Art Hag

Neurodiverse Artists "Show Up and Show Out" in Fisher Center Group Exhibit

"Show Up and Show Out," a group exhibition presented by AHRC NYC and the W83 Ministry Center

W83 Gallery was buzzing with excitement Friday evening where artists were eager to show off their work during the opening of Show Up and Show Out, a group exhibition featuring artwork by 17 neurodiverse artists.

Presented by AHRC New York City, the exhibit showcases paintings, drawings, and fiber art created by participants of the organization’s day services at Fisher Center in East Harlem that serves adults with intellectual disabilities.

Several of the exhibiting artists were on hand Friday evening to greet visitors and share their creations. On view is a vivid array of artwork featuring elaborate weaving, abstract patterns, vibrant flowers, lettering, portraits, cartoon characters, and more.

“This is one of our largest shows that we’ve had, with this many artists, and I feel like this wall is just a small piece of the actual work that goes on in the program. It’s really fulfilling,” Fisher Center’s Community Support Supervisor, CieraMarie Mitchell, said during an address to the crowd.

L-R: Naomi Lawrence, Lucille Payne, Anita Payne, Jon Bunge, and Adriana Caicedo at the opening of "Show Up and Show Out" at W83 Gallery

Anita Payne has been attending the Fisher Center for almost 30 years, drawing and making jewelry, according to her mother, Lucille Payne. “She can sit for hours and hours and work on her jewelry. That’s her passion. She loves color,” Lucille noted. Two years ago, Anita discovered a new passion—weaving. Anita’s Quilt is a 39” x 50” rainbow patchwork composed of colorful squares stitched together and adorned with red and blue raindrop-shaped ornaments dangling like jewels. “She just started [fiber art] and she fell in love with it,” said Lucille.

“You don’t know [an artist's potential] until you give someone the materials and you give them the space, and the patience. The patience to let people explore,” said Naomi Lawrence, an art consultant at Fisher Center who launched the weaving program during the pandemic.

"Anita's Quilt" by Anita Payne

L-R: Lucille Payne, Anita Payne, and Yvonne Cannon

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L-R: "Nest #1" and "Nest #2" by Angel Oliveras

Like the birds referenced in the title of his works, Angel Oliveras searches for and collects scraps of fabric and other materials and incorporates the pieces into his Nest series of circle weavings. His dynamic and whimsical spirals of yarn are the cat's meow!

“The people we support are artists,” said Naomi, who teaches weaving to about 30 artists at Fisher Center. “I’m very lucky to work with them.”

AHRC has been providing services and support to neurodiverse New Yorkers of all ages across NYC for more than 70 years. Along with educational and employment programs, the organization offers various activities, such as art, providing creative outlets for artists with developmental disabilities.

“I’m very proud of the artists. It’s so fun to see what they create. It’s so fun to see how they grow,” said Jon Bunge, who teaches drawing and painting to more than 30 artists at Fisher Center. “It’s an exciting job. I’m very blessed to be able to work with these artists.” Jon has worked at Fisher Center for seven years and has helped curate more than a dozen past exhibits.

"History People" by Nichole Perez

While some of his artists create from imagination, others prefer to use reference images, ranging from familiar masterpieces to photos of famous figures. Using colored pencils and markers, Nichole Perez draws images of pop stars as well as unmistakable depictions of Barack Obama, Albert Einstein, Michael Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln in her piece History People.

Jon’s enthusiasm and joy are apparent as he discusses the art program and the exhibit. “By making these works, the artists that we support get a real sense of meaning, of purpose, and of accomplishment,” he said. “It’s really wonderful to see that and that’s epitomized tonight when we can see their work up on the wall.”

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L-R: "Pat" and "Woman with a Pink Face on a Red Background" by Devona Gamble

Devona Gamble, who creates portraits with dazzling pops of color, happily showed her artwork to visitors, proudly pointing out the flaming haired “Pat” as her personal favorite.

“It’s seeing people create. It is seeing the self-esteem people get from it,” Jon continued. “They feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment. And seeing [their work] in a public space, they’re proud, their families are proud…. I hope visitors [to the exhibit] take away the fact that everyone has the potential to create something.”

Naomi recalled a fiber artist’s reaction to seeing her work displayed for the first time at a previous exhibit. “She did a double-take and she stepped away and said, ‘I need a moment.’ She was so overwhelmed with emotion and pride. I want all the artists to feel that tonight.”

It isn’t just the final work and the exhibitions that make the Fisher Center’s art program so meaningful. It’s also the community and connections the artists find in working together. “That is the family that is Fisher Center,” Naomi noted. “We go through highs and lows and losses, and we all rally together.”

Anita’s mom, Lucille, agreed. “It’s bringing them together. It’s amazing,” she said. Anita’s artwork is “an expression of her,” she continued. “She’s bringing it out and she’s putting it in weaving, she’s putting it on paper. She’s expressing her love and you can feel it, and that makes me so happy.”

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L-R: Works by Timotheus Davis and Miguel Reveron

 

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L-R: Works by Jeffrey Holloway and Oswald James

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L-R: Works by Wayne Anderson and Carol Fields

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L-R: Fiber works by Guadalupe Quinto (top) and Kim Worthmann (bottom): Tahira Curtis

Show Up and Show Out
W83 Gallery, 150 West 83rd Street, NYC
Exhibition on view through January 29, 2024
More info here. 

25th Annual Gowanus Open Studios

Saturday kicked off the 25th annual Gowanus Open Studios (GOS). Organized by Arts Gowanus, the event features more than 400 artists opening the doors of their workspaces to visitors throughout the weekend. According to artist Ellen Chuse, a participant for 21 years, GOS began in the late '90s with only a handful of artists from three buildings on the northern end of the Gowanus Canal – 295 Douglass Street, 280 Nevins Street, and 543 Union Street. The event has grown exponentially over the years with more than 100 participating venues – including shops, bars, cafes, and galleries.  

With only one free day to explore the massive event, I decided to visit large, centralized clusters of artist studios at Ti Art Studios at 183 Lorraine Street in Red Hook and 540 President Street (home to the Arts Gowanus office & Brooklyn Art Cluster Studios) in Gowanus. My socialbility still not fully recovered following the pandemic isolation, I gravitated to familiar faces but did get to chat with a few artists I'd not met before. Due to COVID, Arts Gowanus had to reinvent Open Studios last year, and hundreds of artworks were displayed in storefronts along a stretch of Atlantic Avenue. Click here, here, here, and here to see my coverage on last year's event.

See my photos from Saturday below then get yourself to Gowanus today to meet some talented local artists. More info and map at artgowanus.org.

Ti Art Studios, 183 Lorraine Street, Red Hook

Textile artist Traci Johnson outside her studio at Ti Art Studios

A recent FIT grad, textile artist Traci Johnson transformed her studio into a vivid, plushy dreamscape.

Traci Johnson in her studio.

Demarcus McGaughey (right) and friends in his studio

Recent work by Demarcus McGaughey

K Haskell's drawings and collage work document beauty within decay. The illuminated installion on their wall depicts a cancer cell.

Recent work by K Haskell

Sculptor Ward Yoshimoto creates intricate assemblages with found objects. Several of his works feature materials discovered at Dead Horse Bay.

Marlene Weisman poses with her Optimystics collages. Weisman also designed all the graphics for Gowanus Open Studios.

Natale Adgnot stands with a fascinating new installation in her studio. Check out her Chromaticism exhibit from November 2020 here.

Karen Gibbons in her studio. Read about her retrospective show, and former long-time Gowanus workspace, here. 

Feminine Rising, a recent work by Karen Gibbons.

Artwork by Ellen Chuse

Ellen Chuse at her studio in Red Hook.

540 President Street, Gowanus

Jo-ann Acey was one of several artists at 540 President whose studios flooded during Hurricane Ida. A Go Fund Me was set up to help her recoup and recover extensive losses. See my interview with Acey from November 2020 here.

Miguel Ayuso in his studio. Ayuso founded La Bodega Gallery, a popular creative/community hub in South Slope before it closed in 2020.

Midrene Lamy working on a self-portrait.

Lamy's self-portrait is a response to the COVID pandemic.

Mark the Artisan set up his art truck in the parking lot of 540 President.

