Art Hag

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

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

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux | OSSAM Gallery

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios: Redux, OSSAM Gallery

Although the annual Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios event cannot proceed as usual this year, the group has found an alternate way to showcase work by dozens of local artists while adhering to COVID-related health restrictions. Instead of attendees visiting individual artist studios, PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux assembles more than 30 artists for a group exhibition taking place at two spacious venues where there is plenty of room to social distance while meeting the artists and checking out their work. Don't forget to wear a mask!

The collective of artists based in Park Slope and Windsor Terrace has hosted open studios annually since 2013. Spanning two weekends, Open Studios: Redux kicked off last Friday. Once again Ossam Gallery serves as a preview gallery, exhibiting one piece by each participating artist. Works on view include painting, prints, drawings, ceramics, sculpture, photography, and collage.

Over at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's (BWAC) gallery in Red Hook, the artists showcase an array of work, each with a designated table or wall space to exhibit. The artists will be on hand over the weekend to meet and greet visitors and sell their work.

Visit ArtsPSWT.com for more info and click here to see my post covering last year's PSWT Open Studios Weekend. Below are photos taken last Sunday at OSSAM Gallery. 

PSWT Artists Open Studios: Redux
OSSAM Gallery, 300 7th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Friday through Sunday (Nov. 13-15), noon to 6pm

Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, 481 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Saturday & Sunday (Nov. 14-15), noon to 6pm

Dan McDonald, 6 Over 6, mixed media

L-R: Bob Hagan, Life Goes On (25a), mixed media; Mary Cuddihee Skrill, Pink Building, acrylic on canvas

Robin Roi, Elemental, mixed media, acrylic paint, collage, dressmaking paper

L-R: Stephanie Amend, Doe Deer, oil; Dara Oshin, Fecundity, archival pigment print, glass beads, metal leaf, board; Alice Garik, Nest, gelatin silver print

L-R: Cynthia Ruse, Still, oil and mixed media on wood panel; Alise Loebelsohn, From Green to Orange, oil paint on panel

L-R: Janie Samuels, Silence Speaks, pastel on paper; Lynn Goodman, Brooklyn Parrot Flight, porcelain, glazes, gold

L-R: Stacy Bergener, Behind the Veil, mixed media on canvas; Heidi Yockey, Untitled, oil on panel

L-R: Phil Desantis, Rusty Chains, photograph; Susan Greenstein, Wave Hill, watercolor

Howard Skrill, Junipero Serra Decapitate, ink, gesso, graphite, colored pencil, pastel on watercolor paper

L-R: Raya Dukhan, Ardent, mixed media on canvas; Phyllis Gaughran, Just Before Dawn, acrylic on natsume

Luis Coig, Untitled, wood shelf and tchotchkes

L-R: Justin Campoy, in collaboration with John Lennox, Fielder's Choice (First buds must like the cold), multicolored ink and letterpress with Baskerville Type on paper; 
Lynn Cole, View From Inside, watercolor, rubber stamp

Joyce Riley, Green-Wood Cemetery, Pink Paths, oil and acrylic on wood

Kathleen Jean-Jacques, Lou, mixed media

L-R: Caryn Kreitzer, The Peace March, terracotta; Karen Jarmon, Hanukkah Menorah, ceramic and brass; Paola Corso, Blue Moon Shadows, photograph

Jonathan Blum, Sheep Thinking About Aged Gouda, monoprint

Steve Ettlinger, Sleeping Shmoo, cedar with Danish oil

Fotini Vurgaropulou, Chambers, cast glass and copper

L-R: Sandra Giunta, Coral Reminder 47, clay; Carol Adams, Irini, ceramic with terra sigilatta, underglaze, washes, glaze, metal, beads

Park Slope Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studios Redux, OSSAM Gallery

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

Continuum | Established Gallery

Brooklyn-based artist Gail Flanery celebrates friendship, collaboration, and women artists in Continuum, a group exhibit currently on view at Established Gallery.

