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Katie Hector & Ernesto Renda: on East & West Coast exhibitions

In conversation
Ernesto Renda and Katie Hector in their studios. Images courtesy of the artists.

Ernesto Renda and I first met on the internet, as more and more artists do. A follow turned into likes, which developed into mutual curiosity and respect for each other’s practice. Renda, who lives in New York, and I in Los Angeles, kept in touch for months, viewing miniature backlit versions of the other’s work while each suspecting there was more than met the eye. As fate would have it, Renda’s solo exhibition, The Moment of Truth, opened at Moskowitz Bayse in Los Angeles; subsequently, my solo exhibition, EGO RIP, opened at Management in New York City two weeks later. Viewing the work in person was enlightening and generated conversations around material play, intuition, and the verisimilitude of our subjects. These brief yet poignant chats inspired us to pose the questions below from the perspective of one visual practitioner to another.

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This Bitter Earth: Deborah Wasserman at Kuma Lisa

Photo Story
Deborah Wasserman, Rubble, 2021, ink and acrylic on paper, 28″ x35.5″

Rubble, mutated crop fields, floods, scorched earth, and occasional female figures floating or submerged unfold throughout the sixteen landscape paintings in Deborah Wasserman’s current solo show, The Bitter Earth at Kuma Lisa. Though the paintings differ in scale and media—from small acrylic and oil on panels to larger acrylic, oil, and stained clothes on canvas to medium-sized works on paper—they all share the sense of a world where multiple perspectives from different vantage points co-exist. Wasserman’s energetic strokes and searching lines create a rhythmic movement upward, downward, and sideways—reminiscent of the fluidity in Chinese and Japanese calligraphic scroll paintings and the clear, directional lines of a hand-drawn map. These linear dynamos intertwine with a palette of earthy tones, greens, yellows, oranges, blues, reds, and pure blacks, creating multiple vignettes within a layered landscape.

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Among Friends

In Conversation
Co Curators of Among Friends, 2018, 2019, 2022

In the summer of 2017, Beth Dary and Patricia Fabricant visited the Museum of Modern Art to see the Robert Rauschenberg show Among Friends. As they were looking at the exhibition, they separated and later found each other at the installation of Hiccups, which consisted of ninety-seven sheets of handmade paper with original Xerox transfer collages zipped together. “At that moment, we both had the same thought—we could hand out zipper papers to our friends to create a great collaborative show,” they recall. Patty had been simultaneously talking with Alexandra Rutsch Brock, who was similarly inspired by Hiccups and had even gone so far as purchasing some zippers. They reached out to their friend groups, and it took off from there. “We had no idea how it would turn out, but we knew it would be a fun adventure,” the co-curators say. Since this art project initiative started during the Trump administration, when women’s rights were under attack. it was important for them to include a charitable component such as Planned Parenthood.

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Transgressing Lands at the Boiler

Hot AIR
Transgressing Lands: Eleven Contemporary Artists Reimagine a Horizon Installation View. Photo: Martin Seck

The current group exhibition at The Boiler | ELM Foundation, Transgressing Lands, curated by A.E. Chapman, features work by Jeannine Bardo, Nancy Cohen, Cristina de Gennaro, Deborah Jack, Natalie Moore, Itty S. Neuhaus, Nazanin Noroozi, Lina Puerta, Corinne Teed, Elizabeth Velazquez, and Letha Wilson, who interpret the horizon’s role as a foundational element for understanding our place in the world. The artists confront pressing issues—preserving landscapes under threat, the ramifications of climate change, the realities of displacement and conflict, the significance of mindfulness, challenging colonial legacies, and the ever-present cycles of destruction and rejuvenation. Chapman’s direction for the exhibition invites viewers to engage with how landscapes can anchor us in the present moment and our collective history.

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Transformation at Socrates Sculpture Park

In Dialogue
‘Desire Lines’ by Stefania Urist. Image by Alexa Hoyer. Courtesy of Socrates Sculpture Park.

Founded in 1986 by artists, activists, and community members, Socrates Sculpture Park transformed an abandoned landfill into a cultural cornerstone in Queens, New York. This dual-purpose venue serves both as a public park and an exhibition space for contemporary art, targeting early- and mid-career artists. Occupying five waterfront acres, Socrates provides a unique platform for artistic expression and public engagement, offering free access to a civic space amidst the urban environment.

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Ceramics+ Drawing Into Sculpture at LIC

photo story
A colorful paper ball with barbed wire Description automatically generated with medium confidence
Sok Song,- SoNoBe: Legermain Barbed and Coiled. Clay, paper, plastic, 16”x16”x16”.2023, Me, Mom, and the War on Identity. Acrylic, screen print, collage on paper, 36”x28” 2023 ( on wall)

The Long Island City Artists, an art non-profit known as LIC-A, is currently presenting a bold exhibition that brings together artists who work simultaneously in two media not always thought of as compatible. Curator Matt Nolen has gathered a fascinating group of artists from the NYC metropolitan area who work in both clay and drawing–one influencing and bouncing off the other. The synthesis is a fascinating and genre-bending exhibition.

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At the Limits: Elena Dahn at Revolver

Dahn Performance

Thin, translucent layers of shaped and stretched natural latex are mounted onto walls or wooden boards to extend the limits of painting—these are Elena Dahn’s New Bodies, on view at the Buenos Aires-based artist’s first New York exhibition. Hosted by Revolver, a contemporary art venue launched in 2008 by Giancarlo Scaglia in Lima and subsequently in Buenos Aires and on the Lower East Side, the exhibition is an invitation to rethink the relationship between body and painting, performance and mark-making, space and surface.

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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.

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Norte Maar’s CounterPointe10 – Sarah Pettitt and Shannon Harkins

Dance
From left to right: Shannon Harkins, Jaya Collins, and Rosalia Saver in Measures Other Than Duration, set design by Sarah Pettitt, photo by Julie Lemberger

The impetus for this series of conversations between a visual artist and a choreographer comes directly from my recent collaborative work with a choreographer as part of Norte Maar’s CounterPointe10. In this unique project a choreographer is paired with a visual artist to create together over two months a dance performance that integrates the two disciplines into a cohesive vision. Here is the conversation between artist Sarah Pettitt and choreographer Shannon Harkins.

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