contemporary art – Page 65

September 1, 2020August 8, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Fay Ku in Domestic Brutes at Pelham Art Center

In Dialogue with Fay Ku

May 2020. The artist lives and shares a studio with her partner, who is a musician. She is usually on the other side of her worktable, or else he wouldn’t have been able to sneak this photo of her.

For Taiwanese born artist, Fay Ku, the single, most formative event in life was immigrating to the United States. Ku says that if she had stayed in Taiwan, she would never have become an artist so she would have been a completely different person. It still surprises her how much this one event which she was too young to remember (though of course remembering all its aftershocks), shapes her work, often without her being consciously aware of the themes and issues at the time of making the work. Fay Ku shares some insights on her body of work in Domestic Brutes, the all women group show at the Pelham Art Center which engages the visitor with diverse approaches of what feminism means in American society today.

August 31, 2020August 31, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Jacqueline Shatz – Overcoming Gravity

Jacqueline Shatz‘s ceramic based wall sculptures depict biomorphic forms, mostly referring to animals and humans as a single entity. An abstracted silhouette of an agile swimmer, a whimsical hybrid of horse and baby snake, a queen’s bent head fully covered by flowing hair spilling downward – each evokes a mystery associated with ancient civilizations, archetypes, and mythologies or what the artist describes as “states of being and permeable nature of time.” Jacqueline Shatz shares with Art Spiel some thoughts on her work and work process.

August 24, 2020August 24, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Will Hutnick – Artist as Facilitator

At the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency by Collar Works, Granville, NY, July 2019, Photo by Monica Hamilton

Will Hutnick is an artist, curator, co-director of Ortega Y Gasset Projects in Brooklyn from 2015 to 2020 and Director of Artistic Programming at the Wassaic Project upstate NY. In his paintings Will Hutnick is using rollers, and includes other mono-printing-like methods to create repetitive passages which form playful and unexpected relationships between shapes and colors. He shares with Art Spiel some of his work process, reflections on the ways his paintings have developed, and some of his other art related practices.

August 21, 2020November 15, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

ALEMBIC: Body and Spirit. Live Art as Healing Art

In Dialogue with Jana Astanov

Jana Astanov is an interdisciplinary artist, a poet and an independent curator born in Poland, and living in the US. She is a founder of CREATRIX Magazine, portal for creative expression focused on art, activism and spiritual practice. Her work includes photography, poetry, performance art, sound art, and installation. In her work, she utilizes spiritual traditions, somatic movement, sound art, ritualistic theatre and Astrofeminism, a term she has developed through her character Yannanda The One Who Speaks With The Stars. Together with her partner Niko van Egten she co-created an electronic music group ASTRALOOP featuring her poetry in dark electronic arrangements. She has performed at Tate Modern, Smack Mellon Gallery, Grace Exhibition Space, Venice Biennale, Documenta 2017, and many other galleries, festivals and independent venues worldwide. She is also the author of five collections of poetry: Antidivine, Grimoire, Sublunar, The Pillow Book of Burg, and Birds of Equinox. In this interview for Art Spiel Jana Astanov discusses her ideas on performance art and specifically on her most recent upcoming curatorial project ALEMBIC: Body and Spirit. Live Art as Healing Art.

August 3, 2020August 8, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Meg Atkinson – Painting as a Leap of Faith

***One Tree, Two Mouthy Ghosts, 2019, Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches, photo courtesy Max Yawney***

Meg Atkinson‘s paintings resemble puzzles open to multiple solutions. Her imagery is embedded with associative literary and visual layers, as clues to an open-ended riddle. Meg Atkinson shares with Art Spiel what brought her to art, as well as the way she has developed her approach to mark-making, space, gird, and color.

