Art Hag

Demarcus McGaughey, Danie Herard, Bria Whitney | Threes Brewing, Gowanus

Enjoy great local art while you enjoy a pint at Threes Brewing! On Monday, the Gowanus watering hole hosted the opening of Arts Gowanus at Threes: Showcase featuring work by a trio of local artists: Demarcus McGaughey, Bria Whitney, and Danie Herard. 

Demarcus McGaughey, El Tiguere Con Su Trompeta 

Displayed above a booth in the back of the venue, Gowanus-based artist Demarcus McGaughey's El Tiguere Con Su Trompeta captivates passing bar patrons. The title of the arresting 30" x 40" acrylic painting translates to "The Thug with his Trumpet," McGaughey explained at the opening reception. "This piece is one of my best friends. He moved to New York from the Dominican Republic. To me the piece is about taking a risk. He moved here, he didn’t speak the language. He didn’t know the culture, didn’t have a job. All he had was his trumpet and his good looks," he added.

The mysterious figure—eyes shielded beneath his hat, biceps bulging—casually plays his trumpet before a bright white background that blends into his shirt. "I wanted to do a negative white space with his tank top," McGaughey noted. "I just wanted to showcase this man. You can’t see his face, but he’s a very handsome, macho man, and all he has is his wit, his charm, and his trumpet to thrive in NYC."

(L-R) Demarcus McGaughey, Gowanus artist Marlene Weisman, and Danie Herard pose in front of McGaughey's El Tiguere Con Su Trompeta at Threes Brewing

Originally from Dallas, Texas, McGaughey is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University where he studied advertising art. He relocated to NYC in 2006 where he worked in graphic design before taking the leap into fine art about four years ago. His early works include playful pop art pieces featuring various celebrities, including an image of Naomi Campbell on a Campbell's Soup can (an ode to Andy Warhol), and human figures topped with panda bear heads. McGaughey, who has a solo show scheduled in May at Spaceworks in Gowanus, says the portrait series he is currently working on is more narrative, focusing on the experiences of his subjects.

Bria Whitney stands beside her Untitled Diptych (Series 1) #3. She created the acrylic and resin on wood piece while she was in a residency program in Japan. Unexpected rainfall gave the artwork its unique texture. "The ability of the rain to really transcend this work makes me very happy," the artist said. 

Painter and printmaker Bria Whitney's abstract diptychs are also currently on view at Threes Brewing. The New York City native attended Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn where she began her formal training in art before earning her BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology. 

Whitney uses printmaking techniques to create mirroring effects in her paintings, "similar to the Rorschach prints," she said. "One of the fun things about my pieces is...they’re created as pairs but you can separate them or [keep] them together," she explained of her complexly layered works. "One of my favorite parts about the pieces is allowing the viewer to interpret the shapes," she added. "They don’t represent anything, but I love when a viewer can see something."

(L-R) Danie Herard's Tribal Deco 3, Bria Whitney's Untitled Diptych Series 1 (Warm Series), Bria Whitney's Untitled Diptych Series 2 (Cool Series), and Danie Herard's Tribal Deco 4

Influenced by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sol LeWitt's "use of lines and color," and Wassily Kandinsky, "especially his early theories of Point and Line to Plane," Whitney says she is also inspired by color theory and separates her series into warm and cool palettes.

Whitney completed a residency program at Spaceworks in Gowanus and another in Kaga, Japan last year. She will soon complete a six-month residency at The Carrie Able Gallery in Williamsburg where she will have a solo show in April. "For my solo show, I’m incorporating neon into the work. I’m really excited about that," she noted. Whitney is currently learning neon bending at Urban Glass. "In school I was never great at sculpture, I always fell short in that department, but with neon, because it is linear technically, it gives me that ability to have this drawing effect," she said. "I really want to become immersed in it."

(L-R) Bria Whitney's Diptych 1, Danie Herard's Tribal Deco 1 (top) and Tribal Deco 2 (bottom), Bria Whitney's Diptych 2

Gowanus-based artist Danie Herard met Whitney while both artists were in residency at Spaceworks last year. Herard invited Whitney to be part of the Arts Gowanus exhibit at Threes Brewing. "Her work is strong and she’s just really cool," Herard said of her friend. 

Herard creates mystical abstract works that explore spirituality, healing, positivity, and the universe. Her Blue Code series features the outline of a profile filled with intricate patterns representing genetic codes. "The concept is [that] we’re more than who we really are," she explained. "I feel in more of a higher consciousness, that we’re all encoded with many different talents, with so much information, and as we live our lives...[they are] pulled out of us. We have a full potential to be who we are and sometimes we don't always realize that. When we come to certain information, we develop more. We can be so much greater." She added that creating the pieces was meditative for her, allowing her to examine how she can "develop more as an artist." 

Danie Herard poses with two pieces from her Blue Code series

Interspersed with Whitney's diptychs, Herard's Tribal Deco series reflects her love of Art Deco design in elegant graphics that would be just as fitting on textiles and home designs as they are on canvas. "I’m really playing [with] how my art can also be practical and functional," she said of the pattern on Tribal Deco 1. "It will be a perfect silk scarf."

