installation art – Page 3

July 28, 2025July 27, 2025, by Taylor Bielecki

John Knuth: The Hot Garden: Renewal and Regeneration from Catastrophe

*Sculptural Garden, Installation Shot, photo courtesy of Hollis Taggart*

Seeing John Knuth’s exhibition, The Hot Garden, at Hollis Taggart’s new downtown outpost was wonderful, surreal, energetic, and unexpected. This is Knuth’s first major body of work following the devastating Eaton Fire in January 2025, which destroyed the artist’s home and archive. This exhibition gives us an opportunity to see fragments of the past and the birth or rebirth of something entirely new out of the ashes, embodying the quote in the press release from Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, writer and once Altadena resident, “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.”

July 23, 2025July 21, 2025, by Etty Yaniv

Susan Mastrangelo: The Beat Goes On at Kathryn Markel

In Dialogue

Susan Mastrangelo’s solo show, The Beat Goes On, at The Pocket Gallery of Katherine Markel Fine Arts features work completed from 2022 to 2025, with the majority of the pieces completed in 2025. Mastrangelo creates bold reliefs that transform a variety of materials into bold abstract and biomorphic forms.

July 21, 2025July 21, 2025, by Anna Shukeylo

Open Books at Mana Contemporary

Installation view. Photo credit Mike O’Shea

There is a hidden gem on view at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City—an art book group show of 15 artists carefully curated by the directors and curators of Monira Foundation and Mana Contemporary. The exhibition unfolds across two rooms. In the first space, the viewer encounters a dimly lit room of suspended tables uniquely designed by Kele McComsey. On each table, there is a carefully curated display of artist books—a rare opportunity to view this uniquely expressive form of art. During the run of the show, the curators periodically shift some books, while others are welcome to be handled. This is an incredible opportunity to see artist books and experience their magic. Blurring the lines between book and sculpture, these magnetic art objects have always been a curatorial challenge. They are meant to be experienced, unlike most other art pieces.

July 16, 2025July 11, 2025, by Adria Arch

A Gathering: Gardens, Portals, Protests

Why do we need art in this moment? What art sustains both practitioners and audience in difficult times? These urgent questions pulse at the heart of curator and artist Olivia Baldwin’s extraordinary exhibition at the Kniznick Gallery, part of Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Center—and the answers she’s assembled are luminous.

July 15, 2025July 18, 2025, by Jessica Aguilar

Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in July 2025

HIGHLIGHTS

Artwork by Raúl Romero. Photo by Studio 105

Since the beginning of time, artists have drawn inspiration from and found it within the natural world. This month, Philly boasts a variety of work where artists are going deeper to discover what can be imitated and learned from the evolutionary beings around us. Some artists take direct motifs like coqui sounds or daffodil patterns, while others venture into new utopias or dreamworlds to live in as the real world diminishes underneath their feet. Studio 105 at RAY presents a bold reimagining of electrical current and vibrations that echoes the power of communication and sound. Philadelphia Magic Gardens reframes the purpose of the mushroom not just as a decomposer but as a symbol of rebirth and perseverance. The Arts Leagues suggests a world where the organic is depleted and society must build again. Arch Enemy Arts throws logic out the window as they find mercy in the mystical realm.

July 14, 2025July 3, 2025, by Taylor Bielecki

Lineage and Latitude – Divergent views sparking newfound conversations at IW Gallery

This group exhibition at the IW Gallery brings together a wide array of artists, visions, and mediums. Each of the eighteen artists in the show is connected in some way, whether it be from Pratt Institute, they are former international students who have decided to stay and continue making work, all the way to friends and former classmates. This grouping is an eclectic amalgam of stories and inspirations that diverge in their own ways and reconverge to create new conversations. Many of the artists in this exhibition use their work to embody their stories, memories, and histories. Pieces of their lineages, carrying across various places to join together in one location starting an ever expanding dialogue with each other.

July 8, 2025July 7, 2025, by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

Why Black Art Is Rarely Just Abstract

Algernon Miller’s work bends space, time, and expectations, redefining what abstraction means when history isn’t optional

*Algernon Miller Afrofuturism and Beyond*, Installation view, courtesy of Ethan Cohen Gallery

I met Algernon Miller the way I tend to meet people in the art world: by asking too many earnest questions at a panel. That day, at a Mel Edwards talk at Hauser & Wirth, I caught a smile from the soft-spoken man next to me. We chatted and clicked. Two native New Yorkers—he from Harlem, I from the Lower East Side—drawn together by chance, we followed each other with no particular reason, and what felt like nothing quietly became something.

July 7, 2025July 11, 2025, by Yasmeen Abdallah

Art Spiel Picks: NYC Exhibitions in July 2025

HIGHLIGHTS

Installation view, Michael Pribich at Transmitter

Pathways of migration, transit, turbulence, and foundational knowledge lead us across the city through three boroughs that speak to time and reflection. Through the slightest gestures cleverly calculated by the selected artists, we can trace symbolic movements as indicative of something greater and inherently profound. This lineup is a reminder to delve into one’s humanity and to mine for empathy and change. These themes are as relevant today as they were long ago, and it’s important to acknowledge the work of artists who are using their talents to envision an equitable world for all. Let us carry forth this mindset so that the present we build is a true path forward towards a more mindful future.

July 2, 2025July 1, 2025, by Anna Shukeylo

Nanette Carter: A Question of Balance at Montclair Art Museum

Installation view. Photographer Peter Jacobs

Nanette Carter: A Question of Balance at the Montclair Art Museum is an extensive survey of 46 works from throughout the artist’s career curated by Mary Birmingham. Carter is known for her boundless abstractions and innovative works on mylar. This long-awaited show reflects Carter’s long history with the museum, the community, and the town itself. As one enters the show, the first piece is a video titled The Weight from the pandemic days, where Carter films herself balancing various pieces of her two-dimensional painting as more pieces get “stacked” onto the main mass. Setting the mood for the show, it not only introduces Nanette Carter in flesh but also important themes she has been working on throughout her career.

June 24, 2025June 25, 2025, by Emily Wilson

Everyday War at the Asian Museum

In dialogue

Emily Wilson in conversation with Abby Chen curator of contemporary art at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum

Installation view of Yuan Goang-Ming, Everyday War, 2025, at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Photo by Kevin Candland

Yuan Goang-Ming, known as the ‘father of Taiwanese video art,’ chose Abby Chen, the curator of contemporary art at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum to curate his presentation at the 2024 Venice Biennale, Everyday War. In the Palazzo Priccioni, a space that once served as a prison, his videos and installations poetically examined the unease of contemporary life, in works such as Dwelling, which presents an explosion in a living room, and Everyday Maneuver, showing the empty streets of Taipei during an air raid drill.