Usually parked on Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg, Mark the Artisan will be in Gowanus throughout the GOS weekend. Read about his August 2021 exhibit at Established Gallery here.

Mark the Artisan at work

Karen Gibbons | Gowanus Retrospective

Karen Gibbons in her studio at 280 Nevins Street.

After nearly 30 years, Karen Gibbons is saying farewell to her Gowanus studio with an exhibition and courtyard party this weekend. Showcasing work created in the 1980s and 1990s, Gowanus Retrospective includes drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs, and collage works inspired by the rapidly changing Brooklyn neighborhood.

“All of these things were done when I was new to this space,” Gibbons said on Wednesday during a preview of her show. Gowanus inspired Gibbons “with lots of interesting wires, antennas, and shapes that you don’t see in other places.” The neighborhood also provided her with an endless supply of materials she’d find on the streets and incorporate into her artwork, such as springs, a plastic floor mat, construction materials, “detritus of life in Gowanus,” according to the artist.

Works by Karen Gibbons from the 1980s: 'Mountain Spring' (foreground) is composed of objects the artist found in Gowanus. The sculpture evokes "this feeling of surface that is very heavy if you look at it in one way, and then if you look at it in another way, it could be a like a cloud."

Paintings inspired by the Gowanus landscape hang above a sculpture wrapped in a plastic floor mat suggesting "a continuous walkway that you can’t actually walk on." Gibbons described the piece as "a portrait of depression."

Gibbons' Gowanus landscapes (front room) and the works in the rear were created in the 1980s. The sculptures were produced in the 1990s.

Originally from Pennsylvania, Gibbons moved to NYC where she studied at Pratt and earned her MFA in painting from Hunter College. While a student at Hunter, Gibbons and her husband spotted an advertisement for a four-story industrial building at 280 Nevins Street that housed a stuffed animal factory on the first floor and studio spaces on the upper levels. “It said ‘air-conditioned building near BAM,’” she recalled. “We drove by and said ‘this is not near BAM and that building is not air-conditioned.” The couple eventually went back to check out the building and were “blown away with the amount of space.” In 1984 they moved in, sharing studio space until a dance studio on the second floor became available in the early ‘90s. Gibbons took over the lease for the vast studio and has worked there until this year.

The new space allowed Gibbons to create large-scale sculptures and a series of paintings inspired by the Gowanus landscape. “What interests me is the sky and the buildings,” Gibbons said. “The neighborhood is unusual in that there’s so much sky.” Created in the ‘80s, the paintings illustrate the interactions between the buildings and the sky. They do not represent any specific local landmarks. “They’re more like creatures created from the inspiration of the buildings,” she said of the works. A series of black-and-white photographs also captures glimpses of architectural details around Gowanus—rooftops, smokestacks, and cornices—all seen under those expansive skies.

Gowanus Retrospective by Karen Gibbons

A series of black-and-white photos shot by Karen Gibbons in the 1980s.

Gowanus Retrospective by Karen Gibbons

Looking out of her studio windows inspired Gibbons to create a series of charming paintings featuring pigeons, bestowing grace upon these typically humble creatures. Embodying two of her passions, nature and urban life, the birds share similarities to humans, the artist insists. “We’re like pigeons in a way that we travel in groups and are sort of oblivious to our surroundings. They’re very city creatures.”

In 2019, after years of changing hands, 280 Nevins Street was sold to a developer who plans to convert the building into luxury condos—another sign of gentrification in an area facing the threat of a massive rezoning. “The neighborhood was really kind of dead,” Gibbons recalled of her early years in Gowanus when drugs and prostitution were the area’s main trades. “A lot of the industries were not here.”

“It was just quiet,” Gibbons said of the now bustling neighborhood. “Before, on weekends, nobody walked on Union Street. I would tell people, ‘We’re right by the Union Street Bridge,’ and they would say, ‘Where is that?’ Now I say, ‘We’re near Ample Hills.’” Gibbons began noticing changes in the area about ten years ago, when the Green Building first started hosting weddings and events. “We started seeing people in wedding gowns taking pictures on the bridge…. We were like, ‘this is the end.’”

Collage paintings by Karen Gibbons

A group of work from the 1980s on display at Gowanus Retrospective

Sculptures by Karen Gibbons. 'Mother Tree' (foreground) was inspired by a picture Gibbons' daughter drew in the 1990s.

To prepare for the impending closure of her Nevins Street workspace, Gibbons moved to Red Hook’s TI Art Studios in December 2019. At 350 square feet, her new studio is significantly smaller than her longtime Gowanus space, so the artist needs to pare down. Anyone who purchases a ticket to Gowanus Retrospective will take home a piece of Gibbons’ artwork! What’s more, a majority of the proceeds from ticket sales will go to Arts Gowanus, the non-profit organization that hosts the much-loved Gowanus Open Studios every year.

“I realized that part of what made this studio so vital was having an open studio every year that I could count on,” Gibbons said of the organization. “Also with all the changes in Gowanus and Arts Gowanus’ working to make sure the artists still have a place here, I felt like it was a great match.” Though she might have missed the very first Gowanus Open Studios event, Gibbons believes she “might have participated in every single one.”

While her new studio may be much smaller, it has not slowed Gibbons’ productivity. She had a solo show at 440 Gallery and was part of a group show with the gallery in late 2020. Earlier this year she had a solo show at Sweet Lorraine Gallery. “Now with a different studio and different perspective with the neighborhood changing, my work is changing too,” Gibbons said. “We’ll see where it goes.” When asked whether Red Hook inspires her in the same way Gowanus does, she replied. “Somewhat. It’s quirky and there’s still sky.”

Learn more about Karen Gibbons at karengibbonsart.com.

Karen Gibbons | Gowanus Retrospective
Saturday, June 12, 4pm-8pm (Rain date: June 19)
280 Nevins Street, Gowanus
Ticket prices: $25, $40, $60, $100, $300
See some of the artwork available at each price point at artsgowanus.org.
Purchase tickets here.

Meet Brooklyn-based Artist & Curator Yvena Despagne

Yvena Despagne in her studio flanked by works from her Monsters series: Always Looking for Trouble (left) and Gang (right)

Along with creating her own spirited abstract paintings, artist and curator Yvena Despagne showcases work by emerging and mid-career artists from Haiti and Brooklyn as co-founder of Arts x Ayiti and the recently appointed curator-in-residence of Arts Gowanus.

“As an artist you never do not have anything to do,” Despagne said at her Gowanus studio this week. “Even if I’m on one project, I can’t sit still. I’m on this one project but I’m planning five more.”

Discovering Art

The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Despagne was born and raised in Harlem, moving to Brooklyn in her teens and graduating from New Utrecht High School in Bensonhurst. She studied psychology at Brooklyn College before taking a position as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home to see if the medical field was a good fit for her. It wasn’t.

“I started catching myself hiding in empty rooms on my lunch break or whenever I had a moment, and researching art stuff,” she recalled. “I would study people’s artwork, read about becoming an artist or about artists’ stories. The more I was doing that, the less I wanted to be at the nursing home.”

“Going back [to college] was a challenge for me because at that point I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself,” Despagne added. “I was tired of taking classes and being unsure of my direction. That happened in the course of being married too.” At 25 Despagne married a Jehovah’s Witness whose religious beliefs she says “restricted me as an individual and didn’t allow me the opportunity to get to really know myself or even discover the fact that I liked art as much as I did.”

The couple separated in 2015 after five years. “Then the divorce happened and I started to get depressed,” she said, noting that she’d struggled with depression when she was younger. Searching for a distraction, Despagne found an instructional painting video on You Tube. “That was the first time that I stopped thinking about everything and was just focused on what [the artist] was doing,” she recalled. Inspired, she went out and bought art supplies and recreated what she saw in the tutorial. “I felt so good painting,” she said. “My issues were not an issue and I was able to block everything else out and think about myself…. Art in that sense, when you have that solitude, forces you to think about life, think about everything, or maybe not think about anything at all. Just focus on what you’re doing.”

She discovered her creative calling, and with the support of her new husband, Richard Rameau, decided to leave her position at the nursing home. “I left a good-paying job to barely making ends meet, but pursuing the art,” she said.

Rameau convinced Despagne to start an Instagram page in 2016 to share her artwork online. Within the first year of devoting herself full-time to her art, Despagne’s Instagram page caught the attention of Shirley Dorsainvil, the founder of Haitians Who Blog. She invited Despagne to exhibit and discuss her work at an event in Florida.

