Above image: Installation view, Zoe Young: Still. Life. Courtesy of Gruin Gallery and domicile (n.).
This article was originally published in Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art
By Alexandra Goldman
Still. Life., a strong solo exhibition of sizeable still life paintings by Australian artist Zoe Young, opened October 15th as the third successful exhibition collaboration between Gruin Gallery, founded by formerly New York-based gallerist Emerald Gruin, and domicile (n.), an innovative East Hollywood multi-modal artist project space created by Cyrus Etemad and curator Margot Ross. Still. Life., Young's first breakout solo exhibition in the U.S., will remain on view at domicile (n.) in LA's Merrick Building until November 22nd , 2021.
Zoe Young and Emerald Gruin met one another while studying together at the National Arts School in Sydney over a decade ago, and have since maintained a friendship and mutual appreciation for one another's work. Still. Life. represents a consummation of their meaningful relationship over many years.
The title of the exhibition, Still. Life., is immediately sobering. Young created all the still life paintings in this exhibition during pandemic quarantine lockdown in Australia, isolated and alone in her studio. By breaking up the two words, it poses questions and presents thoughts about these words individually. What does it mean to be still? What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be separated, when you're used to being together? And, most importantly, when and how does life still go on? These reflections are all embodied in each of Young's still life paintings.
Australia had one of the world's strictest pandemic travel regulations, only opening its borders for the first time after twenty months this week on November 1, 2021. Young's artistic practice frequently included portraits and other figurative imagery of people prior to the pandemic, however in lockdown, she turned to the still life, focusing on the decadence and pleasure of objects in the absence of people.
Young is a multi-year finalist of Australia's Archibald Prize, which is considered Australia's most prestigious award for portraiture. When there are not people around to paint, what could better express the stories of people than their things? Young's paintings in Still. Life. are in this way imagined portraits of people, showing evidence of their tastes and existence through books, cassette tapes, food, drink, and décor without revealing their physicality.
Zoe Young, Squid ink pasta for breakfast before breakfast at Tiffany's, 2021, Acrylic on Belgian linen, 59 x 59 x 1 5/8 " (150 x 150 x 4 cm). Courtesy of Gruin Gallery and domicile (n.).
Each painting details one of Young's imagined fantasy dinner parties in Tinseltown, which she yearned for while in solitude. The artist had never been to LA, but always dreamed of going to experience its patina, glamour, and allure. The lengthy quarantine she weathered only heightened her desire to bring these fantasies to life through her art: both of traveling, and intermingling with people in the most basic of ways. There is a unique joy that comes from clinking glasses and sharing food off of the same plates as others, evident in Young's paintings.
Formally, the works show off the artist's hand with generously applied paint and visible brush strokes. Young's soft, Francophile color palette is optimistic, with what feels like dappled sunlight pouring into each scene and highlighting the architecture of her objects. Young's style of painting is reminiscent of Matisse, Alice Neel, and Wayne Thiebaud. Some moments in the paintings reveal Young's affinity for French culture by way of certain wines, cheeses, Louis Vuitton, perfume, and even a tiny French flag on a toothpick, while others such as fish heads and lemons recall 17th century Dutch vanitas still lives. One of my favorite moments in the exhibition is how, in the work "Chablis, Surf shacks + Olives", 2021, Young paints the reflection of a striped tablecloth refracting within a white wine glass, demonstrating her attention to detail and technical prowess.
The paintings also evoke a cross-continental playfulness and sense of humor. Young's scenes often pretend to feature L.A. beaches, but as many Australians may recognize, actually depict Sydney's Bondi Beach. Nods to surf culture from both California and Australia make appearances throughout the exhibition, and in an Oscar Wildian fashion, Young paints herself into her work fusing her own name onto one of her painted book covers.
Zoe Young, Bribery and corruption over brunch, 2021, Acrylic on Belgian linen, 68 1/8 x 88 1/4 x 1 3/8 " (173 x 224 x 3.5 cm). Courtesy of Gruin Gallery and domicile (n.).
Finally, many of the fruits in young's still life paintings are fabulously mythological and sexual, such as pomegranates, strawberries, pears, grapefruits, and avocadoes; a possible commentary on the desire for human touch, absent for many in isolation during the pandemic. Several of these fruits also grow in gardens in both Australia and California, linking the two geographic regions. Emerald Gruin holds gardening dear to her heart as gardening was her mother's lifelong passion and exceptional talent. Therefore the heavy presence of flowers, fruits and vegetables throughout this exhibition is additionally an important connection between artist and gallerist.