L-R: JoAnne McFarland, Free, 2012 and Tatana Kellner, Violent, 2018

While reading Mary Gabriel’s Ninth Street Women, which chronicles the careers of Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler, Flanery reflected on her life as an artist and the relationships she has developed with fellow women artists over the years.

“I was musing over the time I’ve spent in my life as an artist here in the city and the people I know,” she said at the gallery Sunday afternoon, “and the women that I have known through this whole period of [our] living in New York and paddling through the art world. I met these women in different ways but all of it having to do with art.”

Flanery was moved by the connections formed by the five artists in Ninth Street Women, “the influence that they had on each other” and “the risks that they were taking” when the arts community was “still a man’s world” and women had to balance their careers with their families. “That really made me stop and think because I’ve seen it. It was not always easy to be acknowledged [as an artist] and to get a show.”

L-R: Gail Flanery, Ocean, 2018 and Damali Miller, Memories of Home Once....and always

L-R: Ellen Chuse, Totem, 2017 and Kathy Caraccio, Victorian Wallpaper I, II, 2016

L-R: Amy Weil, Flowers not for Algernon and Karen Gibbons, Snake, 2018

Doris Rodriguez, Kite Dreams

L-R: Olivia Beens, Flowers of Perseverance, I, II, III and JoAnne McFarland, Positive Shirley, Negative Shirley

It can still be challenging today for women artists to be recognized, making the need for a supportive community crucial. “If you’re a functioning artist and you’re trying to get shows, you’re trying to be seen, and you’re trying to figure out what do…there’s a conversation that you can’t really have with anyone else as easily, as naturally [as another artist],” Flanery said. “There are things you don’t even have to describe because you know they know. There was a familiarity in a lot of [Gabriel’s] writing, just with the relationships.”

After receiving the offer to curate the exhibit at Established Gallery, Flanery faced the daunting task of coordinating the show in three weeks. “That night I tossed and turned,” she recalled, “and the next morning I got on the phone and I just called everybody.” She contacted artists she has known and collaborated with over the years—some for more than four decades—including former classmates, members of the printmaking community, members of 440 Gallery, and colleagues from the Studio in a School program. With the help of assistant curator Mitchell-lee Van Rooij, who is also assisting Flanery with her archives, the pair managed to present an empowering, consistent exhibit showcasing a diverse selection by 14 artists who have paid their dues in the NYC art world.

Born in Ohio to a career army sergeant, Flanery spent her childhood moving every 18 months around the world. “We’d ship out of Fort Hamilton Army Base in Bay Ridge. We’d leave from there and come back there,” she recalled. When her father retired from service, the family settled not far from the base in Staten Island where Flanery completed her last year of high school.

“From the time I was a little kid I’ve always drawn,” Flanery said before fondly telling her “fairy princess story.” During a visit to her grandmother’s farm in Ohio when she was about five years old, Flanery remembers standing outside with her pet cow and seeing a “fairy princess” fly by. “She was exquisite and had amazing wings, long blond hair, and high heels, of course.” While she now realizes it was probably a dragonfly, as a child she excitedly ran to tell her grandmother about her sighting. “I started to describe her and my Grandmother Abigail said to me, ‘Wait, don’t tell me. Show me,’ and she handed me a paper and a pencil.” This sparked Flanery’s passion for visual storytelling. “I always drew from that point on. It started early and it never ended…. Grandma, until the day she died, had that picture taped behind her bed.” she said. “When I became a teacher I often used that as my experience in how…there’s more than one way to tell a story.”

After completing high school, Flanery sold refrigerators in Manhattan for a brief stint before enrolling at The Cooper Union where she met Damali Miller, one of the artists featured in Continuum. “I love that school so much,” she said. “That school picked me up from one world and dropped me in another in such an enormous way.” Flanery recalls making lifelong friends and having incredible instructors at the school, including the art historian Dore Ashton who guided Flanery when she felt overwhelmed. After waitressing at many of the old Soho artist haunts to pay her rent throughout school, Flanery received her BFA in 1972.

