Contemporary Art and Culture
During the slow and hot month of August, Art still thrives through ChaShaMa in unexpected places around midtown. ChaShaMa – a nonprofit organization that provides studio and exhibition spaces for artists in midtown real estate and other venues throughout the five boroughs – empowers unique and surprising opportunities for installations across the City.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: Midtown Exhibitions in August 2024”
This August in Philly, there are some unexpected gems in what is a typically quieter art season. If you want to experience artwork that recasts the familiar in fantastical ways, spend time at Paradigm Gallery + Studio in Old City with Megan Rea’s reimaginings of Italian frescos. North of the city, at the Woodmere Art Museum, the 82nd Annual Juried Exhibition showcases exceptional Philadelphia artists meditating on what it means to “belong.” Finally, the Institute of Contemporary Art in University City presents an emotionally intense video and photography installation by Polish artist Joanna Piotrowska.
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Jan Dickey moved to New York City during the pandemic by way of Hawaiʻi, where he completed his MFA from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. In New York, he has shown his paintings at My Pet Ram, D.D.D.D., and Below Grand gallery among other locations. Recently he completed a materials-based residency at the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation (2023) and this interview seeks to delve deeper into his unique use of hand-mixed natural painting mediums like rabbit skin glue, casein, egg tempera, and oil paint. Currently he has an exhibition of new work at Bob’s Gallery, an experimental space in Bushwick: “The Generations” on through August 18th, 2024. Dickey is also the newest member of Artcake, an art center in Sunset Park that provides artists with affordable studio spaces and artistic programming.
Continue reading “Jan Dickey with Amanda Millet-Sorsa”
German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker, born in 1876, is relatively unknown in the United States. This is quite surprising, considering she painted the first nude self-portraits known to have been made by a woman. Many of these audacious portraits capture her own pregnancy—another first among Western women artists, paving the way for later figures like Alice Neel. Modersohn-Becker’s portraits of women spanning all ages—bold in their composition, subtle in their detail, and utterly present—strike a powerful note throughout the first major retrospective of her art in the United States, curated by Jill Lloyd at the Neue Galerie New York, and fittingly titled Ich bin Ich / I Am Me.
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August is the height of summer and a great time to see art. The city is quieter and less crowded (I went to the First Friday openings and actually got to talk to people AND look at the art!) and the satellite exhibitions throughout the region are exceptional. Museums and galleries continue to host dynamic summertime events and there’s still a calendar full of community festivals and block parties that will highlight some of Boston’s most talented artists. Here are a few shows to have on your radar as you travel in and around the Boston area this month.
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Summer 2024 shows in Lower East Side galleries offer many super solo and group exhibitions. We will highlight three that range from an inaugural show at a new NYC flagship gallery, a solo show of a veteran NYC artist, and a group show of Eastern European artists. That Dog in Me at Jupiter Gallery is a solo exhibition featuring seven new paintings by Travis Fish, who continues their exploration of fandom. Susan Eley Fine Art features the work of the late artist James Moore (1938 – 2013) in the second posthumous exhibition, Something Beautiful Happened. The group show at Marc Straus features Eastern European artists of the post-communist era and their responses to the rapid acceleration of technological development.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: Lower East Side in July 2024”
In 2012, the Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts introduced a one-of-a-kind residency program dedicated to the art of paint. Situated in the heart of central New York, mere steps from the Golden Artist Colors manufacturing facility, a 19th-century barn was transformed into a space that seamlessly blends history and modernity. It offers spacious studios and private apartments, providing a haven for artists to engage with materials and technologies that define contemporary artistic practice. The Golden Foundation Residency Program is a deliberate endeavor to aid professional artists in their quest to explore and master innovative materials and techniques. Each year, the Foundation hosts six Exploratory Residency Sessions, each lasting four weeks and accommodating three artists at a time.
Continue reading “The Sam & Adele Golden Foundation Auction’24: Dedicated to the Art of Paint “
Veteran, age-defying, feminist artist Judith Braun’s exhibit, I’m Bad, opened on June 28 in a pristine, Victorian-era brownstone that doubles as Kiddie Pool, a residential project space in downtown Albany, NY. As contemporary contronym phrases go, I’m Bad conjures a sense that exemplifies Braun as a person and her body of work. Through decades whether it was as a generation-defining member of the lower east side collaborative Group Material, where she created Pussy Works, as part of the seminal 1988 show, Democracy: Cultural Participation to exquisitely painted angels to her current exhibit that includes new monumental collages at Kiddie Pool, Braun consistently challenges and baits the status quo with unbridled glee.
Continue reading “Judith Braun’s, I’m Bad at Kiddie Pool is So Good”
In Justin Natividad’s current exhibition Sweet Heat, carefully cropped studies of the male form serve as a pretext for the artist’s meticulous observations of light and shadow. More specifically, how they play across the delicate, vulnerable corners of the body in the peak of summer. Observed through a nostalgic lens for the golden hours of summer, sunlight bounces off the smooth surfaces of a pectoral muscle, a protruding rib, a collarbone, and ricochets across the figure towards the viewer.
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The rise of larger mega galleries and art fairs in NYC marks the end of the intimate, clubby world of established gallerists. Tom Fitzgibbon, artist and co-founder of the art hub Icebox4 in Brooklyn, reflects on this shift: “Back in the day, I could walk into OK Harris and watch Ivan Karp playing poker in a smoke-filled back room or meet Robert Miller’s family at their Manhattan residence. Now it’s big money all the time, except for some smaller galleries like Karma, Steven Harvey, James Fuentes, and others keeping it grounded.”
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