Born in Brooklyn, Herard studied lighting design at SUNY Purchase and worked in theater productions before taking an office job in health insurance. She transitioned into fine arts full time approximately five years ago. Along with creating her own metaphysical works, she teaches art and owns and operates Sensibility Designs. Herard has been at Spaceworks for approximately three years and has a solo show scheduled there in March. "It’s called In the Vortex," she said of the upcoming show. "I know it’s a little trippy. It’s about being in a particular dimension that helps you really see what’s possible—outside of negative thoughts—and that’s a great place to create from, the unknown. I’m going to take people to the vortex, my vortex."

(L-R) Demarcus McGaughey, Danie Herard, and Bria Whitney at Threes Brewing where their artwork is on view 

Arts Gowanus at Threes: Showcase
Threes Brewing, 333 Douglass Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn
The three artists' work will be on view at the space for three months.

 

Death Become Her | BRIC

Death need not be final according to the group exhibition currently on view at BRIC. Employing objects commonly associated with death—a cemetery, flowers, shrouds, and memorials—the ten female-identifying artists showcased in Death Becomes Her demonstrate that the act of mourning the dearly departed can serve as a pathway to "self-discovery, inquiry, and introspection."

Death Becomes Her installation view. Mimi Bai's Conjuring a future full of pasts (2020) is in the foreground and three images from Keisha Scarville's Placelessness of Echoes (and kinship of shadows) are displayed on the left.

Catalina Ouyang, past imperfect (Lipotes vexillifer), 2019, and past imperfect (Psephurus gladius), 2019

Nona Faustine’s self-portrait series inspired by the Greek myth of Persephone was shot amongst tombs and mausoleums at Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery. The cinematic photos feature Faustine portraying Demeter, the goddess of harvest. Dressed in black or golden cloaks, she mourns and waits for her daughter Persephone who was forced into marriage with Hades, the god of the dead and the underworld.

(L-R) Nona Faustine's Demeter in Mourning, Magic power divine beauty and grace, Isis, all 2020

Nona Faustine, Isis, 2020

Kim Brandt, Untitled (Greenwood), 2019

Projected onto a screen is footage of Kim Brandt’s Untitled (Greenwood), performed at the cemetery last summer as part of a series presented by Green-Wood in partnership with Pioneer Works. Performers interacted at the cemetery’s circular Cedar Dell in an examination of relationships among the living in a space that memorializes the dead.

Ceramic works by Heidi Lau (2019-2020)

Ceramic works by Heidi Lau (2019-2020)

Detail of Heidi Lau's ceramic works

Inspired by Taoist and folk mythology, Heidi Lau’s ceramic sculptures represent "silenced histories" or "ritual objects, funerary monuments, and fossilized creatures" that have been lost or transformed over time. Rachel Grobstein’s miniature sculptures depict actual roadside memorials, featuring tiny recreations of a ghost bike, candles, stuffed animals, and flowers left on streets and highways to commemorate lost loved ones.

Rachel Grobstein, Ghost Bike, 2019

Rachel Grobstein, Hwy. 285, 2018

Rachel Grobstein, William, Bushwick Avenue, 2018

Rachel Grobstein, Rt. 46, 2018

On select Fridays and Saturdays, Gyun Hur will be on site to perform I wouldn’t know any other way, an installation that features the artist resting in bright yellow dust she creates by shredding silk flowers into a powder that blankets the floor. The piece symbolizes "impermanence and assimilation," Hur’s family and homes, both in her native South Korea and in Atlanta, where she grew up.

Gyun Hur, I wouldn't know any other way, 2020

Gyun Hur, I wouldn't know any other way, 2020

Death Becomes Her at Gallery at BRIC House

Two artists will be featured at Green-Wood Cemetery in programs presented in conjunction with the BRIC exhibit. McKendree Key will host 5 x 10 @ The Catacombs, discussions about death and dying on Saturdays in March (14, 21, 28). Freya Powell’s immersive performance piece Only Remains Remain will honor the unidentified migrants buried in mass graves in Sacred Heart Cemetery in Texas (Saturday, April 11).

Encouraging discussion and reflection, Death Becomes Her is an enlightening meditation on death that asserts we can learn about ourselves by confronting loss.

Death Becomes Her
Gallery at BRIC House, 647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view February 20 through April 19

Studio Visit: Jenny Belin

A portrait of Lizzo rests on an easel in artist Jenny Belin’s Park Slope studio. The charismatic performer's energy is channeled through electric blue eyeshadow and vivid pink feathers around her shoulders. "I was really happy with this one," Belin said of the newly completed work. "She’s got so much personality."

Jenny Belin stands beside her recent portrait of Lizzo

Stunning, stylish portraits of feminist icons, glamorous film stars, and a menagerie of animals, line the walls of Belin’s sunny studio overlooking 9th Street. "I’ve always painted animals because I’ve always loved animals," the artist explained Monday morning. Originally from Los Angeles, Belin was greatly influenced by her mother, Daisy. "My mom was an artist…. She always painted cats," Belin fondly recalled.

Her mother grew up in New York City and attended Music & Art High School (now LaGuardia) and Pratt Institute where she studied painting. A career in advertising brought her to California. Her mother’s history, as well as books and movies such as Desperately Seeking Susan and After Hours, convinced Belin that NYC was where she wanted to be. "I always dreamed of coming here. This is where I thought all the artists and writers lived," she said.