Amy Williams, The Hemingway Series

Robin Holder, Copper Leaf Promise

Tracy Penn, Everything is Everything

L-R: Susan Newmark, The Language of Flowers I, II, 2015; Olivia Beens, Flowers of Perseverance, I, II, III; JoAnne McFarland, Positive Shirley, Negative Shirley; Amy Williams, The Hemingway Series

Shortly after graduating, Flanery met Kathy Caraccio whose “unique and extraordinary” personality fostered Flanery’s love for printmaking. “I discovered that I loved process and that’s what [Kathy] gave me,” Flanery said. “I learned so much from her and she gave me such confidence,” Flanery added, noting that she continues to learn from Caraccio today.

“The printmaking world is so small and intense, that everyone who has a shop knows everybody else in the city,” according to Flanery. She adds it was through Caraccio that she met Tatana Kellner who contributed two pieces to Continuum.

In the mid 1980s when Flanery moved from Soho to Park Slope, she needed to find a kindergarten for her son so she visited PS 107. “I went to look in on one of the classes and Olivia Beens was there with Studio in a School,” Flanery recalled. “I had never heard of it but I walk in and here is this artist and she’s really teaching. She’s not doing the turkey hand [tracing] kind of things…. I was like, ‘This is where I want my boy to go to school.’”

After working with Beens as a volunteer for Studio in a School, Beens recommended Flanery as a teacher for the program. Flanery spent the next 20 years teaching art to pre-K through high school students across the city, retiring about six years ago. Along with Flanery and Beens, Flanery’s old friend and classmate Damali Miller also taught for Studio in a School. Other Continuum artists Flanery met through the program include Robin Holder, Doris Rodriguez, and Susan Newmark.

Flanery has been a member of Park Slope’s 440 Gallery for ten years. It was at the artist-run gallery that she met Ellen Chuse, Karen Gibbons, Amy Weil, and Amy Williams, 440’s Gallery Director. Connections with Continuum artists JoAnne McFarland and Tracy Penn were more recently established through the Gowanus arts community.

Flanery’s prints are inspired by nature and feature vast landscapes, open skies, and bold horizons. “I would say palette is definitely my first consideration,” she notes. The deep blue waters in her Ocean complement Miller’s Memories of Home Once….and always. The similarities in the works' colors and lines suggest the synergy between the two longtime friends.

Gail Flanery stands next to Ocean, her monotype with chine collé

Flanery points out the relationships between Kellner’s Almost Gone and Weil’s Flowers not for Algernon, and the conversation between their palettes and grids. Penn's intricate encaustic piece Everything Is Everything is a perfect companion to Newmark's multi-layered collages The Language of Flowers I, II in the rear of the gallery just across from William's entrancing installation The Hemingway Series. “Mitchell and I walked through here and we were both like, ‘Wow. This is such strong work,’” Flanery recalled after hanging all the pieces. “I’m really glad we were able to hang it with space because each piece is so powerful.”

Joyfully explaining Continuum to a visitor at the gallery on Sunday, Flanery noted, “The thing that pulled it together for me is my relationship with these artists. I’ve known them and made art with them 30, 40, some of them almost 50 years in New York, and we never dropped the thread. And the thread was creation…our work. There’s great variety in our work but there’s a strength and a continuum.”

“It was about us keeping on keeping on,” she continued. “After decades it continues. That was the commonality, the artists I knew who have never stopped.”

Continuum
Established Gallery
75 6th Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Exhibition on view January 18 through February 9

Studio Visit: A.J. Springer and Kirsten Flaherty | 544 Park Ave, Brooklyn

Along with visiting painter Andrea Caldarise and installation artist Sarah Philouze on Sunday, I also met two printmakers during the 544 Park Ave open studios.

Andrea Springer, A.J. for short, previously shared a work space in Maspeth, Queens for two years with Christina Pumo. (Pumo discussed her work with me in September during Bushwick Open Studios.) They moved into a studio on the second floor of 544 Park Ave about a year and a half ago. Springer said they were “looking for a bigger community to work with because [Maspeth] was a pretty isolated studio. We landed here and it’s been great.” She added that she likes the building’s friendly communal vibe where the neighbors “keep their doors open, they talk to you” and “there’s this exchange of ideas and community.”

