pandemic – Art Spiel

Notice: Function WP_Object_Cache::add was called incorrectly. Cache key must not be an empty string. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.1.0.) in /www/artspiel_344/public/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131

March 17, 2021July 22, 2021, by Etty Yaniv

Public Events in all Five Boroughs

Local Artists and Cultural Organizations in Each Borough to Host Outdoor, Socially Distanced Press Conferences with Performances March 18-19

FreeDa Banana leading an outdoor dance class during LEIMAY Block Party. Image courtesy LEIMAY.
Image Credit: Shige Moriya

One year after New York City’s arts and cultural sector suddenly shut down over the period of one week in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, events in each borough will mark the somber anniversary. Comprised of speeches by local elected/cultural leaders and performances by New York artists, this day of programming memorializes the shut down while looking forward to the needs of a resilient NY artistic community. The events are united by the dual themes of #CultureRemembers and #CultureForward, and will take place on Thursday, March 18, and Friday, March 19. Local leaders and artists will participate in all of them.

October 23, 2020November 15, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Aaron Alexander – What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stranger

In Dialogue with Aaron Alexander

In his first solo exhibition, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stranger”, Aaron Alexander shows works inspired by the events of 2020, from life in lockdown to political and racial unrest. The artist works with discarded bits of cardboard, embracing the torn, uneven edges. “It’s not perfect. It’s a reflection on life,” says Alexander in a statement.

Aaron “Aaron the Great” Alexander is a Bronx native, born in 1996. The exhibition is curated by Jac Lahav at 42 Social Club, Lyme CT. It is up until Oct 31 by social distant appointment.

June 30, 2020June 19, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Margot Spindelman

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Margot Spindelman is a painter living in Brooklyn, New York, whose most recent work is an intimate exploration of disorder, rupture, security and loss, expressed in the language of collage, as painted pieces are torn, drawn, reassembled. She has had solo shows in New York at both the Perlow Gallery and Platform Gallery. Her work has been shown in many group shows in New York and elsewhere. Spindelman is a recipient of both a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Painting (2004) and a George Sugarman Foundation Grant (2007). She received her Bachelors degree in Fine Arts from the University of Michigan, and her Masters of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work is featured on line by Gibson Contemporary.

June 26, 2020November 2, 2022, by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Artists on Coping: Barbara Laube

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Macintosh HD:Users:BarbaraLaube:Desktop:studio shot copy.jpg — *Works in progress on the good studio wall*

To Barbara Laube the act of painting is spiritual, shamanistic, healing, and transformative. Truth is found through process and the materiality of paint. Rooted in the history of abstraction, her subject matter may not be obvious and is always left open to interpretation. It emerges from the endless mark making and adjustments to the painting surface. Imagery is often revealed that reflects her relationship to the outside world and her life, and to her deep love of great painting, particularly the early Renaissance. She exploits the play between the open and dense, and the light and dark. In the end the act of painting and paint itself is first and foremost and has always been her way of making sense of her life, loves and beliefs. Ms. Laube lives and works in Riverdale, New York. She has shown extensively in New York, including M. David & Co., Zurcher Gallery, The Painting Center, Carter Burden Gallery, Bowery Gallery, and Sideshow Gallery. She has also shown at Kent State University in Ohio, and in New Mexico, Illinois, Washington, California, New Jersey, and Texas.

June 24, 2020June 21, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: JinJin Xu & Jiaoyang Li (Silkworm Pupas)

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Performance still from “In America, You are Asked Why Leaves are Green,” February, 2020; from left, artists JinJin Xu, Jiaoyang Li. Photo courtesy of artists

Silkworm Pupas is a new media arts collective consisting of NYC based Chinese poets Jiaoyang Li and JinJin Xu. Our projects strive for intimate ways to envision attainable, inclusive, and bleeding-edge futures through innovative storytelling, documentary poetics practice, sound installation and video-performance art.

Jiaoyang Li is a Chinese poet and visual artist. Her literary work has appeared in LA Reviews of Books-China channel, 3:AM, Spittoon Magazine, Voice and Verse poetry magazine, and others. Her interdisciplinary practices have been supported by the New York Foundation of Art, The Immigrants Artist Biennial and others. She co-founded the interdisciplinary poetry journal 叵CLIP.