Jenny Belin's studio

Jenny Belin's studio

After receiving her BFA from Skidmore—and studying painting in Paris for a year—Belin moved to NYC in the 90s where she worked in the art department of Mirabella magazine. While there, Belin became interested in illustration, and had a few pieces featured in the women’s magazine as well as in The New Yorker and other publications. "It was fun but I never felt like it was something I wanted to do," she recalled. "I wanted to make my own work."

Belin’s oeuvre hints at eclectic influences that include Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, and John Singer Sargent; musical icons David Bowie and Debbie Harry; fashion designers Emilio Pucci and Pierre Cardin; and also Mexican culture. "I’m always inspired by the art that we see and the flowers," Belin said of the country that she and her partner, Jon, visit annually. "We love the people, the food, the architecture, and the weather."

The top left painting, "Mademoiselle 1962," is a portrait of Belin's mother. The top center piece, "The Revolution is Feline," features Belin's late cat Edye.

L-R: A portrait of Belin's mother and one of her mother's pieces

In the early 2000s, Belin began painting pet portraits, charming likenesses of dogs, cats, and other critters. When commissioned for a pet portrait, Belin requests from the client multiple photos as well as personality traits and stories about the animal. The results showcase not only the pet’s physical attributes but its character as well. From an attentive Dachshund, an alert squirrel, a pink-snouted piglet, and a one-eyed Scottish Fold, Belin captures them all with loving detail. The artist’s own felines feature in her work, including the late Edye defiantly donning a pink pussyhat, and her recently adopted tuxedo cat Marco.

Belin’s alluring Boudoir series is inspired by her love of fashion, starlets, and classic cinema including Busby Berkeley and French New Wave films. Along with images of vintage lace and satin undergarments, Belin pays homage to iconic actresses such as Catherine Deneuve, Elizabeth Taylor, Anna Karina, and Anna May Wong. Unabashedly feminine, both in subject matter and style, these works are fun, commanding, and far from dainty. 

A selection of Belin's Feminist portraits available at Diana Kane, 229-B 5th Avenue in Park Slope. (L-R) Patti Smith, Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, Agnès Varda, Frida Kahlo, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Madonna, Harriet Tubman, Michelle Obama, and Cher

Belin embraced feminism early on, having attended a progressive high school in Los Angeles where she took Women’s Studies courses that invited prominent guests like Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug to speak. Unsettled by the 2016 election, Belin launched her popular Feminists series, featuring portraits of inspiring women from various walks of life: artists (Frida Kahlo, Patti Smith, Agnès Varda); writers (Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf); political figures (Michelle Obama, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Greta Thunberg); and performers (Cher, Madonna, Bea Arthur, Dolly Parton). Her empowering tributes to great women are available to purchase at the Diana Kane boutique in Park Slope.

Belin kicked off the Feminist series with a portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg that quickly sold and was reproduced in button form by Kane. After seeing Belin’s portrait of the Supreme Court Justice on social media, Bryant Johnson, Ginsburg’s personal trainer, reached out to the artist. Belin sent Johnson some RGB buttons which he shared with his client. Belin happily pointed out a handwritten thank you note from Ginsburg that is framed and displayed in her studio.

Belin's exhibit at PowerHouse on 8th, 1111 8th Avenue, Park Slope: (L-R) Embassy Cat, Archie, Mother and Child Reunion 

Belin's exhibit at PowerHouse on 8th, 1111 8th Avenue, Park Slope: (L-R) Kit Koala, Girlcat Feministe, Queenie. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of Kit Koala ($300) will be donated to the Australian Koala Foundation.

Belin's exhibit at PowerHouse on 8th, 1111 8th Avenue, Park Slope: (L-R) Virginia Woolf, Frida, Toni II

Belin's exhibit at PowerHouse on 8th, 1111 8th Avenue, Park Slope. Portraits of Grace Greenwood and Eve Babitz are on the right.

Belin is currently producing a series of silk scarves featuring flower drawings culled from the many sketchbooks lining her shelves. Along with regularly showcasing her Feminist portraits at the Diana Kane shop, a selection of 12” x 12” acrylic works is currently on view at PowerHouse on 8th. The exhibit combines pieces from Belin’s Feminist series with animal paintings—an ideal mix of compelling women and cuddly creatures. "I think they’re all about personality," Belin says of her work, "and capturing something specific whether it’s the animal or the woman."

Learn more about Belin and see more of her work at jennybelin.com and at Instagram.

440 Gallery: 15th Anniversary Members Show

Park Slope’s 440 Gallery celebrates its 15th anniversary with a group exhibit showcasing work by all 15 members of the artist collective.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Nancy Lunsford, Star of Bethlehem, 2006; Ellen Chuse, Floating: Gold, 2019; Janet Pedersen, Night Sky 1, 2019; Karen Gibbons, Common Ground, 2019

The space opened at 440 6th Avenue in January 2005 as a pop-up exhibiting artists from co-founder Nancy Lunsford’s weekly figure drawing workshops. Following the success of the month-long show, Lunsford and co-founder Shanee Epstein decided to keep the storefront going as an artist-run gallery.

