mental health – Art Spiel

October 22, 2025October 28, 2025, by Jessica Aguilar

Art Spiel Picks: Philadelphia Exhibitions in October 2025

HIGHLIGHTS

Clay as Care Installation view. Photo by The Clay Studio

Just as a solitary action can cause a ripple effect, the sharing of unique ideas can inspire and transform existing systems to include and support different communities. The exhibitions this month demonstrate genuine curiosity and meaningful activation, leading to a trend of revisionist histories in art, institutional displays, or familial archives. Curators Jennifer Zwilling and Nicole Pollard reinvent how gallery exhibitions should be interacted with and ask the question of how clay can assist in caring for mental health at The Clay Studio. Artists Mahsa Attaran, Monica Hamilton, Hanieh Kashani, and Anna Schwartz create a language to describe the power of memory as they mine through personal photographs and materials at Automat Collective. Calero Rodríguez establishes her own History of Art, incorporating Latino, Afro, and Carribean imagery in masterly assembled collages at Taller Puertoriqueño.

June 12, 2025June 9, 2025, by Etty Yaniv

Matthew Wong – Vincent van Gogh: Painting as a Last Resort at Albertina

Matthew Wong: The Space Between Trees, 2019, 60 × 50 cm, Oil on canvas (Collection of Judith and Danny Tobey © 2025 Matthew Wong Foundation / Bildrecht Vienna, 2025)ץ Photo: Matthew Wong Foundation

Matthew Wong and Vincent van Gogh shared more than a self-taught path into painting. Both began relatively late, worked in compressed time spans, and turned to painting as a lifeline. The superb exhibition Painting as a Last Resort, now on view at the Albertina Museum in Vienna, brings their work into intimate and revealing dialogue. The exhibition presents approximately 44 paintings and 12 works on paper by Wong alongside a smaller selection by van Gogh. Organized in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Kunsthaus Zürich, and the Matthew Wong Foundation, the exhibition gives Wong space to be seen on his own terms. His paintings feel jittery, open, and emotionally charged.

April 26, 2020April 26, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Anki King

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

A person sitting posing for the camera

Description automatically generated — Anki King courtesy of Grace Roselli. Image was taken as a part of Pandoras Box Project

Anki King creates oil paintings and sculptures of life-sized figures that act as symbols for feelings that can’t be accurately described in words. The viewers meeting with the figure frees the narrative from being contained within subject matter and brings it into the viewing space.