Contemporary Art and Culture
During the slow and hot month of August, Art still thrives through ChaShaMa in unexpected places around midtown. ChaShaMa – a nonprofit organization that provides studio and exhibition spaces for artists in midtown real estate and other venues throughout the five boroughs – empowers unique and surprising opportunities for installations across the City.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: Midtown Exhibitions in August 2024”
Jan Dickey moved to New York City during the pandemic by way of Hawaiʻi, where he completed his MFA from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. In New York, he has shown his paintings at My Pet Ram, D.D.D.D., and Below Grand gallery among other locations. Recently he completed a materials-based residency at the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation (2023) and this interview seeks to delve deeper into his unique use of hand-mixed natural painting mediums like rabbit skin glue, casein, egg tempera, and oil paint. Currently he has an exhibition of new work at Bob’s Gallery, an experimental space in Bushwick: “The Generations” on through August 18th, 2024. Dickey is also the newest member of Artcake, an art center in Sunset Park that provides artists with affordable studio spaces and artistic programming.
Continue reading “Jan Dickey with Amanda Millet-Sorsa”
August in LA may be the hottest month of the year, but definitely not so hot for the art scene. Still, while many choose to spend the month traveling, some of the most unconventional and interesting spaces in town are putting up excellent summer shows that gather a lively crowd for their openings. Some standouts are Make Room, La Loma Projects, and Track16.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: Los Angeles Summer Group Exhibitions”
August is the height of summer and a great time to see art. The city is quieter and less crowded (I went to the First Friday openings and actually got to talk to people AND look at the art!) and the satellite exhibitions throughout the region are exceptional. Museums and galleries continue to host dynamic summertime events and there’s still a calendar full of community festivals and block parties that will highlight some of Boston’s most talented artists. Here are a few shows to have on your radar as you travel in and around the Boston area this month.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: Boston Exhibitions in August 2024”
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.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: LES in August 2024”A. E Chapman with Magdalena Dukiewicz, Bang Geul Han, and Georgia Lale
UNCOMMITTED at Stand4 focuses on civic literacy, engagement, and social matters which affect and reflect the daily lives of folks within Bay Ridge. This local lens also overlaps with national issues surrounding the 2024 presidential election. In particular, these artists examine concerns related to health care, migration, conflict, tensions between state and federal voting rights, the role of technology, surveillance, and advocacy. Art Spiel invited the curator of the show, A.E. Chapman, to elaborate on these concerns and their relevance within each of their works in the exhibition.
Continue reading “UNCOMMITTED at Stand4 Gallery”
In March 2020, Nicola Ginzel arrived at the Q21 Art Residency at the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria. This residency, which hosts international artists and selects one American artist every two months with the support of a Fulbright Scholar Grant, is designed to foster creative exchange through collaboration, networking, and studio visits.
Continue reading “Nicola Ginzel: How Do You Restructure Form?”
Spiritual World, the title of the current group show at RAINRAIN, references Alfred Stieglitz’s Spiritual America, a 1923 photograph of a harnessed, castrated horse. The powerless restrained stallion—a traditional American symbol of unstoppable prowess—symbolized for Stieglitz the loss of spirituality in his contemporary American culture. The organizer of Spiritual World, Theodor Nymark, a Copenhagen-based artist who also shows work in it, brought together seven artists from Denmark, Korea, and the USA to explore how spirituality can exist today outside conservative religious ideals and ultra-liberal new-age paganism. In a text for the show, Nymark specifies further how he sees spirituality—”like a multifaceted metaphor, many-sided, a prism with no central outpost, only imagination. Not just a lake, a mirror. Not just a car, a vehicle.” These notions reflect the overall premise of this show.
Continue reading “Spiritual World at RAINRAIN”
145 galleries, venues, historical sites, performances, and a few fashion stops and upscale grocers for foodies thrown in for good measure, all scattered across 10 counties north of New York City. This comprised Upstate Art Weekend, a four-day festival highlighting the diversity and breadth of culture in Upstate New York. This was not for the faint of stamina. This is not an art fair. It is a celebration of the creative communities lining the Hudson and the enclaves embedded in the Catskills. I have to believe the intent was never for escapees from urbanity to stop at each little circle on clustered maps. Below are some of the galleries that are the marrow, the heartbeat of the cultural community in specific regions. These are also galleries that exhibit small group and one-person shows that provide a larger window into the artist’s or artists’ thought process. If you missed Upstate Art Weekend, don’t despair; these and other sites are a stable part of the Hudson Valley, enabling anybody to make their own Upstate Art Weekend on their own time. It’s always here, 12 months of the year.
Continue reading “Upstate Art Weekend, If You Missed It, It is Still Here!”
Naomi Okubo has been creating works that explore the themes of identity and relationships with others. Her paintings, sculptures, and installations often feature multiple portraits of herself in imaginary, fantasized settings full of decorative patterns and vibrant colors that blur the boundary between the self and the surrounding environment. This ambiguity regarding identity stems from her experiences of struggling to establish selfhood in relation to others during her adolescence. One of her turning points was when she developed her interest in Wardian cases or what she calls “closely glazed spaces.”
Continue reading “Intimate Space, Entangling Threads – Sharon Liu and Hanna Hirakawa with Naomi Okubo”