Contemporary Art and Culture
“Childhood” has always been a fertile source for artists in all disciplines. We all had a childhood and, for better or worse, we all carry memories that often haunt us throughout our lifetimes. Ruby/Dakota, a scrappy young gallery in the East Village is presenting a two- person show entitled What The House Dreams Of that brings together two young artists with memories to share.
Continue reading “What The House Dreams Of – Two painters at Ruby Dakota Gallery”
A person who can sit through a Survey of Art lecture set to a Leonard Cohen soundtrack while reading The Waves may be well equipped to navigate Emily Sundblad’s Adolescent Ocean. Personal history intermingles with cultural and art iconography, forming a tide of debris that floats to the surface in this show of collage-like, collective memory-dreams.
Continue reading “Emily Sundblad: The Adolescent Ocean at Bortolami”
In following Martin-Nuss’ work for a few years now, I was always mesmerized by the way they could establish and build a living landscape using both physical spaces and water reflections. A living landscape by means of movement, layers, and currents. This exhibition shows works that each establish their own space and carry with them their own evolutions into an entirely new space the longer you look at them.
Continue reading “Sarah Martin- Nuss: Future Currents- At Rachel Uffner Gallery”
In Scott Sueme’s latest collaboration with Uprise Art, the artist asks, “If you are called to look, what do you see?” In fact, I pose the question to you right now. As you lie in bed reading this when you really should be asleep or as you doomscroll art news to avoid doomscrolling national news, Sueme calls you to look with the consideration of someone devoted to noticing the breath within the breath, the moment within the moment.
Continue reading “Field in The Wind: Scott Sueme at Uprise Art”
In the heart of Manhattan’s Flatiron district, Pen + Brush, a 130-year-old nonprofit dedicated to championing women in the arts, proudly presents JUST LOVE, an immersive, large-scale installation and exhibition by Italian-born Brooklynite Michela Martello. Drawing inspiration from the renowned Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, Martello’s 360-degree visual experience invites viewers to embark on an introspective and exhilarating journey, exploring the blurred boundaries between reality and the imagined. The narrative woven throughout the exhibition transports viewers into mythical domains, where the sacred and the fantastical coalesce seamlessly.
Continue reading “All you need is JUST LOVE: Michela Martello at Pen + Brush”
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.
Continue reading “Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin Ich / I am Me at the Neue Gallerie”
August in New York is nothing without its heat waves and epic weather. While many escape the city, there are lots of wonderful gems to behold. Here are some cool current exhibitions not to miss downtown that will bring some good energy on those hot days.
Continue reading “Art Spiel Picks: LES in August 2024”
In March 2020, Nicola Ginzel arrived at the Q21 Art Residency at the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria. This residency, which hosts international artists and selects one American artist every two months with the support of a Fulbright Scholar Grant, is designed to foster creative exchange through collaboration, networking, and studio visits.
Continue reading “Nicola Ginzel: How Do You Restructure Form?”
In a recent conversation at Barro Gallery in New York, the Sue and Eugene Mercy assistant curator Ana Torok (MoMA, prints and drawings), likened Matías Duville’s artistic process to “throwing a lance” at the canvas. Indeed, Duville is not kind to his materials. His artistic oeuvre is replete with scratched metal and burned wood. For his paper works, charcoal is inflicted, not applied. When I had the good fortune to speak with the artist about his current exhibition at Barro Gallery, Vertices of Time, I asked what kinds of materials he had used for his paintings. One material stuck out as particularly harsh: “heat gun.”
Continue reading “Snubbing the Earth: Matías Duville’s Vertices of Time at Barro Gallery New York.”
The Mirror Blue Night originated from an idea artist and curator Patrick Neal had for a show called Dark Noir, referencing the character of the city in the evening hours. When Neal was later invited to curate at the Undercroft Gallery, this idea expanded to include nocturnes and night in general. The gallery is located beneath The Church of Heavenly Rest on Museum Mile, and in this context, Neal began to look for spiritual echoes, considering how evening and twilight hours evoke the afterlife, the cosmos, anonymity, peace, and fear. “I had in mind depictions of darkness but also considered night as a condition that occupies half of our days and half of our lives, with all the symbolic, psychological, and temporal associations that come with it.”
Continue reading “The Mirror Blue Night at Undercroft Gallery”