Contemporary Art and Culture
At first sight, Pat Lay’s vertical scrolls sit comfortably within the soaring Gothic-style Lemmerman Gallery at New Jersey City University. Their mosaic or tapestry-like forms, in glowing red, blue, and gold, echo the tall grided window panes and the elaborate ceiling. Yet once it becomes clear that these scrolls are entirely digital, the contrast generates a sense of fertile dualities.
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I often think about the first scientist who looked into a microscope and saw the dividing of cells, the jiggle of bacteria, and the movement of microorganisms. They must have marveled at the invisible worlds that were revealed. Similar to uncovering fossils of long-extinct species, we are humbled when we discover that we are only a tiny part of a much larger story. These monumental confrontations move us emotionally as much as they do intellectually, evoking within us a sense of awe and wonder. Close Encounters at Box Spring Gallery and Carl Cheng: Nature Never Loses at the Institute of Contemporary Art both ask us to consider our position within the cosmos, drawing attention to the fragility of our existence and the complicated ecosystems in which we live. Turning inward, allow yourself to be nourished by Ann Wehrwein’s Tender Ground at Pentimenti, where she renders quiet moments of everyday life with layers of color and care.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in February 2025”
Judy Pfaff has never played by the rules—her art bends them, her teaching breaks them, and her career is proof she never needed them. A MacArthur “Genius” who reshaped installation art, she has spent five decades throwing order out the window in favor of energy, movement, and sheer creative force. That ethos is on full display at Art Cake in Brooklyn, where Pfaff and three former students have reunited—not in a classroom, but as equals in a space that refuses to sit still.
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In her latest exhibition, Emergent Strategies: In Defense of Weeds, Kariann Fuqua invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with the natural world—specifically the wild plants we so often dismiss as nuisances. Through a collection of drawings, photographs and found objects gathered from her acre of land in Mississippi, Fuqua examines the ecological and cultural narratives tied to “weeds,” challenging the capitalist obsession with control that underpins the American lawn.
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Jim Condron’s exhibition at the New York Studio School, curated by Karen Wilkin, continues his consistently thoughtful Collected Things series, inviting viewers to see everyday objects as vessels of personal and cultural memory. The sculptures, varying in size from around 20 to 96 inches, playfully transform seemingly ordinary items into layered narratives that bring unexpected elements together.
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Alternative worlds abound, collide, and gravitate in a transfixing lineup that is circumspect of the new year and ruminations of what lies ahead. Unique in presentation, yet united in exploring the vulnerabilities of coexistence amidst a delicate balance, their clandestine orbits intersect and align around the precarity of humanity. Shape-shifting, portals, relics, and worlds collide and mystify in alchemical formulations. As our planet spins on an axis beyond human capacity, one can find solace and pleasure in the mystery and adventure that awaits through these masterful and delightful odysseys of discovery. Michael Brennan and Matthew Deleget create pathways of knowledge through otherworldly means. David Dixon melds stories seamlessly that serve as portals into realms that might exist in such a world.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: Manhattan Exhibition in February 2025”
Katerina Lanfranco is a painter most known for her magical and fantastical colorful paintings. She recently embarked on a new challenge in her solo show Snowed-In, which is one of her most ambitious projects yet, as she let her viewers in on the process.
Continue reading “Snowed-In: Katerina Lanfranco at Sweet Lorraine”Installation view of Prayer / Pattern / Prayer
Prayer / Pattern / Prayer at Morgan Lehman offers a mesmerizing view of patterns as a deeply seated human instinct. Fittingly, a radial symmetry unfolds from the vertex of the L-shaped room. Yet curator Jan Dickey balances this evenness with a syncopated rhythm of paired artworks and bold standalone pieces. In creating a pattern of patterns, this show offers a metonymic view of artists running with different strands from the fabric of a species-wide impulse toward order and adornment.
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The fall 2024 New York art season spotlighted exhibitions by the Asian diaspora, with prominent showcases like NYU 80WSE’s Legacies, featuring 90 artists and collective of Asian descent working between the 1970s and 1990s, and AS/COA New York’s The Appearance, which highlighted 33 Asian artists working in the Americas. Alongside these institutional exhibitions, numerous solo, dual, and group presentations were hosted across commercial galleries, while new spaces like SK Gallery emerged to center Asian artists in their programming. Among these efforts, Nunu Fine Art New York launched “Project Space: Asian Voices,” a platform to elevate experimental artistic expressions from Asia and its diaspora.
Continue reading “Expanding Asian Voices: Alchemyverse Leads the Inaugural Exhibition at Nunu Fine Art’s Project Space”
During her time at Guttenberg Arts Residency (STAR), Eileen Ferara spent much time in the Gutten Garden, an urban community garden maintained by the organization. The plants—fruits we eat and companion plants we call weeds—became the focus of her drawings. She collected soil, seeds, and leaves, bringing bits of the garden into the studio to keep that connection alive. The Guttenberg Residency offers three months of access to professional workspaces for printmaking and ceramics. Eileen used goldenrod and indigo plants to dye paper for her prints. In the print shop, she worked through the process of stone lithography, gaining a hands-on understanding of the medium.