A.J. Springer holds one of her drawings at her studio 

Recent works by A.J. Springer (left to right) Untitled piece from her Submerged series; By Night; By Day

Originally from Long Island, Springer studied fine art and art history at FIT. She was introduced to printmaking in high school by the artist Dan Welden. Weldon “pioneered the solar printmaking process which imitates intaglio prints but it’s much less toxic,” Springer explained. “He came to do a workshop at my high school and saw my work. We connected.” Welden invited Springer to take another printmaking workshop in Vermont where her love for the craft grew. “He taught me this process and this process now is a huge part of my work, so I’m a big advocate for it.”

Springer enthusiastically discussed her process which begins with drawing on frosted Mylar (a transparent plastic). “The reason why I started drawing on Mylar, totally devoid of printmaking, was because I was doing these really aggressive-looking drawings. They were very emotional and intense. I was literally ripping through the paper,” she recalled. Along with being durable, the material provides Springer with another benefit. “What’s nice about Mylar is that you can pour water on it so I end up kind of painting [with the ink].… They’re drawings but they end up with these very painterly elements to them,” she explained.

A.J. Springer's By Night (left) and By Day (right)

A solar plate featuring a drawing by A.J. Springer

Once a drawing is complete, Springer exposes the transparency, treated with a light-sensitive emulsion, to a UV light box and transfers her image onto a solar plate. The metal plate is “meant to give you a photographic level of tone and imagery,” she noted. She then inks the plate by hand, or “à la poupée,” and runs it through the studio’s etching press onto rice paper. Once her print is made, she tears the rice paper off the plate and collages it onto her composition. “The reason why I print on the rice paper is because it’s transparent…. I’m kind of approaching [my work] a little more like a painting than a collage where I’m mixing, overlapping elements and colors. I tear away a lot. I scrape into it [and] kind of find the layers underneath. It’s a little bit less like placing carefully as collage. It’s a little more aggressive,” she said.

Springer also likes using rice paper because she can use a wet brush to outline shapes which “rip perfectly… follow[ing] the personality of the paper,” offering more organic, less “blocky” cutout forms than regular paper.

“I’m approaching it more like a painting than a collage,” she said of her work. “One of my hang-ups with painting was that I felt like everything I worked on was a little too precious, because there was only one. With this process I can print multiple versions of the same image and have multiple studies and I’m not afraid to mess one up because I have variables to work with…so I can become a little more experimental and mess around and make more mistakes which I think is really important in any art-making process, allowing yourself to fail.”

Springer said her intricate, moody, multi-layered works are influenced by psychology. “I explore a lot of these themes of duality and nature and suffering, and the ones I’ve been working on recently [are] more so about a relationship with the self,” she said, while another series titled Submerged depicts “a relationship with another person.”

Speaking of relationships with others, Springer says she loves sharing her work space with her studio mates. “We’re all really good friends, which is really nice for the process because we can share materials, share ideas, share everything.”

Check out Instagram to see more of A.J. Springer’s work.

Kirsten Flaherty moved into Springer and Pumo’s studio space in February after years of working from various print shops across the city. “I took the leap and made an investment in an etching press and Christina and A.J. were kind enough to let me in their studio," she recalled.

Originally from Westchester, Flaherty studied illustration at SVA where her professor Bruce Waldman introduced her to Carrier Pigeon, a quarterly illustrated fiction and fine art publication. While working at the magazine, Flaherty met Springer and Pumo. “Carrier Pigeon introduced me to a lot of different printmakers,” she said. “There’s just such a really solid printmaking community in New York. All the print shops, everyone working there, are very supportive of each other. There’s just a good, welcoming community that helps me foster my love for printmaking.”

