contemporary art – Page 45

December 21, 2022December 22, 2022, by Stan Klein

An Interview with Chicago Artist Vito Desalvo

Album cover- Duets For Confused Couples. 12 x 12. Colored pencil. 2022

By opening night the installation of Vito Desalvo’s rare public showing of his drawings was completed and the exhibition opened without a hitch. It will be showing, through December 31 at Greenkill Gallery in Kingston, NY. With the help of Mariah Karson, we were able to present his work in a manner that he found acceptable. My main task other than that was convincing him to attend the opening. After a great deal of bargaining, Vito not only showed up but was also surprisingly charitable in his conversations with guests. No one hurt, no foul. In the weeks following the opening, I was asked to interview Vito about his state of mind and thoughts about his work. Last Monday night after considerable liquid consumption, he responded to my inquiries. Our housemate Leo took the dogs—Tina, Louise, and Jack— out for an extended walk so we wouldn’t be distracted. Here are some excerpts of our chat, flaws and all.

December 20, 2022December 20, 2022, by Art Spiel

Saba Farhoudnia: Reflection at Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning

In conversation with Adèle Eisenstein and Saba Farhoudnia

A picture containing text, scene, gallery, room

Description automatically generated — *No Signal,* 2022, acrylic on acrylic mirror sheet, 7 panels, 48×16” ea., 48×112”. Photo: Farzan Ghasemi

Reflection, the solo show of Saba Farhoudnia in Jamaica Center for Art & Learning, highlights the cruel and tragic practice of so-called “honor” killing, by way of individual stories which give the victims their voice back, and shed a light on this reality for far too many women, girls and LGBTQ+ (taking at least 5000 lives annually per the United Nations Population Fund). The ensemble of individual panels and stories welcomes the visitor into a colorful and intriguing landscapes. Adèle Eisenstein, the curator of the show, says that the layers of paint reveal a reflective surface, which delivers a direct message to the observer—this might have been you. While dishonor killing is the most extreme end of the spectrum, the subject addressed also touches upon and exposes stratified layers of gender-based violence.

December 19, 2022December 9, 2022, by Art Spiel

whispered conversations at Stand 4

Curator Jennifer McGregor in conversation with the artists

Kate Collyer, Bundle: Alaska, 2022, mixed media and video, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist.

Artists Kate Colyer, Lorrie Fredette, and Megan Porpeglia talk with curator Jennifer McGregor about their framework to create whispered conversations, on view at Stand4 Gallery and Community Space in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The collective was active during COVID via Zoom reading about the natural world. They created bundles in response to their individual trips in 2021. These were shared through the mail to instigate a series of new artworks. Jennifer McGregor was brought in as curator to help shape the exhibition.

December 17, 2022December 9, 2022, by Art Spiel

Field Notes at Metaphor Projects

Art Spiel Photo Story

Map

Description automatically generated — Scherezade Garcia, Paradise According to the Tropics/Sunburnt Jesus, Acrylic, Charcoal on Linen, 72 x 48 inches

Metaphor Projects is an artists-run space for contemporary art and culture founded in 2001 by two working artists. Directors/ Curators: Julian Jackson and Rene Lynch have mounted more than 100 solo and group exhibitions presenting the work of hundreds of artists and spent two decades developing what they call “the social sculpture that is Metaphor.”

December 12, 2022December 18, 2022, by Etty Yaniv

Myth Catchers: Manju Shandler, Rithika Merchant and Jacqueline Shatz

Manju Shandler, Wonder Whale 1, 2018, mixed media, 23×19 inch

Luckily, or to many art-mavens’ chagrin, our 21^st century art world—in line with the global techno-culture and socio-political processes—seems to have abandoned crusades of “right” or “wrong” related to artistic form (though sometimes that does not apply to content). We are experiencing a dizzying array of aesthetic expressions, where often fast-pace visual trends replace ideologies of form. Unlike some passing trends, visual narratives based on mythological iconography have been central in all art forms since archaic ages, except for the early-mid half of the 20^th century when narrative impetus was largely downplayed in most of what was called the “Avant Garde” art of the time.

