Indigenous art – Art Spiel

October 21, 2024December 6, 2024, by Etty Yaniv

kith and kin – the Australian Pavillion at La Biennale di Venezia

Photo Story

**Photo by Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia**

Archie Moore’s monumental installation, kith and kin, for the Australian pavilion at this year’s Venice Art Biennale, has been awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. It is a recognition well-earned. This multi-layered, profound installation more than fulfills the 60th Venice Art Biennale theme of “Foreigners Everywhere.” It does so with a poignancy, depth, and nuance that are increasingly rare in contemporary mega installations engaging with heavily charged subject matter, such as the history of Australian First Nations. kith and Kin confronts colonial legacies head-on while embracing humanity’s shared lineage. It serves as both a memorial to pain and loss and an understated reminder of our common ancestry.

September 11, 2024October 6, 2024, by Yasmeen Abdallah

Art Spiel Picks: Governors Island in September 2024

HIGHLIGHTS

A room with a large chess board

Description automatically generated — Dario Mohr’s Don’t Forget to Check. Image by Yasmeen Abdallah

Themes of searching and connection to ancestors through practice, ritual, and persistence are intertwined through work that depicts aspects of migration, objecthood, and the complexities of humanity itself. The winds moving across the island dictate the mood as we bow and sway through graceful installations in deeply resonant forms at LMCC Art Center and Artcrawl Harlem.

August 5, 2024August 5, 2024, by Yasmeen Abdallah

Art Spiel Picks: LES in August 2024

Highlights

August in New York is nothing without its heat waves and epic weather. While many escape the city, there are lots of wonderful gems to behold. Here are some cool current exhibitions not to miss downtown that will bring some good energy on those hot days.

May 23, 2022December 30, 2022, by Art Spiel

Fragile Rainbow: Traversing Habitats by ecoartspace

Featured Project: with curator Sue Spaid

A picture containing floor, indoor, ceiling, people

Description automatically generated — Tessa Grundon, *Invasive Species*, 2018-2021/2022, Asiatic Bittersweet root systems and border fencing, dimensions variable.

The group show Fragile Rainbow: Traversing Habitats at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in Brooklyn includes paintings, sculptures, videos, and installations addressing environmental issues by more than fifty artists from the New York City region who are members of ecoartspace. The title is based on Claire McConaughy’s oil painting, Fragile Rainbow, referencing both hope and loss. The show runs from May 7^th through June 4^th, 2022. Curator Sue Spaid elaborates on this large-scale group show.

June 21, 2021July 22, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Vick Quezada: Interconnected Matter

Artist photographed with their work, *Tabled Remains,* 2018. Currently on view at El Museo del Barrio. Photograph by Jill Richards

Vick Quezada (they/them) is an Indigenous-Latinx artist, they queer the archaeological through hybrid forms and aesthetics. Inspired by the guiding principles of Aztec Philosophy, Quezada integrates the theory of interconnected matter and how it’s embedded in the cosmos, planet earth, ecology, and all lifeforms. These elements of matter cannot be governed by sovereign powers as they are inherently queer and infinte. Quezada activates these themes and histories through their work, and this is conveyed by way of digital photography, video, performance and sculpture.

June 21, 2020June 21, 2020, by Melissa Stern

Artists on Coping: Merritt Johnson

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Merritt Johnson was born in West Baltimore and spent her childhood navigating between trees, tarps and concrete. She earned her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art. Her work navigates the spaces between bodies and the body politic, land and cultures by making images and objects that connect, reflect and refract vision and experience. The multiplicity of materials and processes Johnson employs embody her multiplicity, exploring layering, allegiance and agency in the face of continued threats to land, water and bodies. Johnson’s works are containers for story, feeling and thought: images of what cannot be seen, exercises for existence, and political bodies. She lives and works with her family on Tlingit land in Sitka Alaska.