Thinking About Water on World Water Day

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Installation view

Think About Water (TAW) is a newly-formed collective of 28 international eco-artists and activists whose work addresses global water issues. The organization has scheduled its first exhibition, also called “Think About Water,” opened in commemoration of World Water Day. Originating in 1993, World Water Day celebrates water, calls attention to the 2.2 billion people around the world without access to clean water, and urges individuals to become engaged in efforts to combat the global water crisis. Similarly, the goal of TAW and its member artists is to “interpret, celebrate, and defend water.” 

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Painting the Narrative at the National Arts Club

In Dialogue with Dee Shapiro

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Installation view

In the group exhibition Painting the Narrative at the National Arts Club in New York City the artist Dee Shapiro brings together six contemporary artists who explore content and form of narrative painting ranging from interiors to landscapes, personal to imagined, realistic to fantastic. Featured artists: Jennifer Coates, Laura Karetzky, Judith Linhares, Ernesto Renda, Kyle Staver, and George Towne. The show runs through June 28th.

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Leslie Kerby: Happy Place Project

Art Spiel Photo Story

In early February, the bleakness of winter got to the New York City based artist Leslie Kerby. She decided to reach out to friends near and far, as she had done during lockdown, this time asking them to send photos of the places around their house where they were able to find some solitude. She contacted everyone individually which opened up possibilities for longed for exchange. To her delight she received many beautiful photos. It took her a couple of days to figure out how she would paint from them. Ultimately, she decided on watercolor, acrylic, and mixed media collage on vellum, which enabled painting on both sides, while letting the light in. “It was a gift to visit with everyone in their home. A testament to the value of human connection,” she says.

 NEW LINK to whole project

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Art Heals: LAZZARO_art doesn’t sleep

In Dialogue with Laura Mega

Laura Mega is wearing one of the 20 limited edition surgical masks she created. All proceeds went to Feeding America for Covid-19 emergency aide.

Laura Mega is an Italian visual artist based in Rome and New York. As everything around her in Rome became sad and empty when Europe was hit by Covid-19, she felt the need to connect with the outside world through the language she is most familiar with, art. As all the museums and galleries were closed, she thought —what if I video project the art outside, connecting people trapped at home around the world? In Laura Mega’s mind, ideas have no value if there is no one who believes and supports them. Her international project Art Heals, presented by LAZZARO_art doesn’t sleep, is a video projection exhibition offering an element of brief happiness. 

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Belonging to P.A.D. (Project Art Distribution)

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“Popular Jewelry” featuring Arkadiy Ryabin, Johanna Stroebel, Clarissa Hurst, and Ann Treesa Joy, on September 26, 2020, photo credit to Adam Golfer, image courtesy of P.A.D.

The artist-run Project Art Distribution (better known as P.A.D. or @project_art_distribution on Instagram) hosts day-long outdoor exhibitions on versatile packing 72”x80” pads. Set up in Soho, one of New York’s art and retail hubs, the padded surfaces become the metaphorical and physical exhibition space of the usual pristine white cube galleries. Unlike the current Soho rental clientele of luxury brands and gallery spaces, P.A.D. has no walls. Lacking barriers in more than one way, the sidewalk gallery provides the public, the artists, the curators, and the organizational collaborators a welcomed openness to art and discussion. The project creates an ongoing network that ever-expands its community.

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Joyce Yamada: Contemplating the Human Species


Joyce Yamada, Portrait, 2019, photo courtesy of Nila Onda

Painter Joyce Yamada grew up on the west coast. She spent her childhood vacations in the beautiful national parks of the US and Canada where pristine forests and the Pacific coast were imprinted in her visual memory. She recalls that although as a teenager she realized that art is her task in life, struggling to survive by minimum wage work led her to medical school which she completed and then subsequently became a diagnostic radiologist. This science background has fed her mind and artwork ever since. Yamada says she is a painter because she conceptualizes in images rather than in words — “when puzzled, my mind juxtaposes or fuses unexpected images, often leading to new work,” she says. For instance, an early series, Body, Earth, came to her in art school — while looking at the hills across the bay from San Francisco she saw the low rounded hills as the reclining body of a woman. The juxtaposed imagery meant to her that we are intimately and indivisibly part of earth and of nature, that what we do to the earth we do to ourselves. She has subsequently seen this idea expressed in indigenous cultures, and it became central in her work.

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“FLUX : Vita Mutata” virtual on Sculptors Alliance

In Dialogue with Marco Palli


Marco Palli, 2020 at his studio in Kent CT, with “The Origins of Sculpture” Photo by Sandra Cafarelli

The online sculpture exhibition “FLUX : Vita Mutata” curated by Natsuki Takauji and hosted by the veteran non-for-profit artists’ cooperative Sculptors Alliance, features seventeen artists who display works made before the pandemic, throughout the closure, and beyond. The Sculptors Alliance president, Marco Palli. shares with Art Spiel how the show evolved, and how his organization transformed throughout the pandemic, while offering us a generous peek behind the scenes.

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Georgia Lale


Georgia Lale, “3”, 2020, performance, photo by Petros Lales

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Georgia Lale is Greek visual artist with Anatolian heritage, based in New York City. She received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, NYC, and her BFA from the Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece. She is the recipient of several awards and fellowships. Her work has been shown internationally in Berlin, Venice, Brussels, Izmir, and Athens, among others. She has presented her work in major performance festivals, such as the Venice International Performance Art Week and Nuit Blanche Festival in Brussels. Lale’s work has been exhibited in the New York City area, including Smack Mellon, Shiva Gallery, and The Hole. She has been invited to talk about her work by Yale University, the Dedalus Foundation, and MoMA. Her public performance #OrangeVest was presented at the Greek Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale.

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Priscilla Dobler Dzul

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Priscilla Dobler Dzul, The Performance of Labor, Class, Race and Gender, 2020. Artist interviewing migrant workers. Photo courtesy Rebecca Dobler-Chale

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Born in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, Priscilla Dobler Dzul, is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, ceramic, film, fiber arts, and performance. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has shown at A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; The Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA; Consulate of Mexico, Seattle, WA; NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY; 125 Maiden Lane, NYC, NY; Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, WA; Form and Concept, Santa Fe, NM; The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA; Decentered Gallery, Puebla, Mexico, and DAC Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 

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Americans Looking In at The Center for Book Arts

In Dialogue with Emilie Ahern and Sherri Littlefield


The curators, Emilie Ahern (left) and Sherri Littlefield (right), stand in the exhibition space among the works from Americans Looking In. Photo credit: Andrew Littlefield

In the thought-provoking group show Americans Looking In at the Center for Book Arts the curators Emilie Ahern and Sherri Littlefield explore what it means to be “American” mostly through media such as photography, book art, sculpture and prints. Their personal experience of coming from multicultural backgrounds and growing up in the States has prompted them to ask the question – What is American culture today, and what does an American look like?

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