"We’ve had 20 to 25 members over the 15 years," Gallery Director Amy Williams said last Friday. Williams joined 440 14 years ago and notes that many of the artists on the current roster have been with the collective for nearly 10 years. Along with having designated duties at the gallery, each member pays dues which go toward rent, utilities, insurance, and other operating costs. "Everybody is really invested in making sure the gallery is successful," she added.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Shanee Epstein, By the Sea, 2009; Amy Weil, Loopy and Falling Petals, both 2020; Susan Greenstein, Highline Silver and Trastevere, both 2019; Doris Rodriguez, Ancestors, 2017. Jo-Ann Acey's By the Sea, 2018, is partially seen in the rear project room.

Nancy Lunsford, Star of Bethlehem, 2006

Each artist has a solo exhibition in 440’s main gallery every two years and is included in a three-person show in the venue's rear project space at least once a year. "It’s a real community of artists and we really value each other," Williams said. While Lunsford and Epstein review portfolios and oversee new members, all other decisions at the gallery are made as a group during regular monthly meetings. "It’s a very democratic system," according to Williams. "We vote on everything."

Williams joined 440 Gallery in 2006 after submitting artwork for the annual Small Works Show. In 2016, "after 10 years and six solo shows," she decided to leave and explore new opportunities. A couple of months later, Lunsford and Epstein offered Williams the Director position to oversee the sales, marketing, and administrative duties at the gallery. "I’m still here four years later," she notes.

Susan Greenstein's Highline Silver, 2019 and Trastevere, 2019

Doris Rodriguez, Ancestors, 2017

Upon accepting the role Williams introduced monthly programming at the space, including jazz performances, poetry readings, and artist talks. "I wanted to make this gallery a destination in the community for culture beyond visual art," she explained. Williams added that the talks are "a great way to engage with the community" and offer visitors the opportunity to ask questions about the art for "a deeper understanding of what [they] are looking at." The next artist talk on Sunday, Feb. 23 will feature 440 Gallery’s two founders, Nancy Lunsford and Shanee Epstein. The pair will discuss the gallery’s successful 15-year run as well as the work they selected to showcase in the current anniversary exhibition.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Joy Makon, All Overgrowth is Comic, 2016; Gail Flanery, Blue Avens, 2019

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Janet Pedersen, Night Sky 1, 2019; Karen Gibbons, Common Ground, 2019; Janet Pedersen, Blue Vase, 2019

15 Years at 440 features a piece or two by each artist and includes an array of collage, encaustic, print, painting, and photography. The two founders contributed older works: Epstein’s 2009 By the Sea is a mixed-media piece and Lunsford’s 2006 Star of Bethlehem is an elaborate quilt pattern composed of pages from magazines, military images, and Arabic and Hebrew text. Paintings by Joy Makon, Ellen Chuse, and Janet Pedersen boast vibrant palettes that play on light or dark while monotype prints by Gail Flanery and Jo-Ann Acey feature unique textures and hand-colored details.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Doris Rodriguez, Kite Dreams #2, 2014; Leigh Blanchard, Flower.3.9.1, 2019; Amy Williams #148-Never been this way and #179-I never think, both 2019; David Stock, Red Cube (Noguchi), 2019

Leigh Blanchard created spontaneous colors and forms for Flower.3.9.1 by moving and distorting an image on a flatbed scanner, while David Stock shows an unexpected black-and-white view through a scarlet sculpture in Red Cube (Noguchi).

Karen Gibbons incorporated images of sculptures, mountains, and a woman balancing above a vivid blue sea for her dreamscape Common Ground, while Fred Bendheim carved a sheet of PVC into a red, yellow, and blue ribbon playfully twisting through a series of triangles for his Mondrian-like Night and Day. Inspired by Tom Phillips’ treated book, A Humument, Williams displays two pages from a copy of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms that she found on the street and reinterpreted with ink, pencil, and gouache.

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show (l-r) Fred Bendheim, Night And Day, 2016; Richard Barnet, Sculpture Sketches, 2018-2019
 

Reflecting on her 14 years at 440 Gallery, Williams fondly notes, "This has become an extended family for me. Everybody really supports and encourages each other and I’ve developed incredible friendships with the artists."

Looking ahead, Williams is excited for the future of the art space. "The fact that we’ve been here for 15 years is so remarkable…as a group of artists, we’re all really committed to making sure that the gallery is here for another 15 years."

"15": 440 Gallery Members Show
440 6th Avenue, Park Slope
Exhibition on view February 12 through March 15
Founders' Talk with Nancy Lunsford and Shanee Epstein, Sunday, Feb. 23 at 4:40pm

Yohanna M. Roa | La Bodega Gallery

Artist Yohanna M. Roa dismantles art history books and carefully pieces them back together, restructuring the art world’s discriminatory past one page at a time.

La Bodega Gallery

The Past: Instructions For Its Use, Roa’s solo exhibit currently on view at La Bodega Gallery, features dozens of pages torn from art history tomes reinterpreted using needlework, yarn, and thread. Identities are concealed with gauzy veils, scenes are embellished with colorful foliage, trim, and borders, and book leaves are stitched together and transformed into everyday items historically associated with women.