Young was deeply saddened believing for a long time that due to the continued lockdown in Australia, she would not be able to make it to her own first ever U.S. exhibition in LA. However, because of the recent opening up of Australia's travel restrictions on November 1st, Young will finally travel to Los Angeles. In her honor, Gruin Gallery and domicile (n.) extended the exhibition and will be hosting a real Hollywood dinner party for Young in the gallery space, surrounded by her paintings, with plans to have the real dinner mirror the aesthetics in the paintings. It seems for this powerful, manifesting artist, that fantasies do come true.
Zoe Young, Still. Life. is on view at Gruin Gallery x domicile (n.) in the Merrick Building, 4859 Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, from October 15 – November 22, 2021.
Posted on November 15, 2021 November 15, 2021 by Artifactoid Posted in Culture Fix, Thought Portfolio Tagged Art Exhibition, Art Gallery, Art Review, Artist, Australia, domicile n, Gruin Gallery, Los Angeles, On View, Painter, Painting, Still Life, Zoe Young Leave a comment
MOTHER/EARTH: Alexandra Goldman Interviews Activist Performance Artist Maria Evelia Marmolejo
Above: Maria Evelia Marmolejo, Anónimo 1, 1981. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Fabio Arango.
This article was originally published in Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art.
During weekdays Maria Evelia Marmolejo is a therapist at a child psychotherapy clinic living in Jackson Heights. She's also a mom, and a skilled salsa dancer. When I met up with her for our interview at a cafe in her neighborhood in December 2018, I felt like she was my fun aunt. We hadn't seen each other in over a year, but immediately reconnected. I thought, what most people at this cafe probably don't know, is that she is one of the most badass performance artists from the '70s and '80s! She was giving birth in a gallery before it was cool.
Installation view: Subverting the Feminine: Latin American (Re)marks on the Female Body curated by Isabella Villanueva at Y Gallery, 2016. Photo by Alexandra Goldman.
I first met Maria Evelia when I was a Director at Y Gallery and we hosted a historical group exhibition featuring her work, curated by Isabella Villanueva and titled, Subverting the Feminine: Latin American (Re)marks on the Female Body. The show included era-marking performances, video, drawings and photography such as "Integrations in Water" by Yeni y Nan (Jennifer Hackshaw and María Luisa González), "Madre por un día" by Polvo de Gallina Negra (one of the most famous projects by the duo comprising Maris Bustamante and Monica Mayer), "Hymenoplasty" by Regina José Galindo, which won the Golden Lion award at the 2005 Venice Biennial, video and drawings by Peruvian artist Elena Tejada-Herrera, and the video "Incision" by Teresa Margolles. The caliber of historical works in that exhibition was so high; it was like a museum, yet were in a small fifth-floor lower east side gallery space. The show was in November of 2016 and I still frequently think about it to this day.
Marmolejo's works in Subverting the Feminine were "11 de Marzo" and "Anónimo 4," both from 1982. These two works respectively spoke to abolishing the idea of menstruation as a taboo, and the tragedy of high infant mortality in several Latin American countries.
"11 de Marzo" debuted at Galería San Diego in Bogota. For this ritual Marmolejo lined the gallery floor with an L-shaped formation of white paper. The space was lit with a blacklight, and the sound of toilet flushing played on loop in the background. She then covered her body with feminine hygiene pads, and performed a dance along the L shaped paper, using her menstrual blood to mark the floor and walls. Marmolejo states, "In this performance I emphasize the pivotal role of womanhood in the origin of life and of her civil rights in the world."
Maria Evelia Marmolejo, 11 de Marzo, 1982. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Camilo Gómez.
Maria Evelia Marmolejo, 11 de Marzo, 1982. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Nelson Villegas.
In "Anónimo 4," Marmolejo drew attention to the fact that when babies enter into the world, the possibility of survival and peace is not always a certainty. For this, she dug a 1.5 meter triangular pit in the ground, about equal to her height, and three smaller triangular pits around it filled with sewer water. She wrapped her entire body with plastic wrap, and entered the hole, which she filled with the placentas of all the babies born that day in hospitals near the site of the performance: Cali, Colombia and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She covered herself with the placentas, and stayed submerged in the hole, in her words, "embarking on a psychological and sociological self-exploration of the fear of being born in a society in which there is no guarantee of survival." The experience invoked her own extreme bodily reactions such as vomiting and crying.