Kirsten Flaherty's pit bull portraits

Kirsten Flaherty's pit bull portraits

Flaherty explained that “the drawing aspect” of printmaking is what attracted her to the medium. “I never really enjoyed painting as much as I did just sitting around and drawing in a sketchpad. Printmaking has such a focus on line work and detail…so I think that’s what really drew me to it.”

Flaherty works in mezzotint, a centuries-old printmaking process that “that takes a lot of time so not many people do it anymore,” she noted before demonstrating the time-consuming process. She uses a rocker, a semi-circular tool with small teeth along its edge, to create thousands of tiny dots on the surface of a copper plate, rocking the tool side-to-side for hours to cover the plate with divots that will eventually hold the ink. After the plate is "fully rocked"—which would print solid black—she uses a burnisher and a scraper to engrave her image onto the plate. “It’s basically a drawing,” she noted, “and when you’re drawing you’re knocking down all these little ridges in the plate so that it will print with whites or grays.” After her image is complete, she inks the plate and runs it through the etching press, noting that with mezzotint “you have to use a lot more pressure since there are such fine details in the plate.”

When asked why she insists on working with such a time-intensive method, she answered, “I’ve always been a fan of realism and hyper-realism and in something like etching or silkscreen or litho, you can’t really get a photographic quality like you can in mezzotint…. You can get really deep, beautiful, velvety blacks that aren’t possible in any other form of printmaking.” She added that the range of depth, tone, and detail that mezzotint produces is worth the extra time and effort.

Kirsten Flaherty uses a rocker to prep a copper plate for a mezzotint print

Kirsten Flaherty uses a burnisher to engrave an image onto a copper plate.

Kirsten Flaherty demonstrates using a burnisher to draw an image onto a copper plate for a mezzotint print.

Flaherty’s work has addressed the environment and animal rights, and according to her website currently focuses on “inspiring a more positive view of a nationally misunderstood animal”—the pit bull. “I have a pit bull, Otis...he’s my best friend. He’s such a loving, amazing companion,” she said of the eight-year-old dog.

She was inspired to create a print of Otis a couple of years back when Montreal was debating whether to institute a ban on pit bulls. “When they were talking about the BSL [breed-specific legislation] law, I was just trying to figure out what I could do to raise money for helping them fight against that legislation.” Flaherty donated 100% of the sales from the print to organizations protesting Montreal’s pit bull ban.

Though the ban was suspended in 2017, Flaherty has continued creating her pit bull prints, donating a portion of each sale to a non-profit animal shelter. “That sparked doing further projects with these pit bull portraits because I just really want to communicate to people just how loving these animals are and how much they deserve respect and kindness. There’s no reason for any dog to be put down, but especially just because of a breed and a bad reputation for things that they’re not at fault for,” she said. Her thoughtful portraits are capable of convincing even the staunchest pit bull critic to have a change of heart, with their rich tones illustrating the dog's beauty, vulnerability, and warm—and sometimes goofy—personality.

L-R: A.J. Springer and Kirsten Flaherty in their studio at 544 Park Ave in Brooklyn.

Flaherty also organizes pop-up exhibitions to raise funds for non-profit organizations, assembling a collection of work donated by various artists with 100% of sales going to groups such as VOCAL-NY, City Harvest, Sean Casey Animal Rescue, the International Refugee Assistance Project, the ACLU, and more. “I feel like it is a very small thing that people can do. Printmakers are such a good community that want to help out,” she said.

To learn more about Kirsten Flaherty and her fundraisers, and to see more of her work, visit kirstenflaherty.com.

Russian Constructivism | Tony Shafrazi

Vladimir Tatlin's iconic model of 20th century revolutionary art, Monument for the Third International, is currently on exhibit for the first time in the U.S. at Tony Shafrazi Gallery.  Tatlin, considered the father of the Russian Constructivist movement, worked on the scale model of the monumental structure from 1915-1920.  The building, intended to serve as the headquarters of the Communist International, was to be erected in Petrograd, the birthplace of the Russian Revolution.  The Monument was to be constructed of iron, steel, and glass, standing 1,300 feet, "more than 300 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower or the approximate height of The Empire State Building," (from the press release).  Sadly, the architectural and engineering complexities of the project, along with political unrest and a shortage of steel doomed Tatlin's ambitious project to be unrealized.