"Art history has systematically denied the participation of women in the production of knowledge through art," Roa explained. For centuries, women were omitted from practicing "traditional forms and techniques” of art and were restricted to crafts such as sewing, knitting, and embroidery "because the art [establishment] considered that these did not produce knowledge [since] they were activities carried out by women," she continued.

"I puncture the paper with the needle. I cut the books, delete information, or put glazes on the identity of the works and their subjects," she said of her painstaking work. "These actions subtly and…explicitly refer to the systematic violence exerted by an art history." Roa contends that art history intends to be "universal" but "reflects the blindness of others embodied in colonial, patriarchal, and racist power relations."

Yohanna M. Roa, Family Portraits I

(L-R) Yohanna M. Roa, New Patterns 2. a/v; New Patterns 1. a/v

Originally from Bogota, Columbia, Roa received an undergraduate degree in visual arts from Bellas Artes in Colombia and a master’s degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her work is inspired by history, feminism, her experiences as an immigrant, and her grandmother Helena. Roa believes observing her grandmother work as a seamstress taught her how to sew, embroider, knit, and crochet. "I saw her practice all my life," she recalled. "She was a designer but she never thought about herself as a designer." After completing her studies, Roa said she realized that her grandmother's craft was not considered an art form. "I asked myself why that kind of practice wasn’t included in art history," she said, which led her to examine her relationships with others as a woman.

Yohanna M. Roa, The Past Instructions For Its Use

Yohanna M. Roa, The Past Instructions For Its Use

For her installation The Past Instructions For Its Use, the artist cut out portraits from a book of French miniatures and obscured each subject’s face with oil paint. Roa also crossed out the text in the book with a marker. With these revisions Roa hopes viewers will be able to relate to the work on a personal level and create their own narratives or histories. "You might think that it looks like a family member, a neighbor, or an image you saw at your grandmother's house," she explained. "My goal is to establish a relationship between memory, materiality, and bodies. And point out that the writing of history has holes…which we can fill with our own experience."

Yohanna M. Roa, Tablecloth

In Tablecloth, Roa took pages from an art history book and sewed them together to form a table cover, complete with embroidered details including a duck, house, teacup, shoe, and cactus. "Traditionally history has been written in a chronological linear fashion, pointing out the events and characters that committed important acts, for example, the coronation of Napoleon," she explained. "I take a book that is written in a linear way, I disassemble it to make a fabric. I am interested in altering that order and making certain temporalities touch in non-linear ways."

As for the charming items adorning the tablecloth, Roa notes that they are decorations women commonly embroider onto household textiles. "Why is the image of Napoleon…or of a naked woman, more valid than a duck, a cactus, or a shoe?" she questioned. "I take that fabric, I cut it, to make a dress or a tablecloth, with the aim of saying that there are other ways of doing historiographies."

Yohanna M. Roa, Huipil Mazahua (dress)

Similarly, Roa sewed together pages to create Huipil Mazahua (dress), a faithful reinterpretation of a traditional Mexican dress. After spying a woman proudly wearing an unconventional version of the garment in Mexico City, Roa was inspired to create her own. "It surprised me because it’s a traditional dress and she made it with a weird fabric," the artist recalled of the woman's lace interpretation. "The woman made a mix between the traditional model and the new fabric. It was amazing to me. I said, 'I’m going to do the same thing but with a history of art book.'"

Using pages from a book printed in 1955, Roa stitched together a structured blouse and a pleated skirt and apron. The work warns of cultures losing information about themselves and women. "A lot of information is lost because the original paintings in the museum are big paintings with a lot of texture and color, and in the printed version, it’s in sepia...." she noted of the reproduced images culled from the book. "I intervened again [with linoleum and lace engravings] to say there’s one more layer of information. Art is a contextual experience."

Roa relocated from Mexico City to NYC nearly two years ago to study at CUNY Graduate Center's Women’s and Gender Studies Program. She recently completed a residency at NARS Foundation in Sunset Park, Brooklyn where she created a project based on archiving memories "to claim the memories of women."

Yohanna M. Roa at her 2019 exhibition at NARS Foundation (photo courtesy of the artist)

The work was inspired by a wooden sewing box Roa found at a thrift shop. Along with needles, thread, and beads, the box contained "documents"—instructions on how to make a beaded belt. "Maybe the owner of the [box and the] documents was a woman," Roa mused. "I thought it’s amazing. It works as an archive." The artist emailed her friends requesting that they send her a photo and history of a woman who is important to them. "I printed those portraits over some maps and I embroidered them using the supplies I found in that box," she said. "It’s about their memories, their stories. Everyone has a story and I’m trying to recover it.... We need to return the value of the things that women have been doing through history, like cooking, embroidery. Women live their own lives and that’s important."

Currently working on a project about her grandmother, Roa insists that the past and history can be revised and transformed. "The present is a port which allows us to use our memories to rebuild the past," she said. "History is a technique."

The Past: Instructions For Its Use | A Solo Exhibition By Yohanna M. Roa
La Bodega Gallery, 695 5th Avenue, Park Slope
Exhibition on view February 7 through March 2

Antony Gormley: New York Clearing | Brooklyn Bridge Park

Antony Gormley debuted a massive sculptural work at Brooklyn Bridge Park‘s Pier 3 earlier this week as part of Connect, BTS, a global arts project funded by the K-pop boy band BTS.

