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Showings in Four Dimensions

Showings in Four Dimensions (installation view L-R), Darius Yektai, Waiting For Death Or Slavery: After Delacroix, 2022, Elise Ansel, Celestial Lounge Chair, 2021, Darius Yektai, Untitled Falling Flowers, 2021 & Kyle Hittmeier Natural Le Coultre, 2022. Photo: AB NY Gallery

As soon as the formula codified that a contemporary artist could reach a new level of institutional engagement once they proclaimed their inspiration from generations of art historical masterpieces, the flood gates opened to practitioners solely deploying references to the canon to project their careers farther and faster. With encyclopedic museums refreshing their image by aligning themselves with the success of the contemporary art world’s darlings, by connecting their creative process to roots foregrounded in the rich mire of historical artworks, new publications and programming surfaced. Notably The Artist Project at The Metropolitan Museum of Art was launched in 2015, and most recently even the gilded age indulgence of The Frick Collection created their exhibition series Living Histories: Queer Views and Old Masters at their temporary home on Madison Avenue.

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Shirley Jaffe: An American Woman in Paris at the Pompidou Center

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Shirley Jaffe, installation view, Pompidou Center, photo courtesy of Helene Mauri

It might be said for the most part, given the dominant ideology of Modernism, Shirley Jaffe has been overlooked for the standard reasons—her work was out of step with the times, it was derivative of Henri Matisse and Stuart Davis, it was too French, or too American—all according to who you speak with. Yet the gorilla in the room is she was an American woman of the post-war generation who had stayed on after almost everyone had gone home, who sought to get a foothold in the male dominated Parisian art world. Despite this, she persisted and gained respect and support among multi-generations of artists. As such she developed a reputation as an artists’ artist, yet despite her boosters and the fact that she is now being acknowledged with a retrospective exhibition at the Pompidou, Jaffe remains one of the best kept secrets of post-War abstract painting in France and remains unacknowledged in the States.

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Pauline Decarmo: Exit – the Path to New Beginnings at LABspace


Installation view of Pauline Decarmo: Exit at LABspace, 2022, photo courtesy LABspace

Some artists paint stunning abstractions, some artists deftly execute exquisite realistic images, while others ingeniously develop astute conceptual work, but the truly magical art is work that can intelligently create the aura of time, space, and experience. Fortunately Pauline Decarmo, by using any means necessary, does exactly that in her exhibition, Exit, on view at LABspace in Hillsdale NY through May 29.

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MOD at Platform Project Space

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Installation view of MOD

To kick off the Dumbo Open Studios Weekend in late April, Platform Project Space opened MOD, a five person show commanding strong appeal, curated by Sharon Butler. As the title and press release indicate, modularity, modernism and mods, or modifications in contemporary gaming, are all potentially at play both in the individual works and together as an installation. Each artist’s contribution holds a single wall or area in a small room that’s comfortable, easy, and open. The formal language of color and shape is nuanced to suggest personal and organic qualities and intimate spaces. No mystery here. Instead, curiosity openly hovers in close examinations of the human touch, in the detail and care given to small moments.

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Not knowing is most intimate at Amos Eno


Nishiki Sugawara-Beda, Installation view of Somewhere Around There, 2022. Photo courtesy of Maggie Pavao

It is perhaps in this state of “not knowing” that we first encounter the works in artist Nishiki Sugawara-Beda’s current solo exhibition Somewhere Around There, on view at the Amos Eno gallery. The exhibition, which presents works from the artist’s KuroKuroShiro series (‘black-black-white’ in Japanese), features dynamic shapes in shaded monochrome that seem to alternately emerge and recede from view. Faced with this shifting visual field, the viewer gradually develops a kind of intimacy with these unknown forms, opening up new possibilities for interpretation and engagement.

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KATHY BUTTERLY AT JAMES COHAN GALLERY – COLOR IN FORMING

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Installation view

Staring at Kathy Butterly’s ceramic sculptures, I am overwhelmed by an urge to reach out and touch them. The marriage of color and form is perfectly wrought, shapes and colors inextricable yet sharply distinct. I want to trace my finger along that delicate whisper thin band of orange in Between Things, and feel the little bumps along the rim of Luminious Flow. I want to feel the change between matte and gloss surfaces and the weight of the sculpture in my hand. 

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Barbara Laube: Morning Has Broken at Gold/Scopophilia Montclair

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Barbara Laube, installation view


These works are a way of repairing, an offering and a form of prayer 
They are a way of making sense of my life my loves and beliefs
They are about questioning and the acceptance of not knowing
They reflect my inner and outer life 
 
They teach me and I follow
 
I cut up of old paintings, 
the macro has become micro
and past and present have merged
 
The familial and collective transitioning of the world 
Piecing together a loved one’s psyche
 
Think of them as a cat. I cannot know their mind
I can offer saucers of milk
 
The work is complete when it has transcended the materials and a new presence is born
They are alive and ever changing

-BL, 2021

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Where We Meet Ourselves at Yi Gallery

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Installation view: GJ Kimsunken, Figuration 21. 15, 2021, Oil on canvas; Debra Ramsay, Twilight & Dawn_ 2_3, Twilight & Dawn 9 3:1, Twilight and Dawn 4_9 3_1, 2021, Acrylic on cast acrylic 

The two-person show Where We Met Ourselves at Yi Gallery’s new space in Brooklyn’s Industry City, features abstract paintings and works on paper by Debra Ramsay and GJ Kimsunken. Both artists share a minimalist sensibility to painting and each of them explores in their own way notions of transcendent spaces through form and color. Although they both use reduced color palettes to create elegant and restrained abstractions which are subtle and luminous, their work is grounded in different traditions.

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Jim Condron and Ilse Sørensen Murdock – Toss at Platform Project Space

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Installation view, Jim Condron (front), Ilse Sorensen Murdock (back)

At first glance, Jim Condron’s whimsical sculptures and Sørensen Murdock’s landscape paintings are an unexpected match for a two-person exhibition. Yet, in Toss, the current show at Platform Project Space, artist and curator Elizabeth Hazan made it into an engaging duet. The show runs the gamut from landscape paintings on canvas to paintings and sculptures made of scavenged materials, but regardless of the used media, both artists prioritize color, texture, and composition.

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