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Art Spiel in Dialogue with Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen
The process of calculating one’s position, 2019 (Installation view with works by Niklas Asker and Sophie Dupont). Photo courtesy: NARS Foundation
Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen has curated The process of calculating one’s position at NARS Foundation.This group show features NARS 2019 season IV residency artists: Esther Hovers, Niklas Asker, Jiin You, Tavi Meraud, Fiona McGurk, Dominique Doroseau, Martin Vongrej, Joonhong Min, Ella Weber, Martin Désilets, Sophie Dupont and Tali Keren. It runs through December 13th. The curator shares with Art Spiel the ideas behind the show, the artists, and a bit about the NARS Foundation venue.
Ebecho Muslimova, Fatebe Deep Frog Organza, 2019, oil and acrylic on cavas, 60” x 66”, courtesy of Magenta Plains
Human civilization has always maintained an uneasy relationship with female monstrosity—just watch the cavalcade of sirens, witches, harpies and hags that stalk the perimeters of every major mythology on earth, luring hapless men to their deaths. This hyper-visible, oft-storied, but deeply erasive marginalization has long plagued the non-normative woman; however, there’s a certain freedom in the fringes. Take Baubo, the Orphic goddess of chaos and mirth, whose paunchy, wizened appearance belied a frisky bawdiness that ancient Greeks adored. Ebecho Muslimova’s ‘Fatebe’ character, whom she has been drawing since 2011 and features vivaciously in her latest solo exhibition, TRAPS!, at Magenta Plains, New York, builds on Baubo’s cultural legacy with appropriately grotesque panache, taking a wide-eyed, manic approach to the tandem joys and pitfalls of embodiment.
Elise Ferguson. Pebble. Pigmented plaster on MDF panel, 2018. Photo courtesy of Able Baker.
“Wisdom was the feeling for what is high, great, broad, sharp, even, heavy, bright, light, colorful . . . Wisdom was the feeling for an essentially shared reality, for the mystical, for the indeterminate indeterminable, for the greatest determinacy of all . . . but art is reality, and the reality we share must assert itself beyond all particularity.” Hans Arp, Introduction to a Catalogue
Yolande Heijnen was born and raised in Luxembourg, and has lived in New York since 1998. She has an MFA in painting from the New York Studio School, has won the Edward G. McDowell Travel Grant of the Art Students League, and is a three-time recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant.
Installation view of NEW THICK. Image courtesy of The Royal
Katie Hector is an artist, curator, and writer whose work is currently featured in New Thick at The Royal @ RSOAA . a group exhibition she has also co-curated with Barry Hazard at this dynamic venue for curatorial projects in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In this Art Spiel interview, Katie Hector elaborates on New Thick, her current show, and the premise behind the RSOAA venue.
The roots of a tuft of wild grass pulled up from the ground form an intriguing network of living fibers, interlaced with earth. This tenacious nest is a fitting visual for the perennial phenomena of women’s grass roots art collectives found around the world. Springing forth in the ‘70s collectives such as SOHO20, Artemisia, Women’s Building, Guerilla Girls, Las Damas de Arte, and WARM have provided support and opportunities for women not otherwise readily available in the staunchly patriarchic art world. In the subsequent decades women’s art collectives have proven to be a fertile, popular and diverse multi-purpose force, although unfortunately mainstream institutions have under-acknowledged their impact. Art Historian Kathleen Wentrack, PhD, observes, “[The] numerous exhibitions devoted to feminist art in the last decade or so [devote] little attention to collectives, and [there is] a lack of historical studies of collectives and their influence on contemporary art practices, which continue to be influential to the present day.” This exhibition, “Slečny od maliarskeho stojana,” which translates as “Ladies of the Easel,” presents an opportunity to document the origins of a thriving women’s art collective called LP (formerly known as Lady Painters) founded in 2015 by Jenn Dierdorf and Kelsey Shwetz in Brooklyn, NY. When conceiving of the show, curator Juliana Mrvová used LP as a resource for selecting work. Paintings by Dierdorf and Shwetz, among others, are included in the exhibition, which is presented from June to November 2019 in four cities in Slovikia: Bratislava (the capital), Banská Bystrica, Trebišov and Rimavská Sobota. As an early and on-going member of LP, I’m pleased to have the opportunity to interview Dierdorf and Shwetz about their motives and goals for the LP collective.
Anne Sherwood Pundyk is a painter and writer based in Manhattan and Mattituck, NY. She stains, crops and sews unstretched canvas to construct her work calibrating the interplay of spontaneity and control. She is a proud member of LP.
Image courtesy of Rebecca Morgan and Asya Geisberg Gallery. Photography by Etienne Frossard.
Rebecca Morgan’s solo exhibition “Town and Country“ at Asya Geisberg offers viewers a subversive and unflinching look into aesthetics of Americana. Panty raiding hillbillies, buxom bonnet sporting milkmaids, and characters engaged in Appalachian revelry scrupulously rendered in paint, graphite, and brass galavant throughout the exhibition. Morgan’s cringeworthy figuration walks the line between portraiture and allegory and highlights the pitfalls of romanticization. Inspired by the sucker-punch illustrations of R Crumb, Morgan’s depictions of rural life speak to notions of voyeurism, power dynamics, and the ubiquity of toxic masculinity within contemporary American culture. The works included in “Town and Country” strike a balance between hilarity and horror and provide a fantastical portal into the American psyche. I had the opportunity to chat with Morgan about her fourth solo show with the gallery and reflect upon her personal fascination with the subjects she portrays.
Julien Gardair, Whole together, All apart, 2019, pigments and acrylic on industrial felt cut in space, 7x20x16ft, BRIC, Brooklyn, photo courtesy the artist
The French born Brooklyn based artist Julien Gardair makes carpets, paper cutouts, paintings, sculptures, video or everything in between. This proclivity for smooth sail between forms in context of specific sites globally paired with his insatiable explorations, make his body of work versatile, whimsical and layered. Julien Gardair shares with Art Spiel his ideas, experiences, and what is behind some of his many projects.
Rhonda Wall, “We are Bleeding, the Blue Wave is Coming”, 2018
Paint & collage on board, 48 x 72 in.
Rhonda Wall‘s collaged paintings depict surreal landscapes where the wacky and the tragic co-exist. Her topsy-turvy worlds, in which enigmatic and often over the top cartoony characters go on with their daily business, are idiosyncratic and current. Rhonda Wall shares with Art Spiel her downtown NYC art world experience during the 80s, her work process and ideas.
It is often the case that the immediate juxtaposition of aesthetically kindred galleries TSA and Transmitter allows, maybe accidentally encourages visitors to make observations about concurrent exhibitions with relation to one another. I’m not sure the curators at the respective spaces are always keen on hearing such thoughts – especially from me, since over the years they’ve likely tired of knowing that I’ll always be looking for something – but there are times when the formal or conceptual fluidities or contrasts between shows are so striking that commentary of the sort proves simply irresistible. Continue reading “Nota Bene with @postuccio [ix]”