July 27, 2020August 8, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Gabriel J. Shuldiner – Hybridsculptural Bruteminimalism

sLAY1_2019, postapocalypticblack®* [ modified acrylic polymer emulsion | carbon black pigment | calcium carbonate | water | modified industrial urethane enamel | modified polyurethane thermoset cellular plastic | vinyl acrylic co-polymer emulsion | acrylic stain-block sealant | mastic adhesive | polyurethane adhesive | solvent-based ink | nuisance dust | studio detritus | spit | air | light ]*proprietary | chrome enamel spray aerosol | cotton duck canvas | repurposed polystyrene | blackened stainless steel flat head hinge screws | reinforced galvanized steel wire, overall dimensions: 20.75 x 19 x 5.25 in.

Gabriel J. Shuldiner dislikes categorization of his work to the point that he invents new “isms” to describe its allusive hybridity – its DNA can be traced to abstraction with elements of minimalism, expressionism, and Arte Povera. While Shuldiner’s use of material is extensive , his use of color is restricted to mostly black, with tinges of other colors at times. Gabriel J. Shuldiner shares with Art Spiel some of his thought and work processes.

July 23, 2020November 15, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Instagram’s Shadow

In Dialogue with Curator Jac Lahav

Now that many cultural institutions are still closed and we get much of our visual information from social media, artist and curator Jac Lahav has launched the provocative group show Instagram’s Shaodw exploring through the stories of 17 artists how their artwork is being censored on social media and how they are fighting back. The show started in June 1st and will be online through August 31st, then it will go live on the website as an archived history. It includes work by Betty Tompkins, Christen Clifford, Chiara No, Clarity Haynes, Joanne Leah, Raw Meat Collective (Kyle Quinn), Karlheinz Weinberger, Kumasi Barnett, Lissa Rivera, Leah Schrager, Michael X Rose, Micol Hebron, Peter Clough, Shona McAndrew, Steve Lock (Bill Arning), Sara Jimenez, and Tiffany Saint Bunny. Jac Lahav discusses here why he sees this group show as particularly timely and shares the background for some of the work.

July 16, 2020November 15, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Center for Creative Works – Human Development

In Dialogue with Lori Bartol and Samantha Mitchell

Untitled (Herbies), by Doug Tan. Image credit: CCW/Virginia Fleming

Center for Creative Works (CCW) is a PA based unique professional art studio where artists with intellectual disabilities can access not only equipment and supplies but also dedicated mentorship, including help in promoting their work. Furthermore, it offers a
permeable space which prompts collaboration and idea sharing between CCW artists, artists outside of the studio, and community members at large. Lori Bartol, director, and Samantah Mitchell, exhibition coordinator, share with Art Spiel their vision for the organization and an insight into some of CCW artists’ work. Lori Bartol has recently revisited our discussion on how her team and artists have coped with the pandemic.

July 12, 2020August 8, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Kyle Staver – New Work at Zürcher

In Dialogue with Kyle Staver

Kyle Stave, *Venus and the Octopus*, 2020, Oil on canvas, 70 x 58 in / 177,8 cm x 147,3 cm, Image courtesy of the Artist and Zürcher Gallery, NY/Paris

Kyle Staver’s second solo show at Zürcher Gallery in New York features new paintings, relief sculptures, drawings, and aquatint etchings through July 24th. In this interview Kyle Staver shares some ideas on her work process, touches upon the narrative and mythological elements in her work, and gives us an insight on her notion of art history.

July 6, 2020October 13, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Bianca Severijns - Paper Transformations

A person taking a selfie in the snow

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Bianca Severijns is a Dutch born artist who lives in Israel. Her sculptural installation range from wearable sculpture to wall relief made of paper. Through an elaborate process she utilizes this medium with remarkable skills to create simultaneously playful and thought provoking sculptures which evoke reflections on displacement, the meaning of a safe home, and coping mechanisms. For instance, her Blanket sculpture which is currently showing at the recently opened TLV Biennial 2020 particularly resonates with the angst during the pandemic. Since we have finalized the interview process before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, we have recently re-visited our last question in order to bring her responses up to date.