Another boost of confidence happened in 2019 when her painting Belle Machan’n was one of 11 works selected by the Flatbush Avenue BID for a street banner art campaign. The winning works were printed on to banners and prominently displayed along Flatbush Avenue between Cortelyou Road and Parkside Avenue in Brooklyn. “That was a big accomplishment for me because I almost didn’t enter,” Despagne noted with a laugh. The ethereal scene, featuring a “beautiful market lady” dressed in white and carrying a basket on her head, appeared to Despagne in a dream. “I woke up and was like I have to paint this now,” she remembers. “When I painted it, I was thinking about all the moms—about my mom and grandmother, my aunt, and all the woman that work hard to feed and provide for their families in hopes that they’ll have better opportunities or a better future than they did.”

(Left to right) Yvena Despagne's Ladybug, The Bee, and Hummingbird, all 2018

Her 2018 series, Little Wonder, features an enchanting menagerie of tiny creatures including a bumble bee, butterfly, and hummingbird. A friend inspired the initial piece, Ladybug. “One ladybug had me thinking about all the other little creatures that we don’t really think about until we see them…. Regardless of how small we are, we still all have a reason and a purpose for being on earth,” she explained.

Anger was the impetus behind Despagne’s Monsters series. The project started with two works on paper in 2019. “I was so upset about so many things. It was a point in my life where I felt like I was facing a wall and didn’t know where else to go,” she said. “I just started drawing these random shapes and…suddenly they looked like parts of a body to me. I wrote the words ‘tongue,’ ‘teeth,’ and ‘eyes’ on them.” She set these two drawings aside for a few months until the pandemic hit and she felt compelled to revisit them and make more. “I just couldn’t stop creating these monsters. I was thinking of politics, the government. It’s just annoying how people feel a sense of having control over other people’s lives and just like that [snaps fingers] you can destroy it or take everything away,” she said.

Yvena Despagne's Monsters series

Yvena Despagne's Always Looking for Trouble (left) and Gang (right)

Yvena Despagne's Two-Faced, from her Monsters series

Always Looking for Trouble features searching eyes “constantly looking for the next thing to gossip about” and an elongated pink tongue. “The tongue is so long because gossipers just have so much to say all the time,” she explains.

Four lashing tongues, four sets of teeth, and a single pair of eyes intermingle on a deep blue backdrop in Gang. “Usually in a gang, whether it’s a government, a school setting, or an actual gang in the streets, there’s always one leader of the pack. That’s why there is only one set of eyes,” Despagne notes. “It only takes that one person to see or say something to make everybody else follow.”

Another Creative Path

Despagne landed her first arts-related job in 2018 at sk.ArtSpace in East New York. After submitting her artwork and speaking with the venue owners, they recognized her drive and took her on as a gallery assistant. After three months, they gave her the opportunity to curate an exhibit on her own. The theme of Despagne’s inaugural curatorial project I Was Created to Create acknowledged “all artists who, although they do other things in their lives, can’t deny at the end of the day that they are an artist first,” she said. Featuring painting, photography, sculpture, and film, the exhibit went over so well that she was asked to curate two more group shows at the space in 2019.

Despagne soon found another position assisting Aaron Simms, the owner of Brooklyn Arts Fellowship (BAF) gallery in Greenwood Heights. She curated the exhibit currently on view at the gallery, Esansyèl [Essential], featuring paintings by Haitian-American artist Phaidra Sterlin.

Concurrent with her positions at galleries, Despagne branched out by curating artwork for local cafés, starting with Lakou Café in Crown Heights where she presented work by new artists every month. Her work at Lakou opened the door to curating gigs at several other cafés and caught the eye of the Ghost Gallery owner who enlisted her to curate three shows at his Brooklyn gallery. Despagne was even in talks to curate a show for Ghost Gallery’s LA location, but those plans had to be put on hold. “The pandemic hit and everything shut down,” she said. “Socializing is out of the picture. What am I supposed to do as an artist and as a curator? How does this work now?” she questioned.

An upcoming trip to Haiti also had to be canceled due to the pandemic. The producers of Ayiti: The Awakening recruited Despagne to organize screenings of their documentary in Haiti. “[The film] talks about how corrupted everything was after the [2010] earthquake and how the funds that were supposed to go to the Haitian people in the country to help restore it—never got there,” she explains of the film. Not easily discouraged, Despagne will host a screening of Ayiti: The Awakening in Brooklyn at BAF gallery on December 17.

While in-person events may pose problems amid the pandemic, Despagne’s online project, Art x Ayiti, continues to flourish. The platform highlights and promotes contemporary visual artists of Haitian descent. Since taking over the project from co-founder Samantha Nader, Despagne has been focused on enhancing the user experience by hosting artist talks and offering art business tips. “I feel like it’s serving its purpose, inspiring and motivating people and showing that as an artist you can make it, you just have to figure out what you’re doing.”

Yvena Despagne in her studio with her Monster series

The ever-busy Despagne joined Arts Gowanus in September as a curator-in-residence. She’s already helped the group organize its annual fundraiser in September and collaborated on the successful Atlantic Avenue Art Walk in October. The walk featured artwork by dozens of Brooklyn artists displayed in 65 storefronts along 1.5-miles for a socially-distanced alternative to a yearly open studios event. Despagne is currently working on putting together a virtual show for the organization. “The Arts Gowanus community is very open and welcoming,” Despagne says of her new role. “I’m really excited about what else we’ll be able to work on together.”

A tenacious ambition and work ethic drive Despagne toward her creative goals. “I’m happy that I push myself. Fear comes hand in hand with this career and I’ve been told countless times if you’re not uncomfortable then you’re not really doing much. I’ve constantly been pushing myself to maintain in every uncomfortable situation because I know once I get through that, it’s prepares me for whatever else is out there for me,” she said. “I’m always striving for the next big thing.”

Visit yvenadespagneart.com to learn more about the artist and message her on Instagram if you’d like to schedule a studio visit.
Check out her programming at BAF Gallery—Phaidra Sterlin: Esansyèl [Essential] on view through December 20 and a screening of Ayiti: The Awakening on December 17 at 6pm.

 

PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux | Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC)

Carol Adams' sculptures (front and back left); Joyce Riley's Dawson's Creek, Meet You There, We Are All One (back wall, left to right)

The second weekend of the Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux at the BWAC gallery was bustling on Saturday with art lovers of all ages. The exhibition, featuring a variety of works by Arts PSWT members, serves as an alternative to the group’s annual Open Studios event, offering more room for artists and visitors to adhere to pandemic protocols.

“With COVID we were thinking of just canceling and not doing it at all,” explained Sandra Giunta, a member of Arts PSWT who helped organize the group show. “I’m a member here at BWAC so I knew the space and…I thought that this would be a great way for us to continue our Open Studios this year, in an 8,000-square-foot gallery where we could social distance.”

She proposed the idea of hosting the exhibit at BWAC in early October. The 32 participating artists joined forces to make it a reality, exhibiting an array of  painting, prints, ceramics, collage, drawings, photography, and sculpture. Each artist is given wall space or a table to showcase a selection of their work.

Sandra Giunta stands beside a display of her Corals sculptures at BWAC

Sandra Giunta, Cause and Effect 1, Cause and Effect 2

Alise Loebelsohn, Talking to Angels, Sail and Sea (top), Dots and Stars (bottom)

Works by Dara Oshin

Works by Cynthia Ruse

Paper collage portraits by Judith Eloise Hooper

Works by Robin Roi

Whereas the open studios tend to be “a much more intimate kind of event,” Giunta is happy with the expansive exhibit because it gives the artists an opportunity to see each other’s output. “When we have Open Studios at many different places, the artists don’t get to see each other’s work, so it’s something you really miss. This is giving everybody the opportunity to see all the artists' work.”

Janie Samuels, President of Arts PSWT agrees, adding that “manning our own studios” during the usual Open Studios event prevents members from visiting their colleagues at their workspaces. “What’s fabulous about this show is that…it’s the first opportunity we’ve actually had to be able to spend as much time here as a group and talk about the work as a group,” she said.

