The Immigrant Artist Biennial, In Dialogue

Sanié Bokhari and Umber Majeed Discuss the Forbidden

Sanié Bokhari. It’s 11.49 pm here, 2022. 36 x 48 in. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and The Immigrant Artist Biennial.

As part of The Immigrant Artists Biennial: Contact Zone, Sanié Bokhari, and Umber Majeed present their work in the Enmeshed: Dreams of Water group exhibition. As artists of Pakistani descent currently residing in the US, both Bokhari and Majeed tap into the changing landscape of globalization and the unstable experience of international migrants’ identity formation. Evoking water as a symbol of fluidity and change, Bokhari’s painting and Majeed’s video deploy a metaphoric framing that is beautiful and complex. In this conversation with Jenny Wang, they critically reflect on the geopolitics of belonging and identity.

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The Mirror Blue Night at Undercroft Gallery

Featured Project
A room with art on the wall

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The Mirror Blue Night originated from an idea artist and curator Patrick Neal had for a show called Dark Noir, referencing the character of the city in the evening hours. When Neal was later invited to curate at the Undercroft Gallery, this idea expanded to include nocturnes and night in general. The gallery is located beneath The Church of Heavenly Rest on Museum Mile, and in this context, Neal began to look for spiritual echoes, considering how evening and twilight hours evoke the afterlife, the cosmos, anonymity, peace, and fear. “I had in mind depictions of darkness but also considered night as a condition that occupies half of our days and half of our lives, with all the symbolic, psychological, and temporal associations that come with it.”

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Gathering with Asianish

In Conversation
Asianish potluck gathering (photo credit: Sara Jimenez, September 22, 2022)

Co-curators Cecile Chong and Sophia Ma are delighted to present “Gathering,” an exhibition that showcases the connections between forty-five Asianish artists and their artwork. Asianish, an informal collective of AAPI artists and art professionals, was established in March 2018 to foster a safe and inclusive environment for a diverse community of Asian identities. Through conversations, artistic expression, and shared meals, the group explores themes such as code-switching in art contexts and the longing for a sense of belonging in their adopted homeland. The exhibition will be held at Tiger Strikes Asteroid–New York (TSA-NY) in Bushwick from June 24 to July 30, 2023, and at FiveMyles in Crown Heights from July 8 to August 13, 2023.

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On the Waterfront: A View from the Coast (Line)

HOT AIR

On the Waterfront: A View from the Coast (Line)

From its founding in 2009 by Maddy Rosenberg, CENTRAL BOOKING has focused on the exploration between art and science with emphasis on aspects of the environment and social justice issues. In many collaborative projects with organizations such as the New York Academy of Medicine and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, artists researched their work in the collections, libraries and grounds of these institutions and exhibited the resulting work in several venues. Rosenberg says that after years of living along the Brooklyn waterfront of Buttermilk Channel and incorporating the imagery into her own work, she sensed it was time to take a deeper dive into the ecosystems of the Brooklyn waterfront and the last surviving section of functioning port within New York City’s boundaries. The life along the harbor integrates the wildlife, land and neighborhoods of human-made architectural elements seemed to her like “a perfect barometer for exploring climate change”. A collaboration with the New-York Historical Society was a natural step, as their collections preserve many of the earlier roots along the way to the transformations we live with today. Rosenberg says that in addition, by forging partnerships with other area organizations such as Kentler International Drawing Space, Pioneer Works and the RETI Center, the project became truly emblematic of the Brooklyn Waterfront.

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Field Notes at Metaphor Projects


Art Spiel Photo Story

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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.”

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Repopulations: New Horizons

Grantee of Brooklyn Arts Fund Grant Type: (Brooklyn Arts Fund/Local Arts Support/Creative Equations Fund) Project Profile: Daniela Holban (Curator)

Photo courtesy of Last Frontier NYC & Sol Kjok

Brooklyn Arts Council announced in March 2022 an allocation of over $1.3 million to 238 Brooklyn-based artists and cultural organizations. This year marks the highest number of grantees and awardees as well as the largest amount of funding BAC has ever distributed. Art Spiel in collaboration with Brooklyn Arts Council features some artists who received a Brooklyn Arts Fund, Local Arts Support, and/or Creative Equations Fund grant in 2022.

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Ultralight Beam at Pelham Art Center

Featured Project with curator Rebecca Mills

Installation view

Ultralight Beam, curated by Rebecca Mills at the Pelham Art Center, brings together paintings, sculptures, and installations by artists who focus on visionary methods and spirituality of all kinds. Featured artists: Sunny Allis, Angelica Bergamini, Claire Buckley, Susan Carr, Joan Di Lieto & Thunderfox, Ala Ebtekar, Gabriel Mills, Sarah Renzi-Sanders, Christina Saj, and Chris Watts. The show runs from September 15 to October 30, 2022.

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ADJUSTED for Inflation at Kunstraum

Featured Project with curator Ashley Ouderkirk

ADJUSTED for Inflation, Part 1 installation image. (Artworks visible by Sandra Zanetti, Taisha Brehaut, Bartho Staalman, and Amir Hariri.) Photo by Jenna London.

ADJUSTED for Inflation, the group show curated by curator-in-residence Ashley Ouderkirk at Kunstraum LLC features eighteen works by fourteen members and artists in residence—Annette Back, Taisha Brehaut, Laura Clark, Aleksy Cisowski, Giacomo Colosi, Amir Hariri, Catherine Lewis, Rita Nannini, Olga Rabetskaya, Bartho Staalman, Sato Sugamoto, Dimana Zaharieva, Cassandra Zampini, and Sandra Zanetti. The title, ADJUSTED for Inflation, is based on the economic term referring to the “real” value of money, after considering how much the price of an average good or service has increased. The curator says that the exhibition, like the economic concept, aims to reveal how our emotions determine the “real” value of any situation—the more complex the hardship, the greater the emotional cost and more distorted the adjustment. It runs through September 10th, 2022.

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Sensing Woman at C24 Gallery

Featured Project with Curator Christina Massey

Jung Eun Park – In the Womb 13, 2003, pencil, thread, fabrics, watercolor on coffee-dyed Korean mulberry paper, 7” x 8”

Sensing Woman is a multisensory event taking place at C24 Gallery in Chelsea, New York City, for five days and four nights of Art by 50 contemporary visual artists, along with conversation, storytelling and music – altogether around the future of being female. All profits from this event will be donated to organizations working to protect autonomy over our bodies and improve maternal and sexual health, including the groundbreaking advocacy organization the Center for Reproductive Rights.

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