Contemporary Art and Culture
The group exhibition titled Those Who Tend at the Warnes Contemporary in Brooklyn is an occasion in which 22 artists come together to celebrate their shared philosophy towards work and life. The title refers to the fact that all the artists here care for others in one form or another, whether they are parents of young children, grownups caring for their elderly parents, or supporting staff for people with disabilities.
Continue reading “Those Who Fulfill the Infinite Labor of Love”
Evidence of the Unexpected at The Crown Gallery in Bridgeport, Connecticut combines the work of four artists who approach figuration and narrative in different ways. This group show considers the role of spontaneity in the studio—how works emerge through instinct, experimentation, and chance. The paintings and sculptures in this exhibition take shape when artists engage deeply with their materials and uncover something unexpected along the way. Curator Jane Dávila tells us about the show.
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Artist Adriane Colburn lived in San Francisco for over twenty years. That time was formative—personally and creatively. At the same time, she maintained a consistent presence on the East Coast. She’s from Vermont and has always spent summers there, with a lasting connection to that part of New England and its relationship to the land.
Continue reading “Adriane Colburn: Seeing by Mapping”
Judith Simonian’s solo show at JJ Murphy Gallery, poignantly titled The Human Element, Huddled and Still, features her latest paintings from the past few years. At first glance, there is familiarity in each piece – a living room, a still life, part of a ship – but as one starts to look closer, something starts to happen. Within each painting, there is a portal into another world; there are clashing planes and changing scenes that are so seamlessly blended together the viewer’s brain needs some time to catch up. What is particularly astounding about Simonian’s work is that her subject matter is a humble amalgamation of scenes, spaces, and objects one would encounter in everyday life.
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For decades, Dona Nelson has dissolved the formal boundaries of painting: refusing to apply pigment to just one side of the canvas, mounting the stretchers of her double-sided paintings on freestanding metal stands, and letting them occupy gallery floors like sculptural interlopers. In her current two-person show with Andrew Ross at Thomas Erben Gallery, however, the painter has ceded the floor space entirely, anchoring her three new works squarely to the wall.
Continue reading “The Bone and Muscle: A Conversation with Dona Nelson”
It’s a rare joy to encounter immersive installations that truly activate space and affect the viewer both intellectually and viscerally. This spring, three standout New York exhibitions— Alicja Kwade at Pace, Anastasia Komar at Management, and Pierre Huyghe at Marian Goodman—do just that. Each exhibition envelops visitors in an environment that challenges the senses and pushes the boundaries of perception, while decentering the human’s place within it: Komar contemplates the primordial origins of life and the interconnectedness of all living things; Huyghe imagines a collaborative ecology where humans, animals, machines, and artificial intelligence co-create new realities; and Kwade abstracts away the human almost entirely, leaving behind only our systems for measuring and making as the scaffolding for a parallel, perhaps post-human world.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks NYC: Decentering the Human—Or at Least Trying To”
The North Dakota Museum of Art’s latest exhibition, Guy Nelson: Tales from the Understory, is a multidisciplinary solo show focused on the woodlands and prairies of the upper Midwest. Featuring sculpture, painting and video, the exhibition will be on display through July 20, 2025. This exhibition marks the tenth in the Museum’s Art Makers Series, an annual award for artists with connections to the region, which is underwritten by Dr. William F. Wosick of Fargo.
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Wherever I Lay My Head, now on view at The Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning , began with an invitation to Indira A. Abiskaroon to curate the culminating ARTWorks exhibition. The offer came from Program Manager Sherwin Banfield and was formalized in conversation with Director of Program Operations Wendy Arimah Berot. Abiskaroon’s first priority was to spend time with the ARTWorks Fellows—to learn how their practices had developed over the course of the program and to hear what ideas had been resonating in their weekly sessions.
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Terra Keck and Jan Dickey caught up with artist Weihui Lu a couple of weeks after she completed a residency at Wave Hill in the Bronx. At the time, Weihui was reflecting on that experience while also preparing for her current solo show, when there is no longer a danger of frost, at Tempest Gallery in Ridgewood, Queens. An installation artist with roots in Chinese landscape painting, Weihui continues to explore impermanence, a delicate and sparing use of material, and humankind’s relationship to the natural environment. Her installation at Tempest draws its source material from an aging greenhouse she spent time contemplating during her residency at Wave Hill—understood as a physical embodiment of human systems of care, including their inevitable collapse and repair.
Continue reading “Being There, with Weihui Lu”
Upon entering this exhibition, I was taken to the wall pieces immediately, especially the use of vibrantly colored embroidery string mimicking paint strokes on the canvas. Art historical references and connections are very prevalent in the works of this exhibit. It was refreshing to see this conversation of the painting canon being brought up in a contemporary light by the use of this novel medium. Amer’s love and interest in the history of painting is apparent, and her works show art historical influences intertwined with intuition and a strong painterly hand that is present despite there being no paint in the show.
Continue reading “Ghada Amer: New Directions and Disobedient Thoughts at Marianne Boesky Gallery”