Prejudice and Belonging – the Ethiopian Pavilion in La Biennale di Venezia

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Tesfaye Urgessa, Pavilion of ETHIOPIA, Prejudice and belonging, 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Photo by: Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia

The first national Ethiopian pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, housed in the elegant sixteenth-century Palazzo Bollani, may be challenging to find, but the effort is amply rewarded. In his solo exhibition Prejudice and Belonging, Ethiopian artist Tesfaye Urgessa presents figures that inhabit a broad and complex emotional spectrum where fragility and strength coexist. Ethiopian iconography and European modernist figurative painting converge, creating a striking visual dialect articulated throughout the ten large paintings and small portraits that fill the three interconnected rooms.

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Dorothy Robinson: Paint Through Space and Time

End of Story, 2022, oil on panel, 48×60 inches, photo courtesy of Bill Massey

Dorothy Robinson’s family moved often during her childhood, starting in rural Iowa, where they farmed for generations and eventually settled in California. After high school, she bounced between colleges before landing at UC Berkeley. Studying art never crossed her mind, but she was drawn to geography, “probably because of its strong visual component—map making, field trips, slide shows,” Robinson says. During an internship, she learned darkroom skills and later worked in commercial photo labs, shaping her sense of color while making color prints. An invitation from an artist friend to join a drawing group was transformative, and started Robinson on the path to a life of making art.

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Divisions: To Be Human Is To Act Humanely

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Image at Griffiss International Sculpture Park , Rome, NY

Linda Cunningham – Divisions

… hunger and fear can vanquish all human resistance, and all

freedom … Freedom consists in knowing freedom is in danger.

But to know … is to have time to avoid & prevent the moment of

inhumanity … the infinitesimal difference between the human

being and the non-human being …

————–Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity

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Splendor and Misery at Leopold: New Objectivity in Germany

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A room with art on the walls

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EXHIBITION VIEWS “SPLENDOR AND MISERY” © Leopold Museum, Vienna, Photo: Lisa Rastl

”BRUTALITY!

CLARITY THAT HURTS […]

BRUSH AS FAST AS YOU CAN –

TRY TO CAPTURE RACING TIME“

—–George Grosz

Nearly a century after the Weimar Republic’s brief, chaotic existence, curator Hans-Peter Wipplinger presents Splendor and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany at Vienna’s Leopold Museum. This comprehensive exhibition, the first of its kind in Austria, brings together around 150 works—100 paintings, 40 works on paper, photographs, and archival materials—from international museums and private collections. Born from the ashes of World War I, Neue Sachlichkeit offered a stark, unsentimental portrayal of reality, capturing both the hardships and the hopes of the “Golden Twenties.” The show features a lineup of key figures of modernism, such as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Christian Schad, alongside lesser-known artists such as Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Karl Hubbuch, Grethe Jürgens, Lotte Laserstein, Felix Nussbaum, Gerta Overbeck, Rudolf Schlichter, and others, who each captured the era’s spirit with an unflinching eye.

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Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin Ich / I am Me at the Neue Gallerie

A room with art on the wall

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Installation views of “Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin Ich / I Am Me” at Neue Galerie New York. Photography by Annie Schlechter, courtesy Neue Galerie New York

German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker, born in 1876, is relatively unknown in the United States. This is quite surprising, considering she painted the first nude self-portraits known to have been made by a woman. Many of these audacious portraits capture her own pregnancy—another first among Western women artists, paving the way for later figures like Alice Neel. Modersohn-Becker’s portraits of women spanning all ages—bold in their composition, subtle in their detail, and utterly present—strike a powerful note throughout the first major retrospective of her art in the United States, curated by Jill Lloyd at the Neue Galerie New York, and fittingly titled Ich bin Ich / I Am Me.

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Michal Gavish: Neuro Land at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

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Synapsing 2023, mixed media on translucent architectural paper 76-82” H X 200” W (5 panels)

In planning her new exhibition at the AAAS gallery, artist Michal Gavish envisioned painted images of neurons enveloping the spiral-shaped gallery space, extending upward, downward, along, and away from the walls. Following an extensive phase of research and creation, spurred by personal family tragedies, Gavish created Neuro Land, a field guide to neurons. She devoted a piece to representing each type, painting a set of larger-than-life nerve cells images on fabric and paper. Gavish later assembled these pieces layer by layer, echoing the scientific method used in constructing representations of the unseen—similar to how MRI technology captures internal snapshots in segments and reconstructs them in three dimensions. While engaging with this invisible realm, Gavish reflected on her former practice as a scientist, interrogating the expansive vistas revealed through IR, X-ray spectra, or under the electron microscope.

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Peggy Cyphers: Passages at The Front Room 

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A painting of a mountain range

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Peggy Cyphers “Floating Passage” (2012-6) acrylic, sand, leafing on canvas 54”x50”

Peggy Cyphers’ exhibition at The Front Room Gallery in Hudson, titled Passages, integrates disparate painting traditions into abstract landscapes. The technique—fluid brush strokes combined with sand and paint pour—draws from Chinese landscape art, Native American traditions, and Postwar Abstraction. These paintings suggest the natural world’s fragility, mystery, and grandeur, recalling the upward gaze from the base of a canyon.

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Elizabeth Gilfilen: Denouement at Yi Gallery

In Dialogue
Unearth, 2023, oil on canvas, 64 x 72 inches


Elizabeth Gilfilen’s debut solo show at YI Gallery presents oil paintings that exhibit a meticulous yet bold exploration of color and texture. Her strokes span from boldly assertive to gently nuanced, each adding to her work’s visual depth and dynamic feel. Eschewing neat conclusions, her paintings are presented as evolving works, with each layer suggesting new narratives in an unfolding journey. The synergy of color and form in her paintings creates a dynamic tableau, inviting viewers to interact with the canvas, drawing them into the active narrative of the art’s continuous unfolding.

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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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Norte Maar’s CounterPointe10 – Sarah Pettitt and Shannon Harkins

Dance
From left to right: Shannon Harkins, Jaya Collins, and Rosalia Saver in Measures Other Than Duration, set design by Sarah Pettitt, photo by 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 Sarah Pettitt and choreographer Shannon Harkins.

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