can be seen as a reaction to the urbanization associated with the rise of the bourgeoisie, Manet and Degas instead embraced the industrialization and urbanization driven by bourgeois economic interests. They were unconcerned with the dehumanizing effects of rapid technological advancement. Realism is aimed at depicting scenes and subjects based on the everyday lives of ordinary people.

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PE Pinkman: Two Solo Shows at Watchung Arts Center

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A collage of a couple of images of a person

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(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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Norte Maar’s CounterPointe10 – Alejandra Seeber and Sarah Yasmine Marazzi-Sassoon

Dance
Photo courtesy of Julie Lemberger

The impetus for this series of conversations between a visual artist and a choreographer comes directly from my recent collaborative work with a choreographer as part of Norte Maar’s CounterPointe10. In this unique project a choreographer is paired with a visual artist to create together over two months a dance performance that integrates the two disciplines into a cohesive vision. Here is the conversation between artist Alejandra Seeber and choreographer Sarah Yasmine Marazzi-Sassoon.

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