The imposing, towering model was exhibited in Petrograd and Moscow in 1920, and then again, in Tatlin's absence, in Paris at the World Exhibition of Industrial and Decorative Art in 1925.  The last time the model was displayed before Tatlin's death in 1953 was in Leningrad in 1930, and all models disappeared by 1932.  In 1967, Pontus Hulten, Director of Stockholm's Moderna Museet, received permission from Tatlin's widow, Aleksandra Korsakova, to recreate the model with T.M. Shapiro, one of Tatlin's original collaborators.  This model was debuted in the 1968 Vladimir Tatlin exhibition at the Moderna Museet.  This is also the same model that is currently on view at Tony Shafrazi.  Of the three existing versions made after Tatlin's death (one replica was made for the Center Georges Pompidou and another was made for Moderna Museet), the sculpture currently on display in New York is the only one "created under the supervision of Shapiro... and is the most accuarte rendition of his original 1920 design."  Tatlin's magnificent scale model with its intricate, complex details and revolving center is renowned as "the defining symbol of Constructivist sculpture and architecture."  Learn more at Tonyshafrazigallery.com.  Through July 29th.

On view alongside Monument for the Third International is Revolutionary Film Posters: Aesthetic Experiments of Russian Constructivism, 1920-1933, an exhibit of 95 Russian film posters from "the great era of Constructivism."  In response to the Russian Revolution, Constructivists tried to create order and "a more stable and harmonious society."  In their attempts, they developed "rigorously experimental aesthetics" that were "applied across the entire social spectrum of contemporary experience to every mode of creative endeavor..."  The graphic and surprisingly very modern posters feature some famous, old-school, western actors (i.e. Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) as well as electric colors, energetic imagery, bold graphics, and several pained and overwrought facial expressions.  They're all pretty stylized, severe, and exciting.  If only movie posters today could be as creative and interesting.  Learn more at Tonyshafrazigallery.com.  Through July 29th.

Vladimir Tatlin, Monument for the Third International, originally conceived 1915-1920

Vladimir Tatlin, Monument for the Third International, originally conceived 1915-1920

Left to right:  Anatoly Belsky, Annenkov, 1933; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, The Girl with a Hat-Box, 1927

Clockwise from top left:  Alexander Naumov, The Stolen Bride, 1925; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, The Knight's Move, 1927; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, The Knight's Move, 1926; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Shanghai Document, 1928

Alexander Rodchenko, Battleship Potemkin, 1929

Anatoly Belsky, Pipe of the Communards, 1929

Left to right:  Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Ninich, 1927; Mikhail Dlugach, Electric Chair, 1928

Clockwise from left:  Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Arsenal, 1929; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Yankee Consul, 1927; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Daddy's Boy, 1927

Left to right:  Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Fragment of an Empire, 1929;  Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Which of the Two, 1927

Left to right:  Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Gossip, 1928; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Adventures of an Abandoned Child, 1926; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Starushka, 1929

Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Man with a Movie Camera, 1929

Clockwise top left:  Zim, Spartakiade, 1927; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Mystery of the Windmill, 1928; Georgii & Vladimir Stenberg, Sporting Fever, 1928

Left to right:  Anatoly Belsky, Five Minutes, 1929; Grigori Borisov & Pyotr Zhukov, Living Corpse, 1929

Clockwise top left:  Atelier Levenstein, Dr. Mabuzo, 1927; Unknown Artist, Her Way, 1928; Nikolai Prusakov, Ranks and People, 1929

Anatoly Belsky, Private Life of Peter Vinogradov, 1934

Lorna Simpson | Salon 94 Bowery

Dancing in a Lincoln Center ballet performance at age eleven left an indelible impression on Lorna Simpson.  Momentum, Simpson's current show at Salon 94 Bowery features large-scale serigraphs printed on felt inspired by the artist's ballerina past.  Recreating imagery from postcards from the 1960's in gold ink, Simpson's works show interior and exterior scenes of Avery Fisher Hall and The Metropolitan Opera House.  Inspired by her memories of performing on stage, Simpson's nostalgic works depicting water fountains, chandeliers, empty theater seats, and the iconic buildings illuminated at night, look majestic and haunting.