December 7, 2022May 12, 2024, by Saul Ostrow

Another Fumble at the Whitney: no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria

Opinion

A group of people in a room with posters on the wall

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — Installation view. Photo courtesy of the writer.

The exhibition no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria, though it includes 50 works by 20 artists, seems overwhelmed given it has been installed in an enormous space. With the exception of two lounge-like areas in which billboard-sized video projections are installed, most of the works, modest in scale, seem to be scattered through the space, or enigmatically clustered together. Ironically, where the Wake of Maria is sparsely installed and attended, the Edward Hopper NY exhibition, given its scale and popularity, would definitely benefit from more space than the half floor it has been jammed into. Another oddity is the disparity in the number and scale of works each artist is represented by. I can only suspect the budget of this show was insufficient to achieve its stated ambition of “presenting artworks made over the last five years by an inter-generational group of artists from Puerto Rico and its diaspora.”

December 5, 2022November 2, 2022, by Art Spiel

Peter Cvik at Zoya Museum Modra in Slovakia

Featured Artist

A person standing in front of a painting

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — Portrait in Zoya Private Museum Solo Show “semagdniM”. Photocredit: Juraj Fifik

For the last few years the Slovak painter Peter Cvik has been layering different experiences and stories out of sheer visual memory. Without using photos or any other found imagery, Cvik builds new positions of “synthetic” reality that reminds us of something real or experienced within a flux of time where memories float. His landscapes evoke a sense of collision between opposing worlds without evoking the sense of a specific place. Peter Cvik equates his paintings to a sentence that ends with three dots which viewers can complete on their own.

November 29, 2022November 26, 2022, by Taylor F. Engle

What it Means to Be Human: HEES Displays Paintings and NFTs at Bechtler Museum and Aktion Art

HEES. “SEE ME FLY.” 2021-22. Acrylic, mixed media, and paintstick on raw canvas with 55 in LED screen insert- 4 NFTs play simultaneously, 84×96 in. Courtesy of Aktion Art.

A former-beauty-photographer-turned-artist, HEES’s creative journey has been one of consistent, self-taught innovation. The creator pivoted to painting 36 months ago, when he realized it was time for him to take on a new form of expression.

November 27, 2022November 26, 2022, by Sara Farrell Okamura

Magic Mirror: Susan Carr at LABspace

Installation view of Susan Carr’s *Girls* paintings on top, and self-portraits below, in *Magic Mirror*

Tired of phrases such as best kept secret, finally receiving her due, and delayed recognition it is time to recognize artists, particularly women artists who are in their prime, evolving both in facility and content. Susan Carr is a quintessential example, an accomplished artist who, over decades, has fearlessly mined the history of her own existence. Her latest exhibit, Magic Mirror at LABspace in Hillsdale New York is a tribute to her dedication, talent and courage.

November 26, 2022November 26, 2022, by Meg Hitchcock

The Interaction of Light and Shadow: Susan English at Kathryn Markel

Graphical user interface

Description automatically generated with low confidence — *Susan English, Still Light, 2022, tinted polymer on Dibond panel, 34 x 35 in. Courtesy of Kathryn Markel Fine Arts*

To confront a person with their own shadow is to show them their own light.

– Carl Jung

In her current exhibition at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, Light to Light, Susan English explores the vagaries of light as it penetrates layers of polymer and pigment. Subtle gradations in color are infused with radiant light, recalling the sfumato in Van Eyck’s translucent skies or Cimabue’s blushing Virgins. The seamless transitions are achieved through the artist’s unorthodox technique of pouring thin layers of tinted polymer onto panels, then tilting the panels while the pigments settle and dry. The multiple layers interact with light to create varying effects – sometimes luminous, sometimes opaque – which are punctuated by cracks and blemishes in the medium as it dries. These accidents are essential to the piece, as they provide a counterbalance to the exquisite surfaces and tight control of their execution. Indeed, English manipulates the panel in such a way that crackling is anticipated, and she views the result as a simulation of the fissures and fractures found in nature.