The British artist’s New York Clearing is a sprawling construction of interconnected aluminum tubing that spirals and loops in and around itself “without beginning or end,” according to the Connect, BTS website. Overlooking the East River and set against the Manhattan skyline, the work is meant to “converse with the city.” This is the first time the piece has been exhibited outdoors. The Brooklyn Bridge Park website notes that the installation may be closed due to weather conditions, such as today's gusty winds, so be sure to check Twitter @bbpnyc for updates.

Antony Gormley, New York Clearing, on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 3

Antony Gormley, New York Clearing, on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 3

Antony Gormley, New York Clearing, on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 3

Connect, BTS unites five cities and twenty-two artists in an effort to “redefine the relationships between art and music, the material and immaterial, artists and their audiences, artists and artists, theory and practice.”

Daehyung Lee oversaw the international art project, leading teams in each participating city, according to the New York Times.

The performance series Rituals of Care, which featured experimental choreography, took place in Berlin from January 15 through February 2. An immersive digital installation by Jakob Kudsk Steensen is currently on view in London. Tomás Saraceno presents Fly With Aerocene Pacha in Buenos Aires and installations by artists Ann Veronica Janssens and Yiyun Kang are being featured in Seoul.

Antony Gormley, New York Clearing, on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 3

Antony Gormley, New York Clearing, on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 3

Antony Gormley, New York Clearing, on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 3

Antony Gormley, New York Clearing, on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 3

New Yorkers may recall Gormley’s Event Horizon from 2010 in which 31 life-size casts of the artist’s body were displayed around Madison Square Park, including one on the roof of the Flatiron Building.

New York Clearing is on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park from February 5 through March 27. Learn more at connect-bts.com and brooklynbridgepark.org.

Noah Davis | David Zwirner

Currently on view at David Zwirner is a terrific exhibition highlighting the short but prolific career of artist Noah Davis.  

Noah Davis, Mary Jane, 2008

Born in Seattle in 1983, Davis studied painting at NYC's Cooper Union before settling in Los Angeles. The exhibition, organized by Helen Molesworth, showcases more than 20 of Davis’ paintings that depict intimate scenes inside African American homes and surreal images “that traffic in magical realism,” Molesworth says in the release. “Loneliness and tenderness suffuse his rigorously composed paintings, as do traces of his abiding interest in artists such as Marlene Dumas, Kerry James Marshall, Fairfield Porter, and Luc Tuymans,” she adds.

Noah Davis, Untitled (Moses)

Noah Davis, Single Mother with Father Out of the Picture

Noah Davis, Bad Boy for Life, 2007

Davis’ paintings are imbued with a sense of mystery and tension, lacking facial expressions and eye contact from subjects who are often placed in unusual scenarios. Untitled (Moses), a small-scale painting of Davis’ son being bathed in a sink, offers a sweet glimpse into childhood, while the distant-looking, half-dressed figures in Single Mother with Father Out of the Picture and the emotionless woman spanking a young boy in Bad Boy For Life, suggest uneasiness.

Noah Davis, The Casting Call, 2008

Noah Davis, Pueblo del Rio: Arabesque, 2014

Noah Davis, Pueblo del Rio: Concerto, 2014

The Casting Call is a straightforward look at a group of dancers rehearsing on a black-and-white checkerboard floor, while the dreamlike Pueblo del Rio: Arabesque shows six dancers in white dresses performing outdoors and Pueblo del Rio: Concerto features a lone piano player performing at night on the grounds of the Los Angeles housing project referenced in the titles. A pair rows a canoe on dark waters beneath the Hollywood sign missing its last two letters in the eerie NO-OD for Me and the confounding The Last Barbeque shows an aloof man next to a BBQ grill and a formally dressed, ghostly trio standing off to the side as a man who appears to be smoldering collapses in the background.

Noah Davis, NO-OD for Me, 2008

Noah Davis, The Last Barbeque, 2008

Along with his cryptic, moody paintings, Davis’ legacy includes co-founding The Underground Museum (UM) with his wife, sculptor Karon Davis, in the Arlington Heights section of Los Angeles in 2012. Constructed from three storefronts, the artist-run space focuses on presenting “museum-quality” artwork in an underserved predominantly black and Latinx area of Los Angeles, according to the press release.

Molesworth met Davis at UM in 2014, according to Artnet. She was Chief Curator of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art at the time and originally visited UM to meet with Davis’ brother, the filmmaker Kahlil Joseph. She became close with both artists and in 2014, agreed to a collaboration between UM and LA MOCA. Prior to this partnership, museums were unwilling to loan works to UM, so Davis exhibited his own artwork and curated shows featuring his friends and family.

Shortly after the agreement with LA MOCA, Davis was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, according to the article. He died in 2015 at the age of 32. 