Born in upstate New York, Samuels grew up in Manhattan and received her BA from Bennington College in Vermont and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts. A member of Arts PSWT for more than ten years, Samuels works from her home opposite Green-Wood Cemetery. Her evocative drawings and paintings address immigration issues and the refugee crisis. “I’ve always been affected by how horrific, heartless, and unnecessary so much global strife is, so I try to attack those political issues on an intimate level and bring it back to something that’s humane,” she explains. “I also deal with more intimate issues, but the paintings are all about relationships.”

Janie Samuels stands with her works (left to right) Is It Safe Yet?, Lazy Summer Days, Lean On Me, and two landscapes

Janie Samuels, (clockwise from top left) In Dialogue, Helping Hands, In Hopes of a Better Life

Jonathan Blum's (with Sean Qualls) A Magical Moment (top left); Brooklyn Rabbi Blessing Flowers (bottom left); Pope Playing Bass (center);
(with Sean Qualls) The Rehearsal (top right); Pink Llama with Blue Watermelon (bottom right)

Works by Bob Hagan

Fotini Vurgaropulou, Film Reels

Works by Bernardo Justin Campoy

Phil DeSantis (left to right) Lily Pads, Crucifiction, Nathan's, Windows Reflection

Works by Heidi Yockey

Mary Cuddihee Skrill, Blue and red building (top left); Black Lives Matter wall (bottom left);
Yellow house (center); Orange building (top right); Grey buildings (bottom right)

Watercolors by Lynn Cole

Sculptures by Steve Ettlinger

A member of Arts PSWT for five years, Giunta is a resident of Windsor Terrace and works from TI Art Studios in Red Hook. Formerly a Doctor of Education in Instructional Technology and Distance Education, Giunta is a self-taught artist working in clay sculpture. She began sculpting figurative works—detailed busts and human figures—before finding inspiration in the “wonderful coral reef” along the coast of Belize. Her playful, colorful coral sculptures on display at BWAC transport visitors momentarily to a tropical beachfront, however her works carry a more pressing message. “With global warming, the reefs are being destroyed and I just want to keep everything kind of above the surface and alert people,” she said. “We have to do something about this or we’re going to lose these incredible structures.”

With dozens of artists enthusiastically showcasing their work to the steady stream of visitors throughout the weekend, the exhibition at BWAC proved to be just as popular as the annual open studios. “I didn’t know how we would do with COVID and what kind of turn-out we’d have, but I think everybody’s anxious to get out again and do things,” Giunta noted. The Arts PSWT team may make the group show a regular event on their calendar. 

“We may try to set something up where we do this once a year and we do the Open Studios once a year,” added Samuels. “This has been a wonderful event [despite] COVID. It’s given us an opportunity to show our work and what we’ve done, and it’s also given the community an opportunity to see work in a safe place.”

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux has been extended through next weekend, November 21 and 22. 

Like last year, OSSAM Gallery in Park Slope serves as a central hub for the event, displaying one piece by each participating artist. See my post on the OSSAM exhibit here.

PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux
Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, 481 Van Brunt Street (ground floor), Red Hook, Brooklyn
Saturday & Sunday (Nov. 21 & 22), noon to 6pm

Jo-Ann Acey Comes "Full Circle"

Jo-Ann Acey poses with Full Circle No. 7 and No. 6 at The Cluster Gallery in Gowanus.

You have a few days left to check out Jo-Ann Acey’s solo exhibition Full Circle at The Cluster Gallery in Gowanus. Inspired by nature and memory, the prismatic abstract works burst with buoyant circular shapes that exude energy and spontaneity.

“I just want people to feel happy or feel some sense of beauty when they look at my work,” Acey said at the gallery on Tuesday, noting that her drawings and prints document “childhood memories, good memories.”

“I really like going back to those memories of growing up in the Mohawk Valley,” she said. Much of her work recalls "New York State and the valleys and the rivers. Even though they’re very abstract in a way, that’s where it comes from.”

Full Circle features pastel drawings and monotypes from 2016 that represent the cyclical nature of life, according to Acey. “The title is really the idea that where you start and where you go usually is like a cycle, a circle,” she said.  “There’s just something about the continuation of the circle. It doesn’t end,” she continued. “I think it’s about motion, spontaneity, and the symbol that it just keeps going.”

Acey’s work is rife with movement, with line work sweeping over richly hued shapes to indicate energy and activity. “If you really move in your work, that movement becomes part of the piece,” she says.

Jo-Ann Acey, Full Circle No. 1

Jo-Ann Acey, Full Circle No. 8 and No. 4

Jo-Ann Acey, Full Circle No. 2 and No. 3

Jo-Ann Acey, Full Circle No. 12 and No. 11

Jo-Ann Acey, Full Circle No. 9 (top) and No. 10 (below)

Jo-Ann Acey, Full Circle, installation view

In her studio—down the hallway from The Cluster Gallery—Acey works vigorously from a large table composing her works. Though loud music is not permitted at the Brooklyn Art Cluster Studios, Acey recalls listening to lots of jazz at her former workspace in Clinton Hill, absorbing the music’s “movement, spontaneity, and freedom.” “Even though my work is not directly related to dance, when I’m watching a dance performance, I just envision what the painting or the drawing will look like while I’m watching the movement of the dancers,” she notes. Her series of acrylic paintings, Swing (2018-2019), was inspired by music and dance.

Full Circle is not Acey's only series featuring a prominent geometric form. Circles can also appear in a celestial guise. “I use that circle, that red moon all the time,” she said, noting her 2017 La Luna series. “That happened because I was walking down 9th Street one night and I turned around and [saw] the biggest red moon in the sky. That just stayed with me for days.... I think that circle, that red moon reoccurs often in my work.” Acey emphasizes particular shapes in other series including squares and rectangles evoking congested cities in her Urban Landscapes and triangular points suggesting towering steeples and spires in her Dwelling series.

Acey notes that the shapes in Full Circle are not consistent. In some of the earlier pieces the circles are housed inside boxes but “as the series continued, the circles and the ovals came out of those box spaces and became much more fluid, they didn’t need to be so contained anymore.... You can go ‘full circle,’ but there’s been a lot of changes throughout that. It’s not always going to be a perfect circle. It’s not always going to be a perfect journey, but it evolves.” 

The exhibit also references Acey’s retirement five years ago which allowed her to return to her art full time. “I had recently stopped teaching, so for me it was like, ‘okay, now I’m back where I started and I’m just practicing [art].’”

Works from Jo-Ann Acey's Dwelling (left) and La Luna (right) series displayed in her Gowanus studio.

Recent works at Jo-Ann Acey's studio that will be included in an upcoming group exhibit at 440 Gallery.

Acey grew up in Utica, New York and studied painting and drawing with abstract expressionists at Daeman College in Buffalo. She then attended the University of Arizona for one year before receiving a scholarship to Texas Tech where she earned her MFA. While at Texas Tech she took part in a program that brought her to Taos, New Mexico where the vast terrain inspired her to create landscapes in addition to her abstract work. “That was a really good choice that I made,” she recalls. “I think that was a real opening up, a real freedom for me to express my work the way I wanted to, so I’ve never looked back.”

She moved to New York in the late ‘70s and immediately moved to Brooklyn. “I thought right away I was going to move to Manhattan and have a big loft in Soho, but I’ve always lived in Brooklyn,” she said. She worked at Pratt for a time, evaluating painting and drawing portfolios, before finding a position at Studio in a School which had only launched a couple of year prior. After five years of teaching visual art to public school students, she became the organization’s Program Director and supervised the teaching artists. She later moved on to the United Nations International School in Queens where she taught kindergarteners to eighth-graders for 20 years.

“To see a student who really doesn’t think that they have any drawing or painting skills and then they did the most beautiful work that you’ve ever seen…. Some of the most beautiful paintings or sculptures are done by my kindergarteners or first graders just because there’s no inhibition. I love it.”

While teaching, Acey often encountered students who doubted their drawing or painting abilities. “You break it down into shapes for them” tell them to “look at the shape, or look at the line,” she said, comparing this process to the “full circle” referenced in her show. Going back to the basics, “back to the circle and into the shape.”

Jo-Ann Acey in her studio at Brooklyn Art Cluster Studios. Pieces from her La Luna series are on the left and two of her Urban Landscapes are on the right.