JinJin Xu is a poet and filmmaker from Shanghai invested in docu-poetics. Her work has been featured in The High Line Public Arts, The Harun Farocki Institute, The Immigrant Artist Biennial, and anthologized in Nasty Women Poets. Honors include The Poetry Society of America’s George Borgin Prize and fellowships from The Thomas J. Watson Foundation and the Flaherty Seminar. She teaches hybrid workshops at NYU where she is a Lillian Vernon Fellow.

June 23, 2020November 2, 2022, by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand

Artists on Coping: Reece Cox

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping. This extended interview is part of an Art Spiel and Cultbytes content collaboration.

Reece Cox is a Berlin-based sound artist, DJ, and producer. Cox graduated with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture from MICA and has a cerebral approach to both club music and sound. His sets and track lists have recently been published by CRACK Magazine and for further at home listening you can find his interview series on 303 Gallery, ISSUE Project Room, and Cashmere Radio.

June 21, 2020June 21, 2020, by Melissa Stern

Artists on Coping: Merritt Johnson

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Merritt Johnson was born in West Baltimore and spent her childhood navigating between trees, tarps and concrete. She earned her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art. Her work navigates the spaces between bodies and the body politic, land and cultures by making images and objects that connect, reflect and refract vision and experience. The multiplicity of materials and processes Johnson employs embody her multiplicity, exploring layering, allegiance and agency in the face of continued threats to land, water and bodies. Johnson’s works are containers for story, feeling and thought: images of what cannot be seen, exercises for existence, and political bodies. She lives and works with her family on Tlingit land in Sitka Alaska.

June 20, 2020November 2, 2022, by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Artists on Coping: Sally Boon Matthews

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

art%20spiel/ArtSpielfinished%20images%20for%20interview/artspielimages/1.portraitsally.jpg — *Sally Boon Matthews with Soundscape for March, April, May 2020. Water Colour, Ink, Felt Tip, Pencil, Thread on Mulberry Paper. 12”x 288”, 2020*

Sally Boon Matthews is a British born and educated artist, educator, and yogi living in New York City. Though her background was originally in photography, in the last eight years she has developed a multi-discipline practice that includes video, painting, collage, and drawing. Her work has been exhibited and published in Europe, the United States and Latin America. Publications include Tricycle Magazine, NY Times, Blitz Magazine, British Journal of Photography, Penguin Books, Random House, Warner Books, A&M Records, Om Yoga, Battersea Museum of Art, UK, Galerie Solado, Caracas, Venezuela, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Louisiana Museum of Art, Chateau de Trousse-Barriere, Briare, France, Jamaica Arts Center, NY.

June 20, 2020June 20, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Niki Lederer

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

*Goldenrod*, 2019, Found re-purposed plastic bottles, machine screws, hex nuts, wire, rebar armature, concrete base. Artist with sculpture currently on view at Wolfs Lane Park as part of Pelham Art Center’s Public Art Program.

Niki Lederer is a sculptor working with found materials including discarded umbrellas and post-consumer plastic. Born in London, Ontario and raised in Vancouver, she received her BFA from the University of Victoria and her MFA from Hunter College in New York City. Group exhibitions include Portal: Governors Island, 50 Years of Public Art in NYC Parks, Central Park and the Outdoor Sculpture Biennial Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. Solo exhibitions include Washington Square Windows, NYU and Preset Tense, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Niki recently collaborated with XAOC Contemporary Ballet for Norte Maar’s CounterPointe8. Currently her re-purposed plastic bottle sculpture is featured at the Pelham Art Center and Wolfs Lane Park and her discarded-umbrella based work will be included in the Wassaic Project 2020 Summer Exhibition. Niki lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

June 19, 2020November 2, 2022, by Catherine Kirkpatrick

Artists on Coping: Bill Travis

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

*Bill Travis, self portrait as a young man*

Bill Travis is a photo-based artist, working in alternative techniques around such themes as desire, nostalgia, and impossible worlds that exist only in the imagination. He earned a Ph.D. in art history and was a tenured professor before turning full-time to creating art. He has had over sixty shows in museums, galleries, universities, and public institutions from New York City (where he lives) to San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Buenos Aires, and others. His work was featured in two monographs published in Italy and he recently co-curated an exhibition on Photography After Stonewall for Soho Photo Gallery in New York. He has lectured on his photography at Columbia University and was interviewed on Italian television. His work has been collected by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, The Kinsey Institute, Yale and Harvard Universities, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The New York Public Library, and national collections of photography in Russia, Japan, Portugal, and Hungary.