The Zwirner exhibition also features a recreation of the UM offices, complete with a sculpture by Karon Davis, furniture designed by Davis’ mother, Faith Childs-Davis, and BLKNWS, a two-channel video project by Kahlil Joseph. The room also displays architectural models of two shows Davis curated with work from LA MOCA that were posthumously exhibited at UM. Artists of Color (2017-2018) included pieces by Jeremy Blake, Dan Flavin, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Non Fiction (2016-2017) showcased works by Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall, and David Hammons.

Noah Davis, Untitled, 2015

Davis wrote out plans for the museum before his untimely passing and his family and Molesworth continue to carry out his vision for UM today. A portion of this exhibition will travel to The Underground Museum where it will be on display starting next month. Check out work by the remarkable Noah Davis before the NYC exhibit closes on February 22. Learn more at davidzwirner.com.

Noah Davis
David Zwirner
533 West 19th Street, NYC
Exhibition on view January 16 through February 22

Olivia Beens: The Storyteller | El Barrio's Artspace PS109

Tuesday (Feb. 4) is your last chance to check out The Storyteller at El Barrio’s Artspace PS109, a retrospective of NYC-based artist Olivia Beens’ 40-year career. 

Beens’ oeuvre includes performance, installation, and sculpture and addresses identity, spirituality, motherhood, and feminism. Born in 1948 in Holland, Beens moved with her mother to Portugal when she was four. The pair moved to Flushing, Queens when Beens was seven after her mother married an American.

The Storyteller: Olivia Beens Through The Decades, on view at El Barrio's Artspace PS 109

She received her BFA in sculpture from Pratt and earned an MFA from Hunter College where she began exploring performance and installation work. While still studying sculpture at Hunter, Beens created Images, Reflections, and Projections, an installation based on her year at a Catholic boarding school in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Exhibited in 1980, the work transformed a gallery into a chapel, with dozens of Polaroid self-portraits lining the walls depicting Beens as an artist, Goddess, mother, etc. A group of nuns’ habits—each stamped with “Warning: This habit contains an irritant”—floated ghostlike in the center of the room. An altar displayed a pair of scissors and braids of the artist’s hair to illustrate the “ritual of becoming a nun,” Beens explained at the gallery on Sunday, “they cut your hair.”

Spread over two floors at El Barrio’s Artspace, the exhibition features photos and video clips of Beens’ earlier installation and performance pieces on the lower level, including Fit and Flab Diaries (1985), a performance in which Beens and a fellow artist built cubicles in the basement of the 22 Wooster Gallery and lived there with their young children on weekends for a month. “After placing real personal ads in the East Village Eye, namely looking to meet a New World Man, Fit (played by Diane Spodarek) and Flab (played by Beens) discover their neighbor, played by Ian Prior, is just who they are looking for,” according to the wall text.

“There was a scripted performance that was about 20 minutes long that we did, I don’t know, every hour, and then the rest of it really was improvised,” Beens recalled. Visitors were invited to watch the performances and observe the two women, the two eight-year-old children, and the “New World Man” go about their day. Fit and Flab focused on “single mothers trying to survive,” Beens explained, “because that’s what we both were.”

Photos of Beens in The Satyr Silenus series (1984) in which she took the identity of the mythological satyr

In The Satyr Silenus, another performance series, Beens “inhabits the identity” of the Greek mythological satyr Silenus, the foster father of Dionysus, complete with animal furs, a phallus, and a tail made from her own hair. Silenus’ Summer Romp was performed in Cummington, Massachusetts where Beens was an artist-in-residence in the mid-1980s. “I involved the community. I cast body parts of community members,” Beens said. The participants traveled from a cemetery into the woods where they played drums then reconstructed the body of Dionysus using the body casts. “It involved everybody, which I wanted to do, and created ritual as performance,” Beens said of the work.

In 1980, Beens separated from her son’s father and she and the young boy moved to Canal Street (at Ludlow). “I moved into an apartment that had been uninhabited for over 40 years,” she said. “The windows were tinned up, the ceilings were falling down. There was rubble all over the place. I found objects that people left behind.”

Among the household items, linens, clothing, and newspapers she discovered was a wedding photo that she enlarged and placed behind window bars from the tenement. Another photo she unearthed features a young boy dressed in a suit and top hat. Beens framed the professionally shot portrait of the boy with curtains left behind by former tenants and painted stars and “symbols of America” on the background. “I would love to know who that little boy is,” Beens said. “He looks so prominent and confident.”

The Life of an Apartment (1983)

The Life of an Apartment (1983)

Beens’ two images from The Life of an Apartment series were included in an exhibit at ABC No Rio called Not for Sale: A Project Against Displacement. “I went to the Buildings Department and I got all of the documents on change and renovation and I wheat-pasted them” onto the walls of the gallery, Beens noted of her project that addresses the city’s ongoing gentrification. 

Beens lived in the 800-square-foot Canal Street apartment for 38 years before moving into an apartment at 215 East 99th Street two years ago. The building, where El Barrio’s Artspace is located, was transformed from PS109 into an affordable artist community in 2014 and offers nearly 90 affordable live/work units to artists. Beens noted that her son went to school in the building years ago. “It was hard for me to leave,” Beens says of her longtime residence downtown. “I was basically a Lower East Side artist and moved uptown.”

