Sparkling surfaces abound in Backscatter, OVERLAP’s quietly radiant summer show of works by Funlola Coker, Katherine Mitchell DiRico, Jesse Kaminsky, Joetta Maue, Leah Piepgras, and Esther Solondz, curated by Alicia Renadette. On a clear summer midmorning, sunshine falls across shimmering layers of glass, crystal, gold leaf, copper, bronze, salt, acrylic, and clear liquid. Materials catch and refract light. The overall effect is of a hushed brilliance that draws you in, inviting a closer look.
The 2025 art fair season has descended upon us, and with it comes a myriad of activities. Amidst the hustle and bustle of moving around the cities to see what’s on view, there were many standouts at this year’s presentations at the Armory and Art on Paper.
Holland Tunnel Newburgh opens its sculpture garden. Julie Lindell, Everything, 2025, 144x144x144 in. Mixed media, found objects. Photo courtesy of Julie Lindell
When artist Alexandra Limpert invited Janet Rutkowski to co-curate Reclamation in honor of her longtime friend and Holland Tunnel founder Paulien Lethen, Rutkowski accepted without hesitation. Although she had just finished curating and exhibiting in several projects, she embraced the challenge with what she describes as her “devil-may-care” approach. The exhibition’s title emerged quickly, reflecting her interest in the idea of recovery and renewal.
Mary Heilmann, Broken Wave, 2022,Acrylic and paper mache pulp on wood and panel, 10×26.75×3-1/2 inches, photo by Dan Bradica. @Mary Heilmann. Image courtesy of the artist, 303 Gallery, New York, and Hauser & Wirth
Water Way, Mary Heilmann’s newly opened show at Guild Hall in East Hampton and her first large-scale museum show on Long Island’s East End, is a joyous celebration of 40 years of the artist’s career. The water-themed exhibition includes not only paintings and works on paper but also chairs, a small table, and ceramics, the latter either on its own or incorporated into a painting as in the 2020’s red acrylic Barrel and Tube. Heilmann is a longtime resident of Bridgehampton and her reverence for the ocean reverberates throughout, underpinned by an underground, punk rock/new wave, California surf culture ethos.
left, Jennifer Amadeo-Holl, Earth Suits – Reflections on Thought, 2022, oil on canvas,, 49” x 64”, right, Mike Libby, Quarter Vital Amalgam, 2025, Apoxie sculpt and mixed media, 14” X 14” X 66”, photo by Adria Arch
The two-person exhibition Earth Suits and Beast Machines at Cove Street Arts in Portland, Maine, orchestrates a compelling conversation between Boston painter Jennifer Amadeo-Holl and Maine sculptor Mike Libby. This thoughtfully curated show rewards careful attention, presenting work that resists easy consumption and demands genuine engagement from viewers willing to slow down and look deeply.
Almond Zigmund, figure ground yellow, 2023, acrylic on paper, 36 x 53”, photo credit: Jenny Gorman
Almond Zigmund’s work occupies the charged space between structure and disruption. Moving fluidly across sculpture, painting, and installation, her practice explores the intersection of geometry, architecture, and lived experience—often in subtle yet powerful ways. I have the pleasure of discussing her work at the end of her recent exhibition at East Hampton’s Guild Hall. In this interview exchange, Zigmund speaks about the formative influences that shaped her, from growing up in a creative household to navigating the distinct geographies of Brooklyn, Las Vegas, and the East End of Long Island. The conversation delves into the improvisational roots of her approach, her ongoing engagement with spatial systems, and how tension—between control and spontaneity, place and perception, the built and the organic—continues to animate her work. With references to theorists, artists, Zigmund offers a thoughtful and richly textured account of how art can be both experiential and critical, formal and deeply human.
This month’s lineup takes us through Brooklyn, Queens, and Jersey City, where intimate thoughts, melded with the political repercussions we grapple with individually and collectively, are presented to the public in moving forms that are explorations in artistic practice as a means of activation against the norms we must confront to maintain our humanity. Through rejections of subjugation and exploitation, be it patriarchal economies or the fallout of colonialism, these selected exhibitions put artists at the forefront who contend with these issues and make space for constructive discourse.
Installation View with Ryan Oskin and Lamar Robillard Installation Shot
Beverly’s is well-known, amongst artists and locals alike, and has been a main fixture of the art community for years. Found on the Lower East Side, right on Grand Street, artists, gallery owners, writers, and curators come here to spend their time after their day is done. Beverly’s owner and creator, Leah Dixon, wanted to make this gallery space an opportunity to get thousands of eyes on work and thousands of conversations started. With their current exhibition, Sunrise, intertwined with the bar, there are many stories to be had.
Sculptural Garden, Installation Shot, photo courtesy of Hollis Taggart
Seeing John Knuth’s exhibition, The Hot Garden, at Hollis Taggart’s new downtown outpost was wonderful, surreal, energetic, and unexpected. This is Knuth’s first major body of work following the devastating Eaton Fire in January 2025, which destroyed the artist’s home and archive. This exhibition gives us an opportunity to see fragments of the past and the birth or rebirth of something entirely new out of the ashes, embodying the quote in the press release from Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, writer and once Altadena resident, “All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.”
There is a hidden gem on view at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City—an art book group show of 15 artists carefully curated by the directors and curators of Monira Foundation and Mana Contemporary. The exhibition unfolds across two rooms. In the first space, the viewer encounters a dimly lit room of suspended tables uniquely designed by Kele McComsey. On each table, there is a carefully curated display of artist books—a rare opportunity to view this uniquely expressive form of art. During the run of the show, the curators periodically shift some books, while others are welcome to be handled. This is an incredible opportunity to see artist books and experience their magic. Blurring the lines between book and sculpture, these magnetic art objects have always been a curatorial challenge. They are meant to be experienced, unlike most other art pieces.