“Teaching to me was a real joy,” she continued. “Towards the end though, I just felt like I need to be in my studio. If you’re teaching five days a week you can’t go to your studio….” Acey is keeping busy in her retirement and can be found at her studio every day. “The freedom to have a studio and to be able to come to it....”

Acey is currently documenting a new set of childhood memories—a series based on color and light called, The Sunny Side of the Street, after the song “my father used to sing all the time,” she said. The upbeat tune is a fitting impetus for the artist who will undoubtedly create another collection of dynamic and joyous works.

Acey will have works exhibited at 440 Gallery’s Project Space as part of the group exhibit Linked opening November 18. See more of Acey's artwork at aceyart.com.

Full Circle
The Cluster Gallery, 540 President Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn (by appointment)
Exhibition closes November 20, 2020

440 Gallery Group Exhibition At NU Hotel

440 Gallery artists Jo-Ann Acey, Ellen Chuse, and Karen Gibbons at the group exhibition at NU Hotel

As part of the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave event that opened last weekend, ten artists from 440 Gallery are exhibiting their work at NU Hotel. Painting, collage, print, and mixed media works will be on view on the ground level of the hotel, brightening up the public spaces, through December 19.

Due to the pandemic, Arts Gowanus organized a 1.5-mile socially-distanced art walk along Atlantic Avenue in place of the organization's annual open studios event. With only two weeks to coordinate the show, each of the artists from the Park Slope collective contributed three pieces, creating an eclectic yet harmonious selection of work. “At 440 we’ve noticed that we have a kind of magical synergy that if we just call for people to bring work, we find a way to hang it that they complement each other,” said Karen Gibbons, a longtime 440 Gallery member who oversaw the project.

Originally from Pennsylvania, Gibbons studied painting at Pratt. She has worked with paint and sculpture and currently creates two-dimensional mixed media collages, including her trio of Goddess works on view—Lakshmi, Care, and Blue Madonna—surreal, multilayered depictions of the Virgin Mary composed using acrylic, graphite and bits of prints and photos.

(L-R) Robin Roi, For All The Rooms I’ve Ever Loved; Richard Barnet, If This; Ellen Chuse, In The Beginning; Karen Gibbons, Lakshmi; Jo-Ann Acey, City Beat #2; Gail Flanery, New Distance; Janet Pedersen, Zoom Muse

(Clockwise from top left) Robin Roi, Niblo’s Garden; Ellen Chuse, Heavenly Bodies; Robin Roi, Double Vision

(L-R) Jo-Ann Acey, City Beat #1; Richard Barnet, Boat Angels; Karen Gibbons, Care; Richard Barnet, Ten Sculpture Sketches; Ellen Chuse, Jewell II

Joining Gibbons in welcoming visitors to the exhibit at NU Hotel on Saturday was fellow 440 member Ellen Chuse. Raised in Philadelphia, Chuse studied at the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts) and received her MFA from Queens College CUNY. Formerly a sculptor, Chuse now creates vibrant acrylic abstracts of seemingly morphing shapes, such as Heavenly Bodies, Jewel II, and In The Beginning. “I’m really interested in ambiguity of scale and I like people to bring their own frame of reference to things,” she explained. “It has a meaning for me, but I like the meaning to maybe resonate on a lot of different levels and not be too specific."

Gibbons and Chuse shared a studio space for twenty years at 280 Nevins Street in Gowanus. Gibbons had been at the loft building for 30 years. After the recent sale of the building, the two relocated to TI Art Studios in Red Hook earlier this year. The two were excited that the TI facility was added to the Gowanus Open Studios map and were looking forward to participating from their new workspaces this year. “I miss that interaction with people, but this is the next best thing and it’s also amazing to be able to make anything happen in this time of the pandemic,” said Chuse.

“I feel really lucky that we have this nice space,” Gibbons said. “Hopefully next year we’ll be back to that.” Gibbons notably has “the distinction of being one of the few people that’s been in every single one” of the 24 annual Gowanus Open Studios!

“People don’t realize that it goes back,” said Chuse, who has participated in the event since 2000 and volunteered on the organizing committee from 2001 to 2005. “When I came on there were like 35 artists,” she recalled. “It was 295 Douglass, 543 Union, 280 Nevins, and maybe a scattering of other people. It was all located in that sort of north end of Gowanus and it grew and grew and grew.” More than 400 local artists participated in last year’s Gowanus Open Studios.

“As far as the Gowanus artist community growing so much, it is a really great feeling to know there’s energy and support around and that you’re not the only one toiling away trying to make this happen,” said Gibbons. “And the fact that Johnny [Thornton] could put this together in a few weeks is really incredible. It speaks to the energy and the commitment of the artists involved.”

“It’s a hard time to feel community…. I mean online connection is online connection, but really seeing people, and that’s what I think is extraordinary,” Chuse said of this year’s socially-distanced substitute event. “To come here, it’s like I’m actually engaged in the concrete real world, and that is so important for me at the moment…. We both got [to TI Art Studios] then everything shut down. We know we’re part of a community of 120 artists, but we haven’t seen any of them, so this is an opportunity to open up and re-engage.”

(L-R) Janet Pedersen, Wind Dance; Janet Pedersen, Romeo and Juliet (two on top); Fred Bendheim, Spring; Amy Weil, Waiting For Spring; Karen Gibbons, Blue Madonna; Fred Bendheim, Space

Susan Greenstein, Mexican Garden (top); Amy Weil, Eye Candy (bottom)

Janet Pedersen, Wind Dance; Janet Pedersen, Romeo and Juliet (two on top); Fred Bendheim, Spring (bottom); Amy Weil, Waiting For Spring (right)

440 Gallery Group Exhibition is on view at NU Hotel, 85 Smith Street, Brooklyn, through December 19. Learn more about the Arts Gowanus on Atlantic Ave Art Walk at artgowanus.org.

Also, visit 440 Gallery at 440 6th Avenue in Park Slope where Gail Flanery: Harmonies is currently on view and That’s How The Light Gets In, featuring work by Susan Greenstein, Joy Makon, Caitlin Miller, and David Stock, is in the gallery’s Project Space. Visit 440gallery.com to learn more.

See my post from February on 440 Gallery's 15th Anniversary Members Show here.

Support New York: Online Exhibit Helps Artists & Healthcare Workers

Support artists and help supply personal protection equipment (PPE) to healthcare workers by purchasing artwork from Support New York, an online exhibition launching on Wednesday, April 29.

Support New York flyer (Designed by: Matt Barteluce)

Organized by artist and printmaker Kirsten Flaherty, the fundraiser will feature nearly 150 works by artists from all across the country. "During this uncertain time, and while our government assistance has been lacking, the artist community has come together to assist those New Yorkers in need," Flaherty said in an email. "Featuring over 100 artworks including [pieces by] Natalie Frank, James Rosenquist, April Gornik, and others, all proceeds will be split between the contributing artist and N95 For NYC, an organization which purchases and delivers personal protective equipment to healthcare professionals and hospital staff battling COVID-19."

The artwork includes paintings, prints, drawings, and more, with prices starting at $25 and going up to $7,500 for a Rosenquist lithograph. Flaherty, who is contributing at least one of her signature mezzotints, notes that most of the available works are priced below $500.

James Rosenquist, "Stars and Stripes ST.II", 2004, Lithograph (44" x 30"). Printed and published by Derriere L'Etoile Studios, NY. (Image courtesy of Derriere L'Etoile Studios, NY)

"The response from artists has been fantastic," she said. "It's really an indication of the kindness of the artist community—both in New York and across the states." She received more than 200 submissions for the exhibit, including work from England and Iran.

Flaherty first learned about N95 For NYC in Artforum where she read that the group’s two founders, Hansi Liao and Echo He, are Pace Gallery staffers. Flaherty, who works at Pace Prints, contacted He to offer her assistance. "It was an easy decision to reach out…and begin planning for this online exhibition," she said.

Fifty percent of the proceeds from each sale will go to the artist and 45% will be donated to N95 For NYC. The remaining 5% will go toward operational expenses.

Support New York is not Flaherty's first fundraiser. The artist has been organizing fundraising exhibitions since 2016 to aid non-profit organizations including the ACLU, City Harvest, the International Refugee Assistance Project, Sean Casey Animal Rescue, and VOCAL-NY.

Visit the Support NY section of Flaherty's website to view the available artwork. The exhibition will be online from Wednesday, April 29 (7pm) through Sunday, May 10 (10pm).

