Contemporary Art and Culture
In Dialogue
Virginia-based artist Peter Eudenbach says that while he has always been interested in making things, his pathway to studio art was through the humanities. The history of art and ideas became part of his language even before he found his voice as an artist. His belief that studio practice has the most potential to make sense of human experience was a significant driver in his choice to pursue an art career.
Continue reading “Peter Eudenbach: From Cricket Songs to Solar Panels”
PE Pinkman, the chief visual arts curator and executive director of the Watchung Arts Center in New Jersey, notes that two exhibitions — Mona Brody: Portals, Apparitions, and Other Voices and Anne Trauben: Step Up on a Stool to Reach the Sky — emerged from separate discussions with each artist. For over 45 years, the nonprofit Watchung Arts Center has been a prominent stage, showcasing works from regional artists in New Jersey and New York. Their central mission is to provide visual artists with a platform for engagement, promoting arts education while offering unique exhibition opportunities. At a first glance, both Mona Brody’s paintings and Anne Trauben’s installations appear straightforward. However, Pinkman emphasizes that they reveal deeper layers upon closer inspection. He observes a fascinating contrast: while Brody’s art unveils forms from the shadows, Trauben emphasizes light and shape within a darkened setting.
Continue reading “PE Pinkman: Two Solo Shows at Watchung Arts Center”
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.
Continue reading “Norte Maar’s CounterPointe10 – Alejandra Seeber and Sarah Yasmine Marazzi-Sassoon”
Amy Brady published in her newsletter Burning World a conversation with Emily McNeil and Asy Connelly, a knitter and data scientist who founded the Tempestry Project, a fiber art collaboration that uses yarn and other fibers to create artful representations of climate data. This summer, they are partnering with Colossal Magazine and the Design Museum of Chicago in two different ways: first, their “Paleo New Normal Tempestry” will be exhibited in the museum’s group show, At the Precipice. And secondly, they’re collaborating with the museum to develop a Chicago Tempestry Collection that will be exhibited along with the Paleo piece. Amy Brady asked Emily and Asy about their work and what they hope viewers take away from their art.
Continue reading “Tempestry Project: Emily McNeil and Asy Connelly with Amy Brady”
In Organizer, Jesse Benson’s first solo gallery show since 2017, the Los Angeles artist unpacks the “dialectic of order and chaos” by introducing heterogeneity to organizing systems.
Continue reading “The Art of Getting It Together”
The Kleinart James Center in Woodstock, New York, is currently presenting a very ambitious and interesting photography exhibition. Entitled Here Now: Contemporary Photographers of the Hudson Valley, the show presents 17 artists representing a portion of the many photographers working in this geography. Organized by curator Jane Hart, the show offers a wide range of aesthetic visions and techniques.
Continue reading “Here Now: Contemporary Photographers of the Hudson Valley”
Two artists currently showing at Garrison Art Center use scale, structure, and geometry to examine and reinterpret their respective environments. Martha Bone’s large-scale paintings and assemblages express a sweeping view of the cosmos, bringing the macrocosm within our reach, while Janice Caswell’s small-scale sculptures find the infinite within the microcosm, showing us the vast potential in all forms. Both Bone and Caswell photograph their natural and man-made landscapes, later referring to these images when creating their works. And both artists construct their forms as improvisations inspired by their observations, although neither artist is interested in a literal interpretation of nature. But this is where the similarities end, their distinctive styles diverging toward an expansive contemplation of form and space and an intimate exploration of the fabricated structures that inhabit our lives.
Continue reading “Martha Bone and Janice Caswell: Two Solo Shows at Garrison Art Center”
Bay Ridge through an Ecological Lens is a multi-faceted public art exhibition hosted by Stand4 Gallery and presented in collaboration with ecoartspace
This interactive, public, community arts exhibition is curated by Jennifer McGregor, featuring artists Rebecca Allan, Aaron Asis, Chris Costan, Kate Dodd, Peter Edlund, Kristin Reiber-Harris, Ellen Coleman-Izzo, Sergey Jivetin, Nathan Kensinger, Rita Leduc, Christopher Lin, Nikki Lindt, E.J. McAdams/ Jimbo Blachly, Nancy Nowacek in collaboration with Carla Kihlstedt and Carlos Alomar, Benjamin Swett and filmmakers: Aaron Assis, Nate Dorr, Sean Hanley, Nathan Kensinger, Nikki Lindt, Emily Packer and Lesley Steele, and Kristin Reiber-Harris
It consists of nature walks and community interventions in the gallery and various locations throughout the Bay Ridge community from April 15 through June 17, 2023. Art Spiel features a series of interviews related to this project throughout its duration. Kate Dodd, whose library installation will be until after Labor Day, is featured here.
Continue reading “Bay Ridge Through an Ecological Lens: Kate Dodd”
Nestled in the constructed landscape of the High Line, Argentine artist Gabriel Chaile’s colossal sculpture, El viento sopla donde quiere (2023), embodies a nostalgic, transhistorical exploration of humanity’s place within and through nature.
Continue reading “Gabriel Chaile: Longing For Nature”