#feministart – Art Spiel

July 18, 2024October 6, 2024

Judith Braun’s, I’m Bad at Kiddie Pool is So Good

Featured Exhibition

A poster on the wall

Description automatically generated — Judith Braun, I’m Bad, installation view, photo courtesy of Kiddie Pool and the artist

Veteran, age-defying, feminist artist Judith Braun’s exhibit, I’m Bad, opened on June 28 in a pristine, Victorian-era brownstone that doubles as Kiddie Pool, a residential project space in downtown Albany, NY. As contemporary contronym phrases go, I’m Bad conjures a sense that exemplifies Braun as a person and her body of work. Through decades whether it was as a generation-defining member of the lower east side collaborative Group Material, where she created Pussy Works, as part of the seminal 1988 show, Democracy: Cultural Participation to exquisitely painted angels to her current exhibit that includes new monumental collages at Kiddie Pool, Braun consistently challenges and baits the status quo with unbridled glee.

June 25, 2024June 20, 2024

Linda Kamille Schmidt: Fiber Space at Garvey/Simon

Previewing

Linda Kamille Schmidt’s exhibition Fiber Space opens at Garvey|Simon Gallery on June 27, 2024. This is her first solo show with Garvey|Simon and her third in Manhattan. It showcases her semi-transparent fabric collages, ranging from large installations to smaller, intimate pieces.

June 14, 2024June 16, 2024

Women Heavy at Gardenship Gallery

In Dialogue

Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger, QUALIA – YOU MATTER TO ME, immersive installation, UltraHD, color, sound, 10 minutes, 2024. Courtesy of the artists

Throughout the group exhibition Women Heavy at the Gardens Gallery in Kearny, NJ, curator Donna Kessinger references contemporary and second-wave feminist ideas. The curator aims to create a clinical and visceral experience by investigating broad concepts and featuring among many notable others work by Charlie Spademan, Gwen Charles, Jeanne Brasile, Josh Knoblick, Judi Tavill, Kasia Skorynkiewicz, Charlee Swanson, Lauren Vroegindewey, Kristin J. DeAngelis, Michael Angelo, Richard Gaines, Suzan Globus, Vikki Michalios, A.V. Ryan, Donna Conklin King, Anna Ehrsam, and Doris Cacoilo. In our interview curator D. Kessinger sheds some light on her curatorial vision.

November 30, 2020November 30, 2020

Amy Butowicz: Boudoir Theatre at Peninsula Art Space

In Dialogue with Eric Fallen, Founder and Executive Director

A room full of furniture

Description automatically generated — Duet, 2020 76.5”h x 84”w x 53”d Canvas, acrylic paint, wood, furniture parts, wheels, and hinges

Amy Butowicz solo show Boudoir Theatre at Peninsula Art Space features a collection of domestically scaled sculptures staged as a group of characters which are readily associated with notions of sensuality, ornamentation, and haute couture. Bulging cushion-like forms, meticulously hand-stitched over wooden structures, display intricate patterns and rich material suggestive of bedding, vanities, corsets and human anatomy. Bold and tender simultaneously, these anthropomorphic forms defy the disdain and fear that are frequently imposed upon feminine artforms, spaces, and bodies. Eric Fallen, founder and executive director of the Red Hook based Peninsula Art Space elaborates on Amy Butowicz’s exhibition and on his art venue.

October 12, 2020October 12, 2020

Maria de Los Angeles in Domestic Brutes at Pelham Art Center

In Dialogue with Maria de Los Angeles

Artist in her Studio. Photo by Ryan Bonilla 2019 . Photo by Ryan Bonilla 2019

Maria de Los Angeles says she feels very blessed to be included in the Domestic Brutes exhibition at the Pelham Art Center. A DACA recipient, she grew up undocumented and currently she is working on getting her citizenship, looking forward to contributing by voting for the first time. “Since I arrived to this country 20 years ago, I have looked forward to Voting. I love this county and consider it my home and can’t wait to do my part by helping elect new people. I truly believe we can build a better future together,” she says.

October 5, 2020September 22, 2020

Aisha Tandiwe Bell in Domestic Brutes at Pelham Art Center

In Dialogue with Aisha Tandiwe Bell

Aisha Tandiwe Bell is interested in the many manifestations of the traps of race, sex, and class. She makes drawings, paintings, ceramic sculptures, installations, and performance work that examine the metaphors and the allegory that this trap manifests. In her newest work Aisha Tandiwe Bell’s is looking at how one might negotiate traps, utilizing shape shifting, and code-switching as well as looking at identifying markers that both separate and unify. She says, “I am a Black African American Jamaican Woman Artist Wife and Mother. These are all categories that I consistently juggle and negotiate in a white male dominated space.” Aisha Tandiwe Bell is participating in Domestic Brutes at Pelham Art Center.

September 22, 2020September 22, 2020

Tirtzah Bassel in Domestic Brutes at Pelham Art Center

In Dialogue with Tirtzah Bassel

Tirtzah Bassel grew up in Israel, the oldest of eight in a Jewish Orthodox family. Her father is a traditional scribe and her mother, a ballet dancer by training, was the homemaker when they were growing up. Although both of her parents were very creative and the value of making things by hand was instilled early on, she didn’t know any professional artists and had no concept that making art was something she could do as an adult. This changed when she took a night class at the Jerusalem Studio School in her early twenties. She recalls how she was immediately drawn to the intensity of the atelier-style learning environment, drawing and painting from observation, and the methods of the Old Master paintings. She later decided to pursue an MFA at Boston University and subsequently moved to Brooklyn. “Perhaps it was the continuous traversing of worlds – religious and secular, Israel and the US, Hebrew and English – that led me to ground my work in close observation of seemingly mundane situations,” she says.

September 10, 2020August 8, 2020

Manju Shandler in Domestic Brutes at Pelham Art Center

In Dialogue with Manju Shandler

Manju Shandler working on Persistent Mothers in her studio in Brooklyn, NY 2020. Photo Stephen Estrin.

Manju Shandler creates symbolic art that speaks to current events. Building upon established storylines from myth, religion, and history, her mixed media artworks create richly layered narratives that reflect on our dense and complicated times. Shandler believes people are natural storytellers that make sense of the world through by mining both personal experience and collective memories that have been passed down. Her work dips into this well. Training as a theatre designer helps her to envision installations and her background as a puppet builder informs how she approaches building objects. Identifying as a mother seeps into everything she does.

September 8, 2020August 8, 2020

Lacey McKinney in Domestic Brutes at Pelham Art Center

In Dialogue with Lacey McKinney

Lacey McKinney at McColl Center for Art + Innovation, 2019,.Courtesy Chris Edwards Photography

Lacey McKinney who resides in Upstate New York, is drawn to the alchemy of processes like painting and alternative photography. For the last several years, McKinney has worked within the framework of painting, using figuration to reference embodiment. Usually splitting her time between working in the studio and teaching, this year she feels lucky enough to embark on a one-year teaching sabbatical, which has given her extra time for experimentation with other media such as using cyanotype process to make photograms that incorporate into collage and mixed media works. The artist 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.

September 1, 2020August 8, 2020

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.