Playing on a small flat-screen t.v. inside the gallery as well as on a large screen in the street-level window facing the Bowery is Simpson's new video, Momentum.  Just under seven minutes, the video features a cast of dancers painted in gold body paint from afro wig to pointe shoes, alternating between twirling and pirouetting energetically to just standing around in long moments of repose.  According to the show's press release, "the video's narrative structure... fragmented by moments of inactivity" mirror the artist's "memory of the event."  By filming the golden dancers, Simpson "illuminat[es] the tenuous relationship between memory and event, performance and spectatorship."  Learn more at salon94.com.  Closes June 18th.

Curtain, 2011

Chandelier, 2011

Night Time, 2011

Momentum, 2011

Momentum, 2011

Yoshitomo Nara | Pace Prints

I still haven't made it to Asia Society yet to see Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool, but while checking out Robert Irwin's Way Out West a couple of weeks ago at The Pace Gallery East 57th Street I happened upon an exhibit of prints by Yoshitomo Nara at Pace Prints.  I was excited to get a sampling of Nara's mischievous, edgy imps, hoping it would motivate me to hightail it over to the Asia Society show before it closes January 2nd.

The 12 works at Pace Prints were created using the classic Japanese Ukiyo-e style woodcut method.  Each piece is printed in color on Kizuki-shi or Shichibugusa paper and comes in editions of 50.  The prints are classic Nara, with his adorable, angry little characters seemingly up to no good, fussing and a-fuming before bare backgrounds.  Samples of the woodcuts he used to produce the print Walk On are also on display.  Nara's prints illustrate quirky and enchanting scenes that make you wonder why his charming little girls are so darn pissed off.  I probably like them so much because I totally relate to their moodiness...  Learn more at Paceprints.com.  Closed December 4th but we still have until January 2, 2011 to check out Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool at Asia Society!

After the Acid Rain (Day Version), 2010

Don't Wanna Cry from Untitled, 2010, I Don't Want to Grow Up from Untitled, 2010

S.O.S. from Untitled, 2010, Hateful Christmas from Untitled, 2010

Life is Only One from Untitled, 2010, 1-2-3-4 Pissed Off! from Untitled, 2010

Poindexter from Untitled, 2010, My Little Treasure from Untitled, 2010

Gypsy Song from Untitled, 2010, Walk On from Untitled, 2010

After the Acid Rain (Night Version), 2010

Walk On woodcut

White Ghost, 2010, at Park Avenue & 67th Street

Robert Indiana | Woodward Gallery

Robert Indiana, the American Pop Artist internationally renowned for his American Dream, Numbers, and LOVE series, presents prints from his HOPE series at his current exhibit NOW at the Woodward Gallery.  As the show's press release explains, "Indiana's work speaks to the vital forces that have shaped our culture — the American Dream of the 20th century and HOPE for the 21st century."  Over the years Indiana has produced indelible images that "chronicle his personal as well as the national identity, political and social upheaval, the rise of consumer culture, and the use of art as historical chronicler." 

The artist's LOVE series captured the hippie vibe of the 60s while HOPE emphasizes "the politcal message of our time."  The artist's use of "blended rainbow colors" help give new life to his "classic Pop iconography while working through the emotional connection between color, graphic art and painting."  Indiana combines colors to evoke the seaons and adds an image of Barack Obama alongside red, white, and blue letters to convey patriotism, or black and white text suggesting an optimistic presidential portrait.  Indiana's uplifting message feels much needed now especially as we quickly approach a new year filled with hope and expectations.  Learn more at Woodwardgallery.net.  Through January 22, 2011.

