symbolism in art – Art Spiel

July 1, 2026June 28, 2026, by Sherly Fan

The Luckiest Show You Will See This Summer

What would you do if you wanted to bring more luck into your life? Drawing from her observations of how people across cultures use rituals and superstitions to summon luck, Gail M Boykewich’s show Into the Wolf’s Mouth feels almost like a field guide to how we pray, wish for good fortune, and stay hopeful enough to keep moving forward. Rather than treating luck as simple optimism, Gail presents it as a language of survival — a way people negotiate uncertainty, longing, heartbreak, and the desire for a better future. The title is inspired by the Italian idiom “in bocca al lupo”, a phrase used to wish someone luck as they enter danger. It beautifully implies a universal experience: the desire for more, for solutions, for security, or simply for a way to feel better, especially within our current turbulent and unstable political status quo.

May 8, 2026May 7, 2026, by Taylor Bielecki

Xinyu Liu’s Fool’s Hour at Art Cake: Finding a home to Carry Onward

Upon entering the exhibition, you are greeted by pieces of various sizes and mediums, full of intricacies and exploration. With the pieces being smaller in size, besides the Ferris wheel, you have to get close to see the small details or the depth of space that opens into a world of its own within each piece. Within the works, Liu offers locations such as cities, darkened spaces, carnivals, and other places of transition. Places that one may find themselves when they are beginning to traverse or transition into someplace new. I appreciated that each work was either on the wall or a shelf, giving each a sense of its own place. The space around the pieces gives them an opportunity to breathe and allows viewers to look closely at one and flow seamlessly into the next.

March 24, 2026March 23, 2026, by Lucas Moran

Vuillard Was Already in the Future

After the Impressionists blew open painting and reset Paris, rearranging everyone’s eyes, one might assume the dust would take a minute to settle. But almost immediately, a cluster of kids at the Académie Julian decided to reroute the whole thing again. Among them, Édouard Vuillard. To get to Vuillard, one must start with Paul Sérusier and Paul Gauguin standing by a lake in Brittany.

March 10, 2026March 9, 2026, by Taylor Bielecki

Narratives and expressive figures in Judy Glantzman’s Playing with Dolls at P.P.O.W

Glantzman’s heroically scaled works immerse viewers in the energetic world that she creates. I really appreciate the diversity in scale of the works in this show. The smaller-sized canvases offer a snapshot, still detailed but a more compact telling of the world she is creating. Whereas the larger works allow viewers to step in and entangle themselves within the forms, narratives, symbols, and ideas that Glantzman offers. Walking into the gallery brought an immediate sense of excitement, wonder, and a need for exploration and adventure within the pieces. The paintings introduce the characters and scenes, while the ceramics are the pieces Glantzman chooses to pluck directly from the compositions and bring into 3D forms.