New York – Page 6

April 12, 2024March 29, 2024, by Hovey Brock

Tatiana Arocha: Mama Coca

Hot Air

*Hojas en movimiento sobre el fuego [Leaves in motion over the fire]*, 2023. Soft Ground etching on Hahnemühle and pigment print on Kozo paper, hand-painted with acrylic. Triptych, each 35 1/4 x 26 1/2 inches. Photograph by Etienne Frossard

Tatiana Arocha is a Brooklyn-based artist whose practice has focused on installations that include rubbings, photographs, and drawings of plants and landscapes taken from the many ecological niches of her native Colombia. Increasingly, her art and advocacy have focused on the coca plant, notorious for its role in the war on drugs, which has destroyed indigenous communities and their territories across South America. Informed by her research, her current installations and publications highlight the coca plant’s ceremonial role in the indigenous cultures that cultivate it, pushing back on the demonization it has endured in the West. Her work also suggests new avenues for how the plant can be a force for good in the Global North and South.

March 20, 2024March 18, 2024, by Art Spiel

Aliens R Us: Dasha Bazanova at Space 776

In Dialogue

*installation view at Space 776 Gallery, photo courtesy of the artist*

In her first solo show at Space 776, Dasha Bazanova’s oil paintings and ceramic sculptures engage with the theme of “alien” from various angles: the cultural alienation intrinsic to her Russian roots and her identity as an “alien” in the United States. She draws upon the 1970s, a period rich with alien conspiracy theories tying these themes to our present. The exhibition includes ceramic sculptures of Russian grandmothers, standing as symbols of endurance amid the aftermath of calamities and prompting contemplation on the legacy of alienation across generations. Bazanova elaborates here on the body of work in her show.

February 2, 2024December 6, 2024, by Jennifer McGregor

Hedwig Brouckaert / Peel / Examining the Layers

page1image26131280 — *Peel (Flowering)* 2023 paper on ceramic tiles 77 ½” x 5’ x 1” Photography by Michael Hnatov

Peel (America), a new series by Hedwig Brouckaert, which was supported by a Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation Grant, embodies a significant evolution of her practice that integrates life-defining experiences. The title suggests removing a protective coating which is integral to the artist’s physical process and emotional journey of making the work. Peel (America) is on view at Project: ARTspace, 99 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, from December 19, 2023 to February 20, 2024.

February 1, 2024February 1, 2024, by Noa Charuvi

Blue As An Orange

The mysterious elevator door facing the busy corner of Broadway and Canal takes you to the vast and brightly lit space of Ulterior Gallery, which is currently presenting Keren Benbenisty’s second solo show with the gallery titled Tristeza II. A continuation of a 2021 show by Benbenisty, named after the same lethal virus that infects citrus trees, comprises a series of new works in various media. At the center is a 14-minute video narrating the artist’s attempt at cultivating a blue orange, a project she has been occupied with for the past several years: The bluranj, as she named it, or Tapuchol, from the Hebrew word for orange, “Tapuz” and blue, “Kachol”. The video takes us through footage from her visits to an Israeli agricultural research institute, where she met with scientists who specialize in grafting new citrus species. They questioned her ambition – why a blue orange? Benbenisty does not offer a logical explanation but rather a poetic one. The works in the exhibition tell her personal story and provide a window into the larger narrative of the region.

December 7, 2023December 24, 2023, by Xuezhu Jenny Wang

The Immigrant Artist Biennial, In Dialogue

Maya Hayuk and Kathie Halfin Discuss Ukrainian Heritage and Identity

Still from Kathie Halfin’s performance *Body, Land, and Water* at *Enmeshed, Dreams of Water* on October 6, 2023. Photographed by flaneurshan. studio. Courtesy of The Immigrant Artist Biennial.

Having forced nearly one-third of Ukrainians to flee their homes as of 2022, the Russo-Ukrainian War has been a potent reminder of the absolute necessity to uphold peace, justice, and international solidarity in times of humanitarian crisis. Both being part of The Immigrant Asrtist Biennial 2023, Maya Hayuk and Kathie Halfin are artists who are inspired and empowered by their shared Ukrainian identity and heritage. Hayuk’s processes involve “set and setting,” mapping, and traditional design techniques, which is echoed by Kathie Halfin’s performance and hand-woven tapestry shown at Enmeshed: Dreams of Water. Together with TIAB’s writer-in-residence Xuezhu Jenny Wang, they speak about how their art grows out of cultural and political convictions.