Maria Evelia Marmolejo, Anónimo 4, 1982. Image courtesy of Maria Evelia Marmolejo. Photo by Nelson Villegas.
Other works by Marmolejo speak to government violence, disappeared persons, and healing Mother Earth from human-inflicted pollution and damage – especially by symbolically giving back to Earth with the body in the style of nonviolent sacrifice.
In her performance Anónimo 3, Marmolejo went to the banks of the River Cauca in Colombia, which was being severely polluted. At this site she performed a 15-minute ritual in which she formed a 10-meter spiral using limestone dust, centered around a toilet bowl. She used a vaginal wash over the bowl, adhered surgical tape to her body, and walked around spiral allowing her organic fluids and body hair ripped out with the tape to fall into the earth. Through this process she created a compost as an act of healing and forgiveness offered to the planet.
Marmolejo is a recipient of the CIFO Achievement Award, and multiple examples of her work were included in the esteemed 2017-2018 traveling exhibition, Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960-1985, which was presented at the Hammer Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Pinacoteca de São Paolo. Below I am pleased to present an exclusive video interview with the artist:
Now is a compelling time to revisit Marmolejo's work, which often focuses on the fusion of the human body with the health of the planet Earth. The body and Earth are one. The power of the body, especially the feminine body, as a regenerative force, and as a power to protect Mother Earth, another feminine life giving force – our planet – that gives us the chance to exist.
In this time of Coronavirus wreaking havoc on the collective human body worldwide, there are murmurs of the virus as the planet's retaliation against us for destroying it. Maybe not scientifically, but symbolically or spiritually.
Posted on April 15, 2020 April 18, 2020 by Artifactoid Posted in Interviews Tagged Activist Art, Art Gallery, Artist Interview, Colombia, Latin American art, Museum, Performance Art, Video Interview Leave a comment
Good Naked: When One Door Closes, A Gallery Door Opens
Above: Jaqueline Cedar in her studio. Image courtesy of Good Naked. Photo by Phoebe Berglund.
After finishing her MFA at Columbia in 2009, LA-born and raised artist Jaqueline Cedar moved into a spacious apartment with her boyfriend in Ditmas Park. Like many artists at the time, she had studio space in Industry City in Sunset Park, but was priced out in 2012 as large design companies and startups moved in. "There was a mass exodus of artists from the neighborhood around that time," she explained, "I thought about moving my studio to Long Island City or elsewhere in Queens, but none of the rent prices felt within range. Getting a studio seemed more expensive than renting an apartment."
Painting by Jaqueline Cedar. Image courtesy of Good Naked.
Cedar's large empathic paintings focus on psychological interactions between otherworldly cartoon characters that are both familiar in a Popeye and Olive Oil sort of way, and simultaneously absurd and unknown. Her landed-on-mars color palette, combined with some apparent Bruce Nauman influence, use of nontraditional materials (she paints on neon foam and sports mesh), and fondness for placing three or four moons in any given sky, add up to a sophisticated brand of mindfuckery that reverberates throughout the oeuvre.
Paintings by Jaqueline Cedar. Images courtesy of Good Naked.
To continue to produce her work despite the financial difficulties of finding adequate studio space, Cedar's boyfriend suggested that she move her studio into their home. She tried it and discovered that she loved how it allowed her to work whenever she wanted, even during all hours of the night. Then, in 2015, the relationship with her boyfriend ended. Cedar needed to get a roommate to pay the rent, and transitioned into a roommate lifestyle for the next four years.
In August 2019, when her then-roommate abruptly announced she was moving out, Cedar was nervous but saw a window for a different solution to her rent deficit. Instead of finding a replacement tenant, she took a risk and made the decision to transform the majority of her apartment into a commercial art gallery with a developed, rotating program of exhibiting artists. She had past experience organizing exhibitions at Crush Curatorial, and wanted to continue to explore this path. "I started all of the planning right away in August, as I knew I would need to turn a profit almost immediately in order to make this plan work," she said. "If it didn't work out, I thought, I could always get another roommate later."
Installation view, "Go For Broke" at Good Naked Gallery. Image courtesy of Good Naked. Photo by Etienne Frossard.
For Cedar, the financial pressure was a motivating factor. "Some people crumble under that type of pressure, but for me, it was energizing." To get things going, she began conceptualizing names for the gallery and exhibition titles, and started emailing and planning studio visits with artists she envisioned working with. An initial round of positive feedback from many of her top-choice artists encouraged her to hit the ground running. She decided on her quirky gallery name, "Good Naked," based on a Seinfeld episode that jokes about walking around your apartment naked: a classic perk of not having a roommate.
