Contemporary Art and Culture
Christopher Ulivo, the LA based painter, takes us in his vivid paintings to imaginary places, from time travel to ancestral family spirits to rewritten myths and histories. His worlds are filled with idiosyncratic, wildly imaginative narratives, where you can sense the painter’s presence as a prolific storyteller.
Continue reading “Christopher Ulivo: The Present is Nonsense”In Dialogue with Yvette Molina
Big Bang Votive, Yvette Molina’s collaborative storytelling art installation has evolved over fifteen weeks, utilizing the Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg Gallery at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey through January 18th, 2021. Yvette Molina creates an immersive audio-visual experience — accompanied by a 30-minute surround sound composition played on a loop, her installation includes three hundred paintings of starry skies, some with votive symbols of delight or love taken from stories gathered from the public, a work-table with the artist’s materials, and an on-going “story catcher” project involving public participation.
Continue reading “Yvette Molina: Big Bang Votive at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey”In Dialogue with David Dixon
For Cathouse Proper’s second ensemble exhibition, More Time Less, curator and gallery director David Dixon brought together five artists — Zac Hacmon, Elana Herzog, Aga Ousseinov, Tim Simonds, and Nari Ward — whose installations, wall-based work, and sculptures reflect our changing perception of ‘normative time.’ David Dixon describes his curatorial process, gives us a closer tour of this ensemble exhibition, and shares some background on his diverse art practices.
Continue reading “More Time Less at Cathouse Proper”In Dialogue with Marco Palli
The online sculpture exhibition “FLUX : Vita Mutata” curated by Natsuki Takauji and hosted by the veteran non-for-profit artists’ cooperative Sculptors Alliance, features seventeen artists who display works made before the pandemic, throughout the closure, and beyond. The Sculptors Alliance president, Marco Palli. shares with Art Spiel how the show evolved, and how his organization transformed throughout the pandemic, while offering us a generous peek behind the scenes.
Continue reading ““FLUX : Vita Mutata” virtual on Sculptors Alliance”In Dialogue with co-curators Laura Vookles, Chair of the Curatorial Department, and Victoria Ratjen, Curatorial Assistant
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women’s voting rights, Women to the Fore, the current group exhibition at the Hudson River Museum features more than forty female-identifying artists, spanning one hundred and fifty years. The two curators, Laura Vookles and Victoria Ratjen, selected diverse artworks across media —paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, collage and sculpture— from the Museum’s permanent collection, regional artists, galleries, and collectors. The exhibition includes works by renowned artists like Marisol, Judy Chicago, Louise Nevelson, and Mary Cassatt among many others, and less recognizable contemporary and 20th century artists. For instance, one of the highlights in this show is Anna Walinska’s self-portrait which not only marks her first return to the walls of the Hudson River Museum in over 60 years, but also brings to light her significant role in the art world of her time, including her dedication to promoting the work of other artists, like Arshile Gorky, who got his first New York City solo show in the mid-30s at the Guild Art Gallery, an art venue she founded and ran.
Continue reading “Women to the Fore at the Hudson River Museum”
The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.
Abena Motaboli is a Southern African born educator, visual artist, and writer based in Chicago. She grew up in Lesotho, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, before moving to the U.S where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Columbia College Chicago and at L’Institut Catholique de Paris in Paris, France. With a strong commitment to social justice work in the South and West sides of Chicago and being an immigrant, her artwork comments on displacement, immigration, the African diaspora, and the loss of the sense of home. In her intricate plastic installations and meditative line-work in her paintings, she uses ephemeral material such as plastic, tea, dirt, and coffee to comment on colonialism, past memories, and the culture of creating.
Continue reading “The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Abena Motaboli”Previewing with Jonathan Sims
The Edge of Light began with the intent to create a group exhibition of artists who work in light. Jonathan Sims, a light artist himself and the curator of this group show at Plaxall, says that although there are a very large number of artists currently working with light as a medium and a material, but their chances to exhibit, particularly in a group setting, are limited.
Continue reading “Edge of Light at Plaxall”
The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.
Sari Nordman, a native of Finland, is a NYC-based interdisciplinary artist working with dance, video and installation. She loves to travel to the isolated parts of the world to reflect on nature, history and female experience, the recurring themes in her works. She continues developing Torni-Tower, an installation work which has received support from the Catwalk Institute and NYU, The Immigrant Artist Biennial, The Amsterdam Collective and Tohmajärvi Residency, for Jamaica Flux: Workspaces and Windows 2021 exhibition and Performance Mix Festival. She worked as a performer with choreographer Dean Moss in 2009-2018, and holds a M.F.A. from NYU/Tisch School of The Arts.
Continue reading “The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Sari Nordman”In Dialogue with Eric Fallen, Founder and Executive Director
Amy Butowicz solo show Boudoir Theatre at Peninsula Art Space features a collection of domestically scaled sculptures staged as a group of characters which are readily associated with notions of sensuality, ornamentation, and haute couture. Bulging cushion-like forms, meticulously hand-stitched over wooden structures, display intricate patterns and rich material suggestive of bedding, vanities, corsets and human anatomy. Bold and tender simultaneously, these anthropomorphic forms defy the disdain and fear that are frequently imposed upon feminine artforms, spaces, and bodies. Eric Fallen, founder and executive director of the Red Hook based Peninsula Art Space elaborates on Amy Butowicz’s exhibition and on his art venue.
Continue reading “Amy Butowicz: Boudoir Theatre at Peninsula Art Space”