November 20, 2023November 20, 2023, by Xuezhu Jenny Wang

The Immigrant Artist Biennial, In Dialogue

Sanié Bokhari and Umber Majeed Discuss the Forbidden

Sanié Bokhari. It’s 11.49 pm here, 2022. 36 x 48 in. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and The Immigrant Artist Biennial.

As part of The Immigrant Artists Biennial: Contact Zone, Sanié Bokhari, and Umber Majeed present their work in the Enmeshed: Dreams of Water group exhibition. As artists of Pakistani descent currently residing in the US, both Bokhari and Majeed tap into the changing landscape of globalization and the unstable experience of international migrants’ identity formation. Evoking water as a symbol of fluidity and change, Bokhari’s painting and Majeed’s video deploy a metaphoric framing that is beautiful and complex. In this conversation with Jenny Wang, they critically reflect on the geopolitics of belonging and identity.

November 15, 2023September 17, 2023, by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand

The Immigrant Artist Biennial- In Dialogue

Art as Political Vehicle? Pritika Chowdhry, Marcelo Brodsky, and Rafael Yaluff

Marcelo Brodsky. *1968, Fire of Ideas. Kingston, 1968*. 60 x 90 in. Overwritten photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Henrique Faria Fine Art.

Exhibiting in Conflictual Distance at EFA Project Space within the framework of The Immigrant Artist Biennial: 2023 Contact Zone Pritika Chowdhry, Marcelo Brodsky, and Rafael Yaluff explores, in Oraib Toukan’s formulation, ‘cruel images.’ Images that contain evidence of political and bodily violence but are confronted at an extreme political or geographic distance from their events’ site of occurrence. Together with the artists, co-curator Anna Mikaela Ekstrand discusses the politics of art and how the artists approach personal histories and historical and political events before the exhibit.

October 22, 2023October 22, 2023, by Art Spiel

Anna Shukeylo at James Howe Gallery at Kean

Featured artist

A person holding a child in front of a painting

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The solo exhibition Reflections in James Howe Gallery at Kean University features Anna Shukeylo’s latest body of work from 2022- 2023. Shukeylo has always combined in her artwork private, autobiographical moments inter-spliced with imagined elements. Since becoming a mother, she has documented and deeply explored in her paintings and drawings the chaotic routine of early parenthood, including her attempts to balance her art career and the day-to-day rigors of two toddlers.

October 15, 2023October 15, 2023, by Xuezhu Jenny Wang

The Immigrant Artist Biennial – In Dialogue

Dreams and Rituals: Mia Enell, Chiarina Chen, and Jamie Martinez

When does rational agency relinquish its control over the human psyche? In poetic dreams? During nightmares? Or during meditative rituals? In their work, Mia Enell, Chiarina Chen, and Jamie Martinez explore how meaning is derived from out-of-the-ordinary experiences.

Enell, whose work will be exhibited in Excavated Selves: Becoming Magic Bodies, approaches image-making “with humor and a surrealist bent.” Bodies transformed into vibrant geometries as “a proxy for survival” seem simultaneously physical and non-physical in her work. Chen, an independent curator whose workshop Heal Me Through Your Nightmare will take place on October 22nd, grounds her practice on exploring posthumanism and proposes a collective reconsideration of relationships—with oneself, others, and society. Participating in the group show Enmeshed: Dreams of Water, Colombian-U.S. artist Martinez taps into his creative process through intuitive inquiries that are spiritual and ritualistic. He speaks about the encounter with transcendental artistic guidance by opening up to what’s beyond one’s faculties.

As part of The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Contact Zone, the three creatives come together with Xuezhu Jenny Wang, TIAB’s writer-in-residence, to discuss the intangible and the inexplicable: dreams, rituals, bodies, and metaphysical relations.

October 9, 2023October 2, 2023, by Art Spiel

Armita Raafat: Traces and Silences at High Noon

Featured Artist

*Untitled, 2023,* resin, Styrofoam, paper mache, subway tiles, mirror, fabric, mesh, acrylic, and Sumi ink 58” x 41” x 7”, photo courtesy Max Yawney

In Traces and Silences, exhibited at High Noon Gallery in New York, Armita Raafat showcases multimedia sculptures and handmade paper works. By blending elements like the historic Muqarnas from Islamic architecture with subway tiles from her current base in New York, Raafat offers a juxtaposition that liberates and challenges traditional associations of these materials. Here, the artist elaborates on the insights behind this body of work.