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

Jerry Ma: A Chinatown Odyssey | Pearl River Mart

Happy Lunar New Year! To celebrate the Year of the Rat, Pearl River Mart presents artist Jerry Ma’s modern retelling of the classic Chinese tale Journey to the West.

Jerry Ma, Lion Dance

Jerry Ma, Lion Dance

In Wu Cheng'en's original 16th-century novel, Zhu Bajie (Pigsy), Sha Wujing (Sandy), and the mischief-making Sun Wukong (the Monkey King) accompany the monk Tang Sanzang on a pilgrimage to Central Asia and India to collect Buddhist scriptures. In A Chinatown Odyssey, Ma’s reinterpretation, the characters are transported to NYC’s Chinatown in the 1980s where they don streetwear instead of monastic robes and their adventures include grabbing dim sum, having bubble tea, checking out a fish market, shopping for designer knockoffs, liberating a tic-tac-toe-playing chicken from an arcade game, and celebrating the new year with a festive lion dance.

Jerry Ma, Fish Market

Jerry Ma, Doyers Street

Jerry Ma, Dimsum

Jerry Ma, Chinatown Arcade

“A Chinatown Odyssey is both a love letter and personal journey through the Chinatown I grew up with,” the artist wrote in the show’s introduction. “Who better to take that journey than Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, and his cronies?” Ma notes that his childhood memories of Chinatown include dim sum, ginger candy, shopping for groceries, and “finally finding a place where everyone looked like me.” The Taiwanese-American artist adds that his work is influenced by the film series A Chinese Odyssey based on Wu Cheng'en's novel and starring Stephen Chow.

Hong Bao, a limited edition gold foil print, faithfully replicates a lucky red envelope and features the four characters in A Chinatown Odyssey alongside a rat—the Chinese zodiac sign for 2020.

Jerry Ma, Hong Bao

Ma’s lively prints burst with details of iconic Chinatown locales including Canal Street, Doyers Street, the Golden Unicorn Restaurant, and the Chinatown Fair video arcade. Images overflow with shoppers, diners, and tourists. Each scene vividly depicts the energy of the bustling Asian cultural hub and evokes nostalgia for anyone with memories of Chinatown who has experienced the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the neighborhood.

Born in Washington Heights, the New York-based graphic artist and illustrator founded Epic Proportions, an independent comics studio, in 2003 and created the graphic novel series Legend and co-created Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology. Ma also produces t-shirts featuring Asian-American celebrities including Bruce Lee, Jeremy Lin, Sandra Oh, and Constance Wu. Learn more about Jerry Ma in this interview and at epicprops.com.

Click here to see my post on Monkey: Journey To The West, a stage adaptation of the novel by musician Damon Albarn, artist Jamie Hewlett, and director Chen Shi-Zheng that was performed at Lincoln Center in 2013.

A Chinatown Odyssey 
Pearl River Mart
395 Broadway (at Walker Street), Second Floor, TriBeCa
Exhibition on view January 18 through March 8

Field Trip: The Andy Warhol Museum | Pittsburgh, PA

During my quick jaunt to Pittsburgh over the summer, I wasn’t sure I’d have enough time to visit The Andy Warhol Museum—I’ve seen so much of his work over the years, I wasn’t entirely sure it would be worth the effort. I am happy to say I was convinced to make the effort and check out the museum because it is terrific! Warhol’s signature, bold Pop Art gems are well represented—the soup cans, celebrity portraits, flowers, electric chairs, skulls, cows… but there is so much more to see with 7 floors dedicated to showcasing his massive oeuvre.

Opened in 1994 in Pittsburgh, the city where Andrew Warhola was born, the Warhol museum is the “global keeper of Andy Warhol’s legacy.” The museum maintains 900 of the artists’ paintings, about 100 sculptures, approximately 2,000 works on paper, 1,000 prints, 4,000 photographs, 60 films, over 4,000 videos, and 200 of his Screen Tests.

The vast archives of Warhol’s personal belongings contain approximately half a million objects! The collection includes his library, art supplies, scrapbooks, correspondence, books, diaries, clothing, tchotchkes, approximately 4,000 audio tapes, over 30 of his shocking-white wigs, and more. The archives also contain an almost complete collection of Interview magazine, launched by Warhol in 1969, as well as 610 of the artist’s Time Capsules, a project started in 1974 in which he collected items from his daily life (newspapers, maps, fanzines, letters, pictures, trinkets, food…) and packed and sealed them away into cardboard boxes to be opened at a later time (the museum is cataloguing each Time Capsules’ contents and regularly exhibits items from one box.)

Highlights of the museum's incredibly comprehensive collection include Warhol’s student work from the 1940s, his early drawings [including 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (sic), a sweet, illustrated book he collaborated on with his mother, Julia], and his commercial illustrations. These works, along with a series of childhood and family photographs, show another side of the artist—a simpler side that preceded his glamorous Factory/Studio 54 superstardom.

During my visit in August, the museum presented a special exhibition, Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei which  explored Warhol’s influence on Ai as well as the influence both artists have made on modern life. Juxtaposing several pieces of Ai’s artwork alongside Warhol’s throughout the museum, the exhibit compared the two artists’ works (i. e. how both documented their lives, created readymades a la Marcel Duchamp, and employed flowers to make provocative points) and how they address politics, capitalism, communism, and social issues.

If you happen to be in Pittsburgh, be sure to visit the Andy Warhol Museum—I’m definitely glad I did! Learn more about it at warhol.org. To see more on Warhol, see my post from 2010 here on Andy Warhol: The Last Decade at the Brooklyn Museum. To see more on Ai Weiwei click here for my post on his 2013 exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC and here for my post on his 2014 exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.

Self-Portrait, ca. 1943

Seated Girl Looking at Bird Cage, ca. 1940s

Nosepicker I: Why Pick on Me (originally titled The Lord Gave Me My Face but I Can Pick My Own Nose), 1948

So Happy, 1950s

Cat in Front of Church, ca. 1959

Magazine Advertisement ("It's a Real Genuine Fake!") for Fleming-Joffe, Ltd., 1963

Female Head and Hands Applying Eyeliner, no date

Female Fashion Figure, no date

Make Him Want You, 1961

Campbell's Soup Can, 1962; Neolithic Pottery with Coco-Cola Logo, Ai Weiwei, 2007; Coca-Cola [2], 1961

Colored Vases, Ai Weiwei, 2011; Elvis 11 Times [Studio Type], 1963

Self-Portrait, 1963-64; Three Marilyns, 1962; Red Jackie, 1964

Exploding Plastic Inevitable room

Silver Clouds, 1966

Debbie Harry, 1980

Dolly Parton, 1985

Helene Rochas, 1973-74; Mick Jagger, 1975

Blossom, Ai Weiwei, 2015 (front); With Flowers, Ai Weiwei, 2012-15 (rear)

Self-Portrait, 1966-67; At the Museum of Modern Art, Ai Weiwei, 1987

African Lion, a gift to Warhol from John Reinhold in the early 80s

Champion Ador Tipp Topp (Cecil), 1921-30 (purchased by Warhol from a Third Avenue antique shop and kept in his office until his death in 1986.)

 

 

 

Kara Walker | Sikkema Jenkins & Lehmann Maupin

Known for her intricate cut paper silhouettes depicting disturbing scenes of violence and racism, Kara Walker's new body of work consists of a series of graphite drawings and hand-printed texts on paper.  Dust Jackets for the Niggerati-and Supporting Dissertations, Drawings submitted ruefully by Dr. Kara E. Walker, on view at Sikkema Jenkins, was inspired by the artist's "search for understanding of the way that power asserts itself in interpersonal and geopolitical spheres," (from the press release). 

Exploring the African American experience of migrating from the south to the north, from the country to the city, Walker uncovered "a cycle of destruction and renewal that is embodied in the move... as well as the destruction of an 'old' Black identity and the emergence of a 'New Negro' identity."  Of course most people experience a transition when they move to a very different and new environment, but the subjects in Walker's work also leave behind a dark, oppressive history marred by slavery and racism.

