Contemporary Art and Culture
An occult presence pervades the sylvan scenery of Comet Eater, a solo show from Terra Keck. In these nightswept graphite drawings, trees shimmer and sway. Leaves levitate and glow. Stars or fireflies illuminate ornate paths. Among other sources, Keck hybridizes the ghostly impressions of Anna Atkins’s botanical cyanotypes and the mystic geometry of Hilma af Klint’s paintings.
Continue reading “Comet Eater: Terra Keck at Storage”
Across the city, artists are focused on the meaning of visible labor and extracting the potential in the most innocent of found materials. Through unconventional mediums and reclaiming disregarded items like paper or rubber bands, artists are able to tap into universal experiences that inject value and sacredness into everyday objects. At PEEP Projects, Maria Ah Hyun constructs layered paper vessels to serve as ritual objects and gateways into cultural landscapes. Gabrielle Constantine transforms Blah Blah Gallery into a romantic archive of working class textures and sensibilities that honor the excesses of labor. Museum of Art and Wood presents the 2025 cohort for their Windgate Arts Residency program, inviting experimentation and individual perspectives in wood in A Plank in a Shipwreck.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in August 2025”
Almond Zigmund’s work occupies the charged space between structure and disruption. Moving fluidly across sculpture, painting, and installation, her practice explores the intersection of geometry, architecture, and lived experience—often in subtle yet powerful ways. I have the pleasure of discussing her work at the end of her recent exhibition at East Hampton’s Guild Hall. In this interview exchange, Zigmund speaks about the formative influences that shaped her, from growing up in a creative household to navigating the distinct geographies of Brooklyn, Las Vegas, and the East End of Long Island. The conversation delves into the improvisational roots of her approach, her ongoing engagement with spatial systems, and how tension—between control and spontaneity, place and perception, the built and the organic—continues to animate her work. With references to theorists, artists, Zigmund offers a thoughtful and richly textured account of how art can be both experiential and critical, formal and deeply human.
The Children’s Art Carnival presents Seed Bomb, an exhibition marking the 80th anniversary of the devastating atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Coinciding with this solemn milestone, the exhibition and its accompanying workshops take place in a deeply resonant location—Harlem, just blocks from Manhattanville, where research for the Manhattan Project was once conducted.
Continue reading “80th Anniversary of the USA-JAPAN Atomic Bombings: Sowing seeds for the future”
Beverly’s is well-known, amongst artists and locals alike, and has been a main fixture of the art community for years. Found on the Lower East Side, right on Grand Street, artists, gallery owners, writers, and curators come here to spend their time after their day is done. Beverly’s owner and creator, Leah Dixon, wanted to make this gallery space an opportunity to get thousands of eyes on work and thousands of conversations started. With their current exhibition, Sunrise, intertwined with the bar, there are many stories to be had.
Continue reading “Sunrise: the Tale of the Urban Cowboy at Beverly’s”
Seeing John Knuth’s exhibition, The Hot Garden, at Hollis Taggart’s new downtown outpost was wonderful, surreal, energetic, and unexpected. This is Knuth’s first major body of work following the devastating Eaton Fire in January 2025, which destroyed the artist’s home and archive. This exhibition gives us an opportunity to see fragments of the past and the birth or rebirth of something entirely new out of the ashes, embodying the quote in the press release from Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, writer and once Altadena resident, “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.”
Continue reading “John Knuth: The Hot Garden: Renewal and Regeneration from Catastrophe”
A person who can sit through a Survey of Art lecture set to a Leonard Cohen soundtrack while reading The Waves may be well equipped to navigate Emily Sundblad’s Adolescent Ocean. Personal history intermingles with cultural and art iconography, forming a tide of debris that floats to the surface in this show of collage-like, collective memory-dreams.
Continue reading “Emily Sundblad: The Adolescent Ocean at Bortolami”
There is a hidden gem on view at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City—an art book group show of 15 artists carefully curated by the directors and curators of Monira Foundation and Mana Contemporary. The exhibition unfolds across two rooms. In the first space, the viewer encounters a dimly lit room of suspended tables uniquely designed by Kele McComsey. On each table, there is a carefully curated display of artist books—a rare opportunity to view this uniquely expressive form of art. During the run of the show, the curators periodically shift some books, while others are welcome to be handled. This is an incredible opportunity to see artist books and experience their magic. Blurring the lines between book and sculpture, these magnetic art objects have always been a curatorial challenge. They are meant to be experienced, unlike most other art pieces.
Continue reading “Open Books at Mana Contemporary”
Vojislav Radovanović’s multidisciplinary practice spans painting, drawing, installation, video, and performance. His work touches upon themes of queerness, memory, the immigrant experience, spirituality, and the complex relationship between humans and the natural world. Influenced by his upbringing in Serbia during a time of war and social upheaval, Radovanović approaches art as a therapeutic space for healing and transformation. His process-driven works often combine recycled materials, vibrant color, and symbolic imagery to create poetic, emotionally resonant narratives. Through layered compositions and dreamlike logic, he invites viewers into a shared space of reflection, imagination, and emotional release.
Continue reading “Through the Kaleidoscope: Vojislav Radovanović on Dreams, Memory, and Finding Color in California”