HOPE: Red, Green, & Blue, 2009, HOPE: Red, White, & Blue, 2009

Obama Portrait: Black & White, 2009

HOPE for Life, 2010

HOPE Wall: Rainbow Roll #1, 2010, Black & White, 2010, Classic HOPE: Red, Green, & Blue, 2010

Silver Winter, 2010, Spring, 2010

Autumn, 2010

Obama Portrait: Red, White, & Blue, 2009, Obama Fundraiser Original: Red, White, & Blue, 2008

Kunstlerplakate: Artists' Posters from East Germany 1967-1990 | Grey Art Gallery

New York University's Grey Art Gallery currently has on view Kunstlerplakate: Artists' Posters from East Germany, 1967-1990, a collection of posters created in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) 23-years prior to Germany's reunification.  The 120 artists' posters, or Kunstlerplakate, on display were created by over 70 artists to advertise cultural events and art exhibits in East Germany's three art centers - Dresden, Leipzig, and Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz).  While a bulk of the posters in the exhibit are from the 1980s, samples from the 60s are also on view, illustrating the evolution of the posters and the various styles used by the East German artists.

Communist officials associated painting with "bourgeois conspicuous consumption" (from the exhibit's press release), however printmaking and graphic design were encouraged since they emphasized "reproducibility and visual communication," so posters became the medium of choice for artists to express themselves and experiment creatively.  As the press release notes, "East German artists were challenged to produce creative and engaging posters while skirting the edges of ideological orthodoxy."  By keeping print runs to under 100 copies per edition, artists were "able to bypass strict GDR censorship boards."

With very limited access to Western art and media, the East German artists had little to no reference as to what was going on in contemporary art movements, so they "turned their attention to historical avant-gardes."  In the mid-1970s, the artists started using "new techniques such as offset lithography and silkscreen" and the posters produced in the 1980s up until November 1989 when Berlin Wall came down, "reveal East German artists' interest in experimental art as censorship standards began to relax."

On loan from the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, the Kunstlerplakate are surprisingly bold and striking.  These Kunstlerplakate prove that the East German artists overcame restrictive conditions to create vibrant and stunning pieces that have stood the test of time.  Many of these posters could be re-used today to advertise events or concerts and not look out of place beside recent designs.  Learn more at nyu.edu/greyarts.  Through December 4th.

Max Uhlig, Lithographs, Kunstkabinett am Institut fur Lehrerweiterbildung, Berlin-Pankow, 67, Exhibition, June 8-July 4, 1968

Veit Hofmann, First Dresden Print Fair, 1976, Etching

Gerhard Altenbourg, Prints, Exhibition, Museum und Kunstsammlung Schloss Hinterglauchau, Glauchau, Jan 22-Mar 31, 1978

Andreas Kuchler, Contrasts [Syntheses 5], Transformations, Grimmling, Hofmann, Kuchler, Galerie Mitte, Dresden, Jan 16-Feb 24, 1983, Offset lithgograph

Horst Bartnig, Five Years, 1979-1984, Galerie Mitte, Dresden, Computer print

Hans Scheuerecker, Paintings, Installation, EIGEN+ART, [Leipzig], Performance, Jan 10-Feb 9, 1986

Bruno Konrad, Prints, Drawings, Galerie Kunst der Zeit, [Dresden], June 27-July 26, 1986, Silkscreen

Andreas Dress, 1979-1989, Ten Years, Galerie Mitte, Dresden, Lithograph

Holger Fickelscherer, Merrily Merrily, A.H. Meier presents Fickelscherer by G.H. Lybke, Entertainment Art at Galerie Elgen+Art, Leipzig, Jan 5-28, 1990, Silkscreen

Clockwise from left: Gudrun Trandafilov, Prints & Drawings at orbis pictus, Galerie fur Zeitgenossische Kunst, Berlin, Nov 30-Jan 12, 1991; Steffen Fischer, Paintings, Prints, Galerie Treptow, Berlin, Dec 5-21, 1990; Angela Hamepi, Alruna-Harnediebchen, Sep 7-Oct 6, 1990