More Time Less at Cathouse Proper

In Dialogue with David Dixon


MORE TIME LESS, Cathouse Proper: Zac Hacmon, ‘Capsule #5’ (2020); Nari Ward, ‘Anchoring Escapement (Baule)’ (2017); Elana Herzog ‘Cross Pollination #1’ (2020); photo: Dario Lasagni

For Cathouse Proper’s second ensemble exhibition, More Time Less, curator and gallery director David Dixon brought together five artists — Zac Hacmon, Elana Herzog, Aga Ousseinov, Tim Simonds, and Nari Ward — whose installations, wall-based work, and sculptures reflect our changing perception of ‘normative time.’ David Dixon describes his curatorial process, gives us a closer tour of this ensemble exhibition, and shares some background on his diverse art practices.

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“FLUX : Vita Mutata” virtual on Sculptors Alliance

In Dialogue with Marco Palli


Marco Palli, 2020 at his studio in Kent CT, with “The Origins of Sculpture” Photo by Sandra Cafarelli

The online sculpture exhibition “FLUX : Vita Mutata” curated by Natsuki Takauji and hosted by the veteran non-for-profit artists’ cooperative Sculptors Alliance, features seventeen artists who display works made before the pandemic, throughout the closure, and beyond. The Sculptors Alliance president, Marco Palli. shares with Art Spiel how the show evolved, and how his organization transformed throughout the pandemic, while offering us a generous peek behind the scenes.

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Women to the Fore at the Hudson River Museum

In Dialogue with co-curators Laura Vookles, Chair of the Curatorial Department, and Victoria Ratjen, Curatorial Assistant

Installation view. (Front) Ola Rondiak (American, b. 1966). Motanka Installation, 2019. Papier-mâché, plaster of Paris, and other mixed media. Courtesy of the artist. © Ola Rondiak. Photo: Steve Paneccasio

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women’s voting rights, Women to the Fore, the current group exhibition at the Hudson River Museum features more than forty female-identifying artists, spanning one hundred and fifty years. The two curators, Laura Vookles and Victoria Ratjen, selected diverse artworks across media —paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, collage and sculpture— from the Museum’s permanent collection, regional artists, galleries, and collectors. The exhibition includes works by renowned artists like Marisol, Judy Chicago, Louise Nevelson, and Mary Cassatt among many others, and less recognizable contemporary and 20th century artists. For instance, one of the highlights in this show is Anna Walinska’s self-portrait which not only marks her first return to the walls of the Hudson River Museum in over 60 years, but also brings to light her significant role in the art world of her time, including her dedication to promoting the work of other artists, like Arshile Gorky, who got his first New York City solo show in the mid-30s at the Guild Art Gallery, an art venue she founded and ran.

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Edge of Light at Plaxall

Previewing with Jonathan Sims

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Jess Holz, Borderlands, 2020. Installation with laser cut Fresnel lenses and video of the artist’s skin being examined under the scanning electron microscope at the HoloCenter exhibition EDGE OF LIGHT

The Edge of Light began with the intent to create a group exhibition of artists who work in light. Jonathan Sims, a light artist himself and the curator of this group show at Plaxall, says that although there are a very large number of artists currently working with light as a medium and a material, but their chances to exhibit, particularly in a group setting, are limited. 

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Sari Nordman


Sari Nordman, Assembling on Ancient Towers, 2020, video, video still courtesy the artist

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Sari Nordman, a native of Finland, is a NYC-based interdisciplinary artist working with dance, video and installation. She loves to travel to the isolated parts of the world to reflect on nature, history and female experience, the recurring themes in her works. She continues developing Torni-Tower, an installation work which has received support from the Catwalk Institute and NYU, The Immigrant Artist Biennial, The Amsterdam Collective and Tohmajärvi Residency, for Jamaica Flux: Workspaces and Windows 2021 exhibition and Performance Mix Festival. She worked as a performer with choreographer Dean Moss in 2009-2018, and holds a M.F.A. from NYU/Tisch School of The Arts.

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Bianca Abdi-Boragi


Bianca Abdi-Boragi, Barbary Fig, still, short film, 17 min

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Bianca Abdi-Boragi is a French-Algerian/American interdisciplinary artist who received her MFA from Yale School of Art, Sculpture, in 2017 and obtained her BFA from ENSAPC. Her solo shows include “The Heel of the Loaf” at Border Project Space and a presentation at CADAF Art Fair, she has exhibited with the Immigrant Artist Biennial, NARS Foundation, Border Project Space, VCU Arts, NURTUREart Gallery, Chashama Gallery, Field Project Gallery, Galerie Protégé, and The Clemente Soto Velez Center NY, among others. 

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Michele Brody – Embodying Daily Flux


Michele Brody, working in home studio in The Bronx on handmade paper body sculpture for Annual Earth Celebrations Eco Pageant, paper made from recycled linen table cloths and caning, 2020.
Photo by Olivier Marcaud

A fourth generation NY builder, artist Michele Brody loves working with materials. She recalls how her father groomed her early on to become an architect so that she could continue the family tradition of builders and land developers. Although she excelled in the study of Architecture, she was not attracted to pursue it as career. ” I prefer building with my own hands,” she says. So in 1994, instead of getting a degree in Architecture, she graduated with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from the Fiber and Material Studies Department.

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The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Priscilla Dobler Dzul

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Priscilla Dobler Dzul, The Performance of Labor, Class, Race and Gender, 2020. Artist interviewing migrant workers. Photo courtesy Rebecca Dobler-Chale

The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB) is a volunteer, female-led, artist-run project. TIAB 2020 launched in March in New York City at Brooklyn Museum, and continued in September through December at EFA Project Space, Greenwood Cemetery, and virtually, presenting 60+ artists. This interview series features 10 participating artists.

Born in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, Priscilla Dobler Dzul, is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, ceramic, film, fiber arts, and performance. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has shown at A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; The Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA; Consulate of Mexico, Seattle, WA; NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY; 125 Maiden Lane, NYC, NY; Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, WA; Form and Concept, Santa Fe, NM; The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA; Decentered Gallery, Puebla, Mexico, and DAC Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 

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Americans Looking In at The Center for Book Arts

In Dialogue with Emilie Ahern and Sherri Littlefield


The curators, Emilie Ahern (left) and Sherri Littlefield (right), stand in the exhibition space among the works from Americans Looking In. Photo credit: Andrew Littlefield

In the thought-provoking group show Americans Looking In at the Center for Book Arts the curators Emilie Ahern and Sherri Littlefield explore what it means to be “American” mostly through media such as photography, book art, sculpture and prints. Their personal experience of coming from multicultural backgrounds and growing up in the States has prompted them to ask the question – What is American culture today, and what does an American look like?

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Bonny Leibowitz – Not This, Not That, Yet This and That

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Bonny Leibowitz

Bonny Leibowitz makes site responsive sculptural installations with painterly sensibility – they hover in the air, spill on the floor, or sprawl on the walls. Her love of Baroque compositions, Abstract Expressionist gestures is underscored throughout her work. Bonny Leibowitz had a long-standing interest in the illusory nature of experience and the supposition of stability. In Terra Unfirma, her most recent body of work, she tackles what it means to deconstruct expectations and perceptions by using a variety of materials which play off one another – natural appearing manufactured, manufactured appearing natural – constructing environments which may feel ephemeral, eternal, fleeting, solid, light or looming at the same time. The artist refers to this quote: “Everything worth knowing is cloaked in paradox because everything substantial defies being revealed in its totality” – Mark Nepo


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