Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen on The process of calculating one’s position at NARS Foundation

Art Spiel in Dialogue with Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen

The process of calculating one’s position, 2019 (Installation view with works by Niklas Asker and Sophie Dupont). Photo courtesy: NARS Foundation
The process of calculating one’s position, 2019 (Installation view with works by Niklas Asker and Sophie Dupont). Photo courtesy: NARS Foundation

Elisa Gutiérrez Eriksen has curated The process of calculating one’s position at NARS Foundation. This group show features NARS 2019 season IV residency artists: Esther Hovers, Niklas Asker, Jiin You, Tavi Meraud, Fiona McGurk, Dominique Doroseau, Martin Vongrej, Joonhong Min, Ella Weber, Martin Désilets, Sophie Dupont and Tali Keren. It runs through December 13th. The curator shares with Art Spiel the ideas behind the show, the artists, and a bit about the NARS Foundation venue.

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Juan Puntes – on WhiteBox Harlem

In Dialogue with Juan Puntes on PERFORMA 19 @WhiteBox Harlem and beyond

A group of people in a room

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Juan Puntes, who founded WhiteBox as the original Chelsea non-profit alternative art space in 1998, built a highly reputable venue known for its thought-provoking exhibition with cutting edge contemporary artists vis-à-vis little known avant-garde historical influential producers. While focusing on site-specific work, performance, and video projects, WhiteBox is also offering a wide array of programming including readings, lectures, and panel discussions. Juan Puntes is sharing with Art Spiel some of WhiteBox’s history, his vision, and his upcoming programs.

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Nota Bene with @postuccio [viii]

Microscope, Underdonk

Microscope

“Scrapbook Performances” is an admirably extensive, broadly politically engaged series of evenings of performance art programmed by Microscope Gallery in relation to their current group show of video art, “Scrapbook (or, Why Can’t We Live Together).”
Performances have been scheduled for basically every Monday and Friday for several weeks already, and there are still several more weeks of gatherings to come.

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Alicja Gaskon – Traversing Borders

Alicja Gaskon, Dividing Lines: Universal Divides, HD Video, 6:20min, 2017

Alicja Gaskon has just returned from an excursion to the border dividing North Korea and South Korea, a No man’s land where she has discovered a reality which reminded her unexpectedly of her European roots and will become an entry point for a new body of installation work. This is one of many excursions Gaskon has experienced and explored in her work. She shares with Art Spiel some of her explorations, the ways she mines her experiences, and her upcoming projects.

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Ribbons Become Space at SL

Elizabeth Riley, Structure from Light, collaged sculptures, inkjet-printed video stills on paper

At the end of “Dragons of Iceland,” a video the NYC based multi-media artist Elizabeth Riley made throughout her SIM residency in Reykjavik, the dragon protagonist is determined to escape the societal constraints and limitations placed on women when the artist was growing up. The dragon flies into a gushing waterfall which for Riley symbolized finality. But later-on, after she returned from the residency, Riley has both deconstructed and reconstructed this video into a sculptural installation, and throughout the process of art making, the dragon’s route shifted from a fall into the abyss to a portal into a different artform. Elizabeth Riley’s solo show, “Ribbons Become Space,” at SL invites us to experience an exuberant journey. The journey starts as you enter the front gallery space with a 2011 video installation “Dragons of Iceland,” continues throughout the back gallery space with two related large-scale wall works made recently for the SL Gallery, then loops back as you exit, leading us back to the video installation with a new perspective.

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Jessica Segall: Queer Ecologies

Jessica Segall, (un)common intimacy, 2018, video still

Throughout her highly imaginative multidisciplinary projects, Jessica Segall has been engaging with a wide range of fragile ecological sites, frequently with animals as her collaborators – for instance, swimming with tigers and sculpting with live bees. Jessica Segall shares with Art Spiel some of her work and thought process, as well as her upcoming projects. You can meet her and hear more about her work during the 2019 Dumbo Open Studios weekend.

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Ryan Sarah Murphy – Arriving at an Unknown Endpoint

Ryan Sarah Murphy, Strike, 2015, found (unpainted) cardboard, foamcore, 26 ¾ x 25 ½ x 3 ¼ inches, Photo courtesy of Jeanette May Studio

Ryan Sarah Murphy‘s engaging multiple series of collages, photographs and videos are driven by material and process. Her process resembles a graceful and skillful dance – the steps are predetermined but the movement flow is intuitive and imaginative, or as she says, it altogether represents a collaboration between herself and the material.
Ryan Sarah Murphy shares with Art Spiel what brought her to art, some insight about her ideas, process, and current projects.

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Beth Dary – Near the Water’s Edge

Beth Dary, Elements of Ambivalence, 2006, fabric, pins, encaustic, 10’x17’x4″, photo courtesy of the artist

Beth Dary‘s sculptures, installations and drawings have in common deep layers of meaning, imaginative combinations of materials, and subtle delicacy in form and color. Her insatiable curiosity in exploring diverse materials and processes results in a wide array of formal expressions, ranging from ceramics to photography; fabric to glass. She shares with Art Spiel some insight into her work throughout the years, her process explorations, and her upcoming projects.

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Katya Grokhovsky’s Rigorous Play

Katya Grokhovsky‘s performances and sculptural works embody raw energy fueled by her rigorous and uncompromising process. Grokhovsky’s work is  extreme, fearless, cohesive, and ambitious. With great agility she combines media like performance, video, drawing, and sculpture to create immersive environments that delve us deep into a chaotic unknown – the complexity of self, the duplicity of social norms, the twilight  zones of life and art. In this interview for Art Spiel Grokhovsky elaborates on her impetus, ideas, and projects as a prolific artist and curator.

Katya Grokhovsky,Bad Woman, 2017, video still

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Visual Arts Center of New Jersey – Global Angst

“Containment”, partial Installation view at Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, (right wall: Erin Diebboll,  center front: Linda Ganjian,  left: david Packer), photo by Etienne Frossard

The  group of international artists throughout the two exhibitions at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey – “Containment” and “Oh what a world! What a world!” are altogether reflecting on social, political, and cultural changes in recent history.  “Oh what a world! What a world!”,  located in the Main Gallery, addresses a wide array of issues related to immigration, gender equality, civil rights, policing, protest, and the state of our Democracy. “Containment”, at the Eisenberg and Strolling Gallery, addresses specifically  hot trade issues –  how the use of shipping containers affects our ability to trade and ship goods globally, coming to the forefront with Trump’s attempts to remove the country from existing trade deals. Both shows were curated by  Mary Birmingham. The following preview on the two shows is largely based on text provided by the NJ Visual Arts Center.

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