In collaboration with Sikkema Jenkins, Lehmann Maupin's Lower East Side space is screening three new video works by Walker.  Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi's Blue Tale, the title of the exhibit and the show's centerpiece, is a shadow puppet film which follows the heroine Miss Pipi in various scenes of beauty, violence, and sex.  Miss Pipi, a white Southern woman, must be protected by the Mandingo stereotype— or the "presumed hyper-sexuality of black men."  The video Levee casts a long, dreamy, meditative gaze on the landscape in Friars Point, Mississippi at sunset while Bad Blues is a short film showing the artist singing a funny diddy about a black woman having "The Blues."  Walker states that these works were inspired by her trip to the Mississippi Delta where she visited "thinking about the terrors of Jim Crow and slavery, yet the silent indifference of the landscape and the economic stasis, lack of mobility, and the persistence of a racist memory in the area was what stuck."  Walker delivers thoughtful, intelligent, powerful works that tackle troubling themes that many would rather ignore or forget.  Learn more at Sikkemajenkinsco.com, Lehmannmaupin.com and see my 2009 post on Walker here.  Through June 4th.

Louise Beavers, 2010

Nina Simone (top), 2010, Billie Holiday (bottom), 2010

Clockwise from top left:  A Dream Deferred; Kiss; The moral arc of history ideally bends towards justice but just as soon as not curves back around toward barbarism, sadism, and unrestrained chaos, 2010

Eternally Displaced Persons, 2010, The Daily Constitution 1878, 2011

N-word, 2010, Up From Slubbery, 2010

Clockwise from top left:  No Negro, the, 2010, Urban Relocator, 2011, Showroom, 2010

Dissertation 1, 2010

Changing Spots with a Leopard (another Jazz aficionado), 2010

You are a Remarkable Woman, 2010

Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi's Blue Tale

Dr. Lakra | The Drawing Center

The Drawing Center currently has on view at 3 Wooster Street Mexican artist Dr. Lakra's first exhibition in New York.  A collaboration with Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, where Dr. Lakra had a terrific solo show last summer, the Drawing Center exhibit offers a pared down collection of the artist's works on paper hanging on walls covered in site-specific drawings.

Inspired by the imagery he uses in his tattoo work, Dr. Lakra also finds inspiration from anatomy textbooks, vintage pin-up magazines, and comic books.  Sepia-toned images of wild animals, wrestlers, biker dudes, hyper-sexual babes, and Day of the Dead-like skulls and bones adorn the vast white walls.  Visitors are immersed in Dr. Lakra's surreal world - his drawings marking the gallery's pristine surfaces with sinister-ish images of sex and violence like deep, indelible stains or scars.  Learn more at drawingcenter.org and see my post from last year on Dr. Lakra's exhibit at Boston's ICA here.  Read more on the artist at NYT.com.  Through April 24th.

Martin Kippenberger | Skarstedt Gallery

Eggman II, currently on view at the Skarstedt Gallery, reintroduces works by Martin Kippenberger that were originally shown in Der Eiermann und seine Ausleger (The Eggman and his Outriggers), the final exhibition of the aritst's work before his untimely death in 1997 at the age of 44.  Consisting of nine paintings, a series of drawings on hotel stationery, and a sculpture, the works focus on the egg, a theme Kippenberger often revisited throughout his career.

"Always recycling imagery, the egg is the banal comedic device in Kippenberger's images," (from the show's press release).  By playfully incorporating an egg into these works, Kippenberger made "indirect references to rebirth, reproduction, and the ideal of the circle."  Whether showing a woman posing proudly with a giant golden egg, an embryonic dinosaur inside an egg, or the artist himself morphing into a bloated, grotesque Eggman, Kippenberger infused humor into his studies of the mundane egg form.  As the artist stated:  "In painting you must look what fallen fruit is left that you can paint.  The egg has missed out there, Warhol already had the banana.  You take a form for yourself it's always about angular, square, this and that format, about the golden mean.  The egg is white and insipd, how can a colorful picture come from that?"  That last bit must have been a rhetorical question.  Learn more at Skarstedt.com.  Through April 16th.

Untitled, 1996

Egg Sock, 1996

Untitled (Showcase with egg sculptures), 1996

Untitled (Showcase with egg sculptures) close-up, 1996

Portrait Paul Schreber,1994

Portrait Paul Schreber close-up, 1994

Eierverliebte (Infatuated Egg), 1996

Dinosaurierei (Dinosaur egg), 1996

Eifrau die man nicht schubladieren kann (Egg woman who defies categorization), 1996

Untitled (Grand Hotel), 1996, n/a

Das gute Eierfeierabenbuch (The Good Egg Leisure Pleasure book), 1993

Tara Donovan | The Pace Gallery

Tara Donovan's new large-scale drawings on view at The Pace Gallery are composed of thousands and thousands of nickel-plated steel pins carefully arranged and pushed into white gatorboard.  The stunning abstract images and circular patterns create an optical effect—"visual field[s] with shifting viewpoints..." that "radiate from different light sources (determined by the density of pins on the surface area)" (from the show's press release).

Born in Flushing, New York in 1969, the Brooklyn-based artist received the MacArthur "Genius" Award in 2008.  Donovan's meticulous Drawings (Pins) vibrantly play with light and shadow.  The amazing works initially appear like charcoal drawings from afar, while closer up the clusters of tiny pinheads practically glitter and sparkle.  Learn more at thepacegallery.com.  Closes March 19th.

Drawing (Pins), 2010

Drawing (Pins), 2010

Drawing (Pins), 2010, close-up

Drawing (Pins), 2010

Drawing (Pins), 2010

Drawing (Pins), 2010, close-up

 

Marcel Dzama | David Zwirner

Marcel Dzama's Behind Every Curtain brings to life the artist's magical world of a balletic and murderous game of chess.  Upon entering David Zwirner's 525 West 19th Street space, visitors are greeted by a series of Dzama's detailed, richly colored drawings and three twirling sculptures—two large-scale chess pieces, a rook and the White Queen, and a life-size, masked, female assassin.  The next room presents a group of pain-stakingly detailed dioramas and a whimsical carousel of charming, retro-looking puppets made from tin and ceramics (Turning into Puppets [Volviendose Marionetas], 2011) flailing their limbs and clanking away as they revolve in a circle.  The final, darkened room shows Dzama's fourteen-minute film, A Game of Chess, filmed in Guadalajara, Mexico. 

The film, inspired by the mechanical movements, puppetry, elaborate costumes, and checkerboard dance floor of Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet (1922), "features characters based on the classic game of chess," (from the show's press release).  Dressed in masks and intricate costumes made from papier-mache, plaster, and fiberglass, the characters dance on a checkered floor in Dzama's treacherous chess game. Dzama's meticulous drawings and dioramas on display represent scenes and segments of the film and include a full storyboard for A Game of Chess.  Influences of the film's location, Guadalajara, such as "local crafts and religious traditions," can be found in the works.  On the opening night and at selected times during the exhibition, a mariachi band played live music based on the film's soundtrack. 

Inspired by dance, Dada, and Marcel Duchamp, the Winnipeg-born, Brooklyn-based Dzama illustrates a vivid world populated by a huge, colorful cast engaged in a carefully orchestrated, stylish battle.  Learn more at Davidzwirner.com and read a Q&A with the artist at artinfo.com.  Through March 19th.

Left to right:  The Queen (La Reina), 2011; Tripping After Drums, 2010; Polytropos of many turns, 2009

(Though None of Us is Crying) or (Aunque Ninguno de los Tres esta Llorando), 2010

Behind Every Curtain, 2010

The Rook (La Torre), 2011

Turning into Puppets (Volviendose Marionetas), 2011; An age of discord and continual strife (back wall, left), 2011; In the theater of our wedding day (back wall, right), 2011

Turning into Puppets (Volviendose Marionetas), 2011; Inventory of the Queen (back wall, left), 2011; Feeding squirrels to the nuts (back wall, center), 2011; Rebellion lay in her way (back wall, right), 2011

Feeding squirrels to the nuts, 2011

Feeding squirrels to the nuts (close-up), 2011

You're over thrown - You're undone forever, 2011

You're over thrown - You're undone forever (close-up), 2011

A Game of Chess (story board), 2010

A scene from A Game of Chess, 2011

A scene from A Game of Chess, 2011

Martin Kersels | Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Los Angeles artist Martin Kersels creates sculptures, drawings, photos, videos and performance pieces that explore "the relationship of the body to the outside world... and the ways that physicality and psychology are intertwined," (from the press release).  Mitchell-Innes & Nash presents Kersels' Charms, Stacks & Flotsam, featuring hanging sculptures ("Charms"), pedestal sculptures ("Stacks"), and a series of drawings ("Flotsam") that intermingle skeletons, tables, chairs, coat racks, trees, and spiderwebs. 

