Artists on Coping: Jada Fabrizio

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

A ferret on a table

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“All things big and small”

As a Multimedia Artist, Jada Fabrizio’s practice incorporates aspects of various disciplines, taking the form of set building, sculpture, photography and, when available, installation. Jada is interested making images and that communicate complex feelings and psychological dilemmas. The use of sculptural creatures makes difficult ideas somewhat friendlier or more approachable. She endows the animal-based figures with personalities or traits that could be considered more “human” Because the stories she is telling all have something to do with humanity and the connections we all share.

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Paul Mok – The Study of Mundane

Paul Mok in dialogue with Art Spiel on his show at GAIA in Dumbo


Paul Mok – The Study of Mundane – 2020 – image courtesy of the artist

Designer, architect, and visual artist Paul Mok shares with Art Spiel the origin, idea and process behind his installation based solo exhibition at GAIA in Dumbo.
Due to the Corona-virus, the gallery hours will very likely vary. For updates reach out to (917) 704-9600. 

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William Corwin – Flattening of Time

Pazuzu, 2018, hydrocal. Photo courtesy the artist

Experiencing William Corwin’s sculptures may resemble opening a time capsule filled with mysterious objects made of familiar materials like sand, rope, clay and wood. By drawing on references ranging from architecture to archaeology, totems to teeth, Corwin’s sculptures resonate with archaic civilizations — removed yet urgently present. William Corwin shares with Art Spiel what brought him to sculpture, takes a look at some of his projects, and sheds some light on his curatorial and art writing practices.

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A Romantic Comedy hosted by Wallplay

Steven Pestana in dialogue with Art Spiel

Installation View, A Romantic Comedy. L to R: Kevin Frances, Andrew Allison, Amanda Thackray

A Romantic Comedy, co-curated by Steven Pestana and Sophia Sobers , is a large-scale installation-based group exhibition which explores the mystery and ambiguity of romance in the 2020s through the actions and objects of everyday life. The opening takes place during Armory Weekend and the show runs throughout the end of March. Steven Pestana describes for Art Spiel the curators’ background, elaborates on the genesis of the show, then gives some background on its host, Wallplay, and its venue at 25 Kent street in Williamsburg.

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Yasue Maetake – Intersubjective Narratives

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Urethane Flower on Steel Stem Clad with Foam (2013-2019), H91 x 110 x 67 inches (H233 x 284 x 177 cm), steel, polyurethane resin, epoxy clay, burnt and varnished Styrofoam, photo by Mark Waldhauser

The Japanese born Brooklyn based sculptor Yasue Maetake largely draws on laws of nature like gravity, as well as on her Japanese cultural heritage like Butoh dance/theater. The artist describes for Art Spiel her artistic impetus, layered ideas, and elaborate process.

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Magdalena Dukiewicz at Stand4 – In Every Dream Home a Heartache

In every dream home a heartache, installation view. Photo courtesy of the Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen

A former medical office located in the heart of Bayridge Brooklyn, hosts Magdalena Dukiewicz solo exhibition “In Every Dream Home a Heartache“, a visual, physical and poetical exercise in which the artist revisits particular objects and memories from her childhood in Poland to explore an idea of “home” that has been inoculated in her mind from an early age. For Dukiewicz, the thought of a home brings a cumulus of anxieties related to social expectations, which calls into question the preconceived ideas of how things are supposed to be in life: motherhood, marriage, work, living in a place other than your birthplace, fulfilling certain obligations.

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Controlled Entropy, Taher Jaoui at 81 Leonard Gallery

Taher Jaoui: Controlled Entropy installation view, photograph by Hannah Rozelle, photo courtesy of the artist

One might find Taher Jaoui introverted the moment meeting him. It might be less about an aloof temperament commonly found in an artist than a reserved and prudent character often associated with a science person. The way in which Jaoui’s artworks act out follows a similar interpersonal pattern. Those scratchy mathematics signs and formulas are the most prominent elements of the new series of monochrome paintings featured in Taher’s current solo exhibition Controlled Entropy at 81 Leonard Gallery, co-hosted by Uncommon Beauty Gallery. The juxtaposition of the handwritings of mathematical formulas and the gestural brushwork in an abstract expressionist manner not only prompts questions about Jaoui’s background, but also problematizes the hostile split between art and mathematics. Reminding viewers of a lecturer running a mathematical calculation across the blackboard with chalk, this series of paintings highlights the performative elements in mathematics, as well as the craft aspects of labor invested in this intellectual activity.

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Zac Hacmon at the Border

Eva Mayhabal Davis in dialogue with Art Spiel – Beyond the Pale

Installation view of Beyond the Pale by Zac Hacmon. Image courtesy of the artist. Photo by Etienne Frossard

Zac Hacmon‘s sound sculptures at the intimate Border project space are overpowering in size, as if cutting the air with their sharp diagonal tiled lines to create a sense of suffocating sterility. Their oddity is intriguing and repelling simultaneously, and their placement in the room forces the visitor to navigate around with considerate effort. The sound consists of a series of stories recorded at the Arizona-Mexico border, and adds another layer of urgency, creating altogether an inspired fusion of sound/form. Eva Mayhabal Davis, the curator of Beyond the Pale , elaborates on the premise behind the show.

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Catchat, following an Interview With a Cat

Kristen Clevenson in conversation with Noa Ginzburg, February 2020

Catchat, a screenshot of a skype conversation, 2019.
Photo by Hannah Bruckmueller

“This is an interview recorded at the Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagles, 12 Burgplatz Düsseldorf,” announces the interviewer. “MIAOW! MIAOW!” replies the interviewee.” In 1970, the Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) conducted and recorded an Interview With a Cat. In Catchat, a trans-Atlantic collaboration between Hannah Bruckmüller, Michal Ron, and Noa Ginzburg which was recently published on PROTOCOLS, the three listen carefully to the protagonist cat and transcribe French and Cat tongues into Hebrew and Latin letters. Kristen Clevenson and Noa Ginzburg share with Art Spiel their conversation about cats, collaborating while in different time zones, transcribing illegible languages, and using deep listening to assert agency.

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Michael Alan is New York’s Past, Present and Future

Michael Alan In conversation with Markella K

(The American Legend, Image courtesy of Michael Alan)

It’s time to question the nature of a city when everything you loved or heard about it has changed so much. NYC now has changed into a huge playground with high end food prices, fancy cell phones and luxury condos. I came here full of dreams just like everyone else, hoping to fit in and to see what Warhol left behind.

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