Tag: contemporary art

Posted on , by Carson Woś

Showings in Four Dimensions

Showings in Four Dimensions (installation view L-R), Darius Yektai, Waiting For Death Or Slavery: After Delacroix, 2022, Elise Ansel, Celestial Lounge Chair, 2021, Darius Yektai, Untitled Falling Flowers, 2021 & Kyle Hittmeier Natural Le Coultre, 2022. Photo: AB NY Gallery

As soon as the formula codified that a contemporary artist could reach a new level of institutional engagement once they proclaimed their inspiration from generations of art historical masterpieces, the flood gates opened to practitioners solely deploying references to the canon to project their careers farther and faster. With encyclopedic museums refreshing their image by aligning themselves with the success of the contemporary art world’s darlings, by connecting their creative process to roots foregrounded in the rich mire of historical artworks, new publications and programming surfaced. Notably The Artist Project at The Metropolitan Museum of Art was launched in 2015, and most recently even the gilded age indulgence of The Frick Collection created their exhibition series Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters at their temporary home on Madison Avenue.

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Posted on , by Art Spiel

Yikui Gu and Eustace Mamba at Commonweal

Featured Project: with gallerist Alex Conner

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Image from the opening of the exhibition at the gallery

For its final exhibition of the gallery year, Commonweal in Philadelphia is featuring mixed media works by Yikui (Coy) Gu & Eustace Mamba, whose imagery and use of material create layers of multi faceted cultural cues, prompting a nuanced glimpse at the complexity of American identity. The exhibition runs through July 30th, 2022.

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Posted on , by Etty Yaniv

Eric Wolf: When There is a Solid Fog on the Lake

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Eric Wolf, Mooselookmeguntic Lake, 2016, ink on paper 22” x 30”. Courtesy of Pamela Salisbury Gallery

Eric Wolf’s landscape paintings are made with ink on paper and reference nature—water, sky, trees. In their sharp light and dark shapes they resemble woodcut, linoleum prints or even highly contrasted black and white photographs, but the more you look at them, the immediacy of the painted ink comes through—from the artist’s direct observation of nature, through his mind, to his hand—in a magical transformation ink flowing on paper fibers becomes river and white floating shapes become clouds.

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Posted on , by Etty Yaniv

Alicia Piller – Weathering Climates

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Alicia Piller in her Inglewood studio.

LA based artist Alicia Piller creates multi layered sculptures and installations in which material, media, form, and color metamorphose into alluring environments filled with cultural, political, and biographic references—latex balloons, sycamore seeds, silkscreen images fuse into a cosmos with visually complex and open ended layers of meaning.

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Posted on , by Art Spiel

GLASSTRESS 2022: State of Mind at Fondazione Berengo Art Space

Art Spiel Photo Story

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Jimmie Durham, Untitled (detail), 2020- Photo credit Francesco Allegretto, Courtesy of the artist’s estate (6)

Coinciding with the 59th Venice Biennale, the seventh edition of Glasstress, running from 3 of June to 27 of November 2022 in Venice, features a group of leading contemporary artists from Europe, the United States, Latin America and Africa in an ambitious exhibition who explore the infinite creative possibilities of glass. The artworks will be exhibited at the Fondazione Berengo Art Space in Murano, an old abandoned furnace that was transformed into a unique exhibition space a few years ago. This extensive group show, curated by Adriano Berengo and Koen Vanmechelen with the contribution of Ludovico Pratesi, channels diverse contemporary art through the ancient art of Murano glassblowing, aiming to search for new contemporary visual vocabulary in glass art.

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Posted on , by Art Spiel

Helen Twigge-Molecey: Fungi at Palazzo Mora

Featured Artist


Helen Twigge-Molecey with glass fungi sculptures photographed by Sylvain Deleu

UK based artist Helen Twigge-Molecey’s installation at Palazzo Mora in Venice depicts a group of colorful fungi. Each hand-blown recycled glass piece features individual shapes and interconnects with its neighbours through translucency and color. This installation is part of the Venice 2022 Art Biennial organized by the non-profit organization European Cultural Center, running from April 23, 2022 through November 27th, 2022.

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Posted on , by Saul Ostrow

Shirley Jaffe: An American Woman in Paris at the Pompidou Center

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Shirley Jaffe, installation view, Pompidou Center, photo courtesy of Helene Mauri

It might be said for the most part, given the dominant ideology of Modernism, Shirley Jaffe has been overlooked for the standard reasons—her work was out of step with the times, it was derivative of Henri Matisse and Stuart Davis, it was too French, or too American—all according to who you speak with. Yet the gorilla in the room is she was an American woman of the post-war generation who had stayed on after almost everyone had gone home, who sought to get a foothold in the male dominated Parisian art world. Despite this, she persisted and gained respect and support among multi-generations of artists. As such she developed a reputation as an artists’ artist, yet despite her boosters and the fact that she is now being acknowledged with a retrospective exhibition at the Pompidou, Jaffe remains one of the best kept secrets of post-War abstract painting in France and remains unacknowledged in the States.

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Posted on , by Sara Farrell Okamura

Pauline Decarmo: Exit – the Path to New Beginnings at LABspace


Installation view of Pauline Decarmo: Exit at LABspace, 2022, photo courtesy LABspace

Some artists paint stunning abstractions, some artists deftly execute exquisite realistic images, while others ingeniously develop astute conceptual work, but the truly magical art is work that can intelligently create the aura of time, space, and experience. Fortunately Pauline Decarmo, by using any means necessary, does exactly that in her exhibition, Exit, on view at LABspace in Hillsdale NY through May 29.

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Posted on , by Carol Diamond

MOD at Platform Project Space

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Installation view of MOD

To kick off the Dumbo Open Studios Weekend in late April, Platform Project Space opened MOD, a five person show commanding strong appeal, curated by Sharon Butler. As the title and press release indicate, modularity, modernism and mods, or modifications in contemporary gaming, are all potentially at play both in the individual works and together as an installation. Each artist’s contribution holds a single wall or area in a small room that’s comfortable, easy, and open. The formal language of color and shape is nuanced to suggest personal and organic qualities and intimate spaces. No mystery here. Instead, curiosity openly hovers in close examinations of the human touch, in the detail and care given to small moments.

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