Dangling from the gallery's ceiling are Kersels' "Charms," composed of found materials including old furniture, bottles, costumes, figurines, and scale models.  The piece Bald Eagle combines unlikely objects like a wool suit, a wooden chair, a lamp, a chain, and a rope to create a hovering Frankenstein-ish figure.  The term "Charm" can be interpreted in multiple ways — as a trinket or memento, a magical spell, or an attractive personality trait.  His "Stack" sculptures are made from a variety of books of different proportions, topics, and formats carefully arranged by color and size into gravity-defying structures or cut and conjoined like puzzle pieces.  The artist plays with words again by contrasting incompatible titles creating humorous juxtapositions.

Based in Sierra Madre, California, Kersels is a co-director of the Program in Art at CalArts.  His Charms, Stacks & Flotsam cleverly amalgamate dark, literary, natural, youthful, and pop elements together into whimsical and indeed, charming works.  Learn more at miandn.com.  Closes March 12th.

Charm (Party Clown), 2010

Charm (USS Constitution), 2011

Charm (Cloud Seeder), 2011, Stack (Nixon) in background, 2010

Charm (Bald Eagle), 2010

Left to right:  Flotsam (Chair Arterial System), 2010; Flotsam (Tables Skeleton), 2010

Stack (The Specialist), 2011

Stack (Four Days), 2010

Stack (My Thoughts), 2010, Flotsam (Tables Rib Jaw Hand) in background, 2010

Stack (Sea of Cortez), 2011

Huma Bhabha | Peter Blum

Over at Peter Blum's Chelsea location is Huma Bhabha's Drawings, a series of "new over-painted and collaged photographs" by the Pakistan-born, Poughkeepsie-based artist.  Bhabha added touches of paint, ink, and collage to large-scale prints of photos she shot of vast landscapes in Karachi, Pakistan and Carrara, Italy. 

In some of the works, the artist added only a subtle arc, handprint, or outline while in others she added looming, shadowy, alien-like figures or gigantic feet (subjects that often show up in her sculptures as well).  Some of the pieces look like nightmarish headshots of mask-like faces while others have funny, incongruous images pasted onto them - like a cute, mischievous dog poking its snout into a fish bowl or a smugly mugging George Clooney in a watch advertisement.  The entire surface of some of her works are covered in deep, saturated colors causing the edges of the photo paper to curl slightly.

By "drawing" on her photographs Bhabha creates new stories for her scenes and adds life, mystery, and humor to her images of dusty landscapes and decaying buildings.  Learn more at Peterblumgallery.com and see my previous post on Bhabha's sculpture exhibit at Salon 94 Bowery here.  Through January 15th.

Untitled (left), 2010, Clifton (right), 2010

Untitled, 2010

Untitled, 2010

Untitled, 2010

Untitled, 2010

Achilles (left), 2010, Untitled (right), 2010

Untitled, 2010

Untitled, 2010

Untitled, 2010

Untitled, 2010

Raymond Pettibon | David Zwirner

"Hard in the Paint" is a basketball term that describes a player trying to make a shot while positioned inside the painted lines just underneath the net—a difficult spot to score since the player is usually surrounded by members of the opposing team.  In slang, the phrase also describes a "confident, tough, or aggressive" attitude.  Hard in the Paint is also the title for Raymond Pettibon's current exhibit at David Zwirner, featuring new drawings referencing art history, classic literature, sports, politics, and pop culture. Composed with frenetic, almost violent lines and deep, bold colors, Pettibon's works definitely exude a "hard in the paint" swagger.

Born in Tucson, Arizona in 1957 and based in Venice Beach, California, Pettibon's early work was driven by the Los Angeles punk scene in the 70's and 80's along with the album art, comics, concert fliers and 'zines that were created during that time.  Pettibon designed album covers for several bands, perhaps most notably Sonic Youth and Black Flag (whose founding member, Greg Ginn, is Pettibon's brother) and created Black Flag's well-known logo—four thick, black, vertical bars.  With his punk and hardcore connections, it's almost hard to believe that the text Pettibon incorporates into his artwork is culled from the writing of Proust, Faulkner, Flaubert, and the bible. "Fragments from American society have been singled out and distilled to key images" and paired up with text that ranges from a single word to several lines and paragraphs (from show's press release).  Images of baseball players, surfers, flowers, explosions, sports cars, news events, the earth, and even Liberace, are juxtaposed with words that "relate both rhythmically and narratively to the visual content of his drawings, although their relationship may not always be immediately apparent."

Though it might take a while to uncover them, Pettibon's smart, energetic, and richly colored drawings deliver messages and commentary about contemporary culture.  The artist doesn't spoon-feed viewers the meanings of his works, but it's definitely worthwhile studying and (hopefully) discovering them on your own.  Learn more at Davidzwirner.com and at the artist's website Raypettibon.com.  Through December 21st.

*Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore has edited and will release Raymond Pettibon: Front Row Center on his imprint, Ecstatic Peace Library.  The 160-page book focuses on Pettibon's work with bands, music, and the record label SST.  Learn more at ecstaticpeacelibrary.com.

Clockwise from far left:  No Title (She must know...), No Title (I am too...), No Title (Me and my...), No Title (My flame flicker...), No Title (It has in...), No Title (That obliging schoolgirl...), No Title (Almost a perfect...), all 2010

Clockwise from top left: No Title (Ohne title...), No Title (Faster faster please...), No Title (For getting a...), No Title (The church bell...), all 2010

Left to right:  No Title (Driftwood, Wax, and...), No Title (5,000 strokes is...), No Title (A slight ascent...), 2010

No Title (The Invisible Man's...), 2010

Left to right:  No Title (Zebra), 2010, No Title (Manhattan rising advancing...), 2010

Clockwise from top left:  No Title (Hanging day at...), No Title (It may happen...), No Title (Hers seemed to...), No Title (No Primer No Bondo...), No Title (My 5-year plan...), all 2010

No Title (Female on the...), 2010

No Title (A painter hangs...), 2010

No Title (Why? I've no...), 2010

Left to right:  No Title (The news put...), 2010, No Title (Don't ask! Don't...), 2010

Left to right:  No Title (Pacific ocean blue), 2010, No Title (Going, going the...), 2010

Sophie Crumb | DCKT Contemporary

Coinciding with the release of the book Sophie Crumb: Evolution of a Crazy Artist is Crumb's debut solo show at DCKT Contemporary.  The daughter of R. Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb, who both edited her monograph, the 29-year-old artist began drawing as a child.  Some of Crumb's cool, early experiences include her working with her parents on Dirty Laundry Comics, producing her own Belly Button Comix, training at a French circus school, and working as a tattoo artist.  Crumb's artwork tends to focus on her "current experiences" while acknowledging her "eccentric" and interesting past (from show's press release).  Crumb's raw and colorful drawings often depict moments from her life in the south of France where she currently lives with her husband and son, along with memories from her times in Berkeley and New York.  Her works currently on view at DCKT are mostly recent drawings and prints that show the media's influence on Crumb, with the artist's recreations of tabloid covers and magazine pages showing models, actresses, socialites, reality stars, and assorted well-known trainwrecks in an unflattering light.

Sophie Crumb: Evolution of a Crazy Artist the book "explores the development of an artist from her earliest beginnings to the present," with Crumb discussing what it's like having two famed artists for parents and establishing herself in the artworld.  Published by W.W. Norton, the monograph showcases 300 drawings and paintings created by Crumb between the ages of 2 to 28 that have been lovingly archived by her parents over the years.  Learn more at dcktcontemporary.com and at the Crumb's blog Sophiecrumb.blogspot.com.  Through December 30th.

1985, 2010

Vogue Shit, 2010

Sophie Manson, 2010

Untitled (pointing girl), 2007

Untitled (nude with chair), 2006

Sunglasses 1, 2010, Sunglasses 2, 2010

Snooki Gets Booky, 2010

We Will Obey Him, 2010

Mermaid Bride, 2002