She loves her new home which is ten blocks away from the Covello Senior Center where she works from and also teaches ceramics. Beens began teaching art in NYC schools in 1982 and officially retired about nine years ago. “I am retired but I’m not retired,” said the active 72-year-old.

In the 1990s, while raising her son and working as an artist and an art teacher, Beens transitioned into “more sculptural work”—art that she “could leave and come back to.” The series, Object Spirit, features assemblages composed using found objects such as animal bones, wood, feathers, and shells. Simplifying her practice and working with nature drew Beens to these organic materials. “I have a really great love of nature. I mean I love the city…but I love being in the woods and by the sea because I feel in harmony with that.”

Who's Web? (1999)

Safiya's Song (1995), Beens made this piece for her late friend, the poet Safiya Henderson-Holmes 

Cave Dweller (1998) was inspired by the altars Beens saw in Chinatown shops and restaurants when she lived on Canal Street

The first work in the series, Spirit Ladder (1991), composed of bones, wood, pieces of glass, and wire, was made during a trip to Long Island. “I spent some summers out on Long Island and I would see these pieces of driftwood and bones along the beach and thought, ‘These have such a wonderful inherent quality to them.’ I wanted other people, and myself, to see and appreciate it. Then I thought I can assemble them to make really ritualistic pieces, so they come out of performance work in a way, and in a certain kind of spirituality that is self-identified. It’s not Catholic. It’s not Buddhist. It’s shamanistic, if anything.”

Spirit Ladder, 1991

Self-Composing Mandala, 2001

Her Icons series incorporate natural materials, hair, and bones, with copper “as a conductor of universal forces, situating the works in a unique devotional context,” according the wall text. Celebrating femininity, the works were inspired by Beens’ “interest in feminism and fertility figures. Women giving life, preserving civilization and passing it on to subsequent generations,” the artist says in the exhibition catalogue.

(L-R): Icons - A Hair's Tale (2008) and Alone Again (2010)

In the early 2000s, Beens took a trip to Prague to visit her mother’s sister who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The artist was overcome with emotion at the meeting. “When I saw my aunt, I just started crying,” she recalled. "It was an emotional response…. In Turkey there is this cistern and there are these columns that they call Column of Tears.” Beens associated her experience with the structures at the Basilica Cistern and began creating ceramic teardrops. Her series features column-like structures composed of dozens of dangling drops representing teardrops as well as rain, blood, and oil.

(L-R): Column of Tears - Magnolia (2010) and Lija's Tears (2013)

The shape of the teardrops that Beens constantly formed led the artist to create sculptures of small heads. “Those are little heads that I work on kind of endlessly,” she said. “They’re all made individually and I work with them starting with simple pinch pot method and I develop a relationship, something strikes me, it reminds me of somebody, or a certain expression develops,” she continued. “I love making the hair—it’s all fun—but the hair becomes this abstract kind of thing.”

Frozen in Time (2013-present), a selection of Beens' glazed ceramic heads

A closer look at Frozen in Time

More sculptural heads

Dakini's Dance (2017)

Olympiad (2017)

The heads feature meditative or knowing expressions, mischievous grins, and vivacious swirls of hair. A series of larger, more recent head sculptures feature multiple faces, adding to their mystery. Influenced by Asian art, Beens says the many faces that encircle the sculptures or poke out of a subject’s hair illustrate “how a being encompasses other beings and other lives that came before it and may go after it.”

These recent sculptures were created while Beens worked on the centerpiece of the exhibition, Baroque Passages (2012-2019) a group of ceramic busts and wall pieces which the artist created following the death of her mother. “She comes from Prague,” Beens said of her mom. “It’s a very Baroque city."

Baroque Passages (2012-2019) on the back wall. (Foreground L-R): Dakini's Dance (2017); Concerto in Bronze and Gold (2017); Bodhisattva for Yvonnne (2013)

The death mask in Baroque Passages

A closer look at Baroque Passages

Beens began the homage by creating a symbolic death mask. The artist says she “thought about churches and what’s on the ceiling and the way that the afterlife is depicted. These are fragmentary items that have to do with sky and angels,” she explained. Beens gets emotional when discussing the work, which is being shown in its entirety for the first time. The meditative, multifaceted work, featuring faces and religious icons on a warm mauve background, is moving tribute to her mother.

The Storyteller (2018)

The title of the exhibit was taken from The Storyteller, a sculpture Beens created in 2018. A torso, which “harkens back to either the Venus de Milo or the Victory of Samothrace,” rests above a skirt of netting, dotted with fragments of glass, that envelopes a group of small ceramic heads. “That came to me actually riding in a taxi cab, in the rain, seeing the reflections and what was going on inside and outside and around,” Beens explained. “She’s protecting or harboring other entities, other lives, or stories.”

Beens and her Shih-Poo Marwan stand in front of Baroque Passages

“I realized as we were putting the show together, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been telling stories,” Beens noted. Incorporating influences from classical art, primitivism, and different religions and cultures, the artist’s diverse body of work tells fascinating stories of a New Yorker’s personal experiences as a woman, mother, activist, and artist.

The Storyteller| Olivia Beens Through the Decades
El Barrio’s Artspace PS109, 215 East 99th Street (between 2nd & 3rd Avenues), NYC
Exhibition on view January 10 through February 4