What began as something she saw as an experiment for one or two months turned into a longer-term success. Cedar has already had four shows, each with an opening party, closing, and an event in between. Her events are special and build community. At the first event, she created a drawing club where guests collaborated on exquisite corpse drawings. Subsequent events featured a comedy show of female artist-comedians doing stand-up, and a supper club where an artist prepared lasagna for the group. Cedar confessed, "at first, I was inviting each guest to the gallery individually and introducing attendees to one another. Now, many people show up to my events who I don't even know, and I'm the one being introduced!"
Jaqueline Cedar and Zebadiah Keneally in Cedar's studio. Photo by Artifactoid.
Zebadiah Keneally, installation view, "Go For Broke" at Good Naked Gallery. Image courtesy of Good Naked. Photo by Etienne Frossard.
One artist who recently showed at Good Naked is poignant comedic illustrator and performance artist Zebadiah Keneally. Keneally installed a floor to ceiling immersive, painted environment featuring multiple illustrations in the apartment's central corridor. His videos are also hilarious, many featuring his alter-ego, Hamburger Vampire.
Phoebe Berglund, Freezer Still Life (Cabbage, Shrimp, Rye Bread), 2020
Digital C-Print, 8" x 12" Edition of 20. Image courtesy of Good Naked.
Phoebe Berglund, Freezer Still Life (Fish in Scallop Shell, Grapes, Sliced Lemon) 2020. Digital C-Print, 8" x 12" Edition of 20. Image courtesy of Good Naked.
Another recent Good Naked exhibiting artist is Phoebe Berglund. She took over the freezer in the Good Naked kitchen for two weeks to create a beautiful photography series called "Freezer Still Lives," a memento mori to the ocean (in her words). Visitors could view the 17th century Dutch-reminiscent scene in person any time Phoebe was at the gallery, but since there were dead fish involved, Cedar explained, "it was stinking up the apartment."
Good Naked's upcoming exhibition "Talk Soup" opens next Friday, March 13 from 6-9pm, featuring works by Bill Adams, Jonathan DeDecker, Carl Durkow, Hyun Jung Jun, Griffin Mactavish, Rachel Jackson, and James English Leary.
Posted on March 6, 2020 March 7, 2020 by Artifactoid Posted in Culture Fix, Thought Portfolio Tagged Art, Art Gallery, Brooklyn, Contemporary Art, Curating, Exhibition, Illustration, New York, Painting, photography, Video 1 Comment
Molars in the Sky
"I paint with my left hand," Brooklyn-based Canadian artist Krista Louise Smith explained, after telling me about chronic pain that she experiences in her dominant right hand due to a rare nerve condition. Rather than feeling discouraged that her pain makes it difficult for her to paint righty, Smith has instead embraced the soft, childlike freedom that for her, could only have emerged with her less controlled, left hand painting. "With my right hand, I tended to be neurotic, second-guessing every brushstroke. With my left, I don't impose those same judgments on myself, and let the paintings unfold more organically."
Krista Louise Smith, Blue Dream, 2019. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 68 inches.
Softness is arguably an important quality when depicting clouds, Smith's chosen subject matter for her newest body of work. Her older work tended toward more realistic paintings and sculptures that represented the human figure. The new paintings feature mostly perky, individual clouds in layered, glowing cotton candy atmospheres, that exist somewhere between a cartoon realm and an idea of a cloud in the mind's eye rather than a photorealistic cloud or background of a Turner painting. "I paint with colors that I like and naturally gravitate toward, like baby blues and pinks," Smith said, reaffirming the self-judgment-free nature of her current artistic process. The exhibition title, Sonnets of the Subconscious, in which the paintings are now on view at Carvalho Park in East Williamsburg, reinforces the idea that the works don't necessarily depict the literal physical world.
Krista Louise Smith, Lavender Night, 2020. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 56 x 54 inches.
In Smith's painting Lavender Night, a glowing tiny moon and subtle surrounding stars peek through a layer of whitewashed ultraviolet altostrati. She creates a sublime creamy world like that in Matthew Wong's 2019 painting Morning Mist on view earlier this winter at Karma Gallery.
Krista Louise Smith, Float, 2019. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 68 inches.
In a recent studio visit with Smith, she shared that the only components of each painting she pre-plans are the general composition, and her color palette, which she assembles in advance by collaging paint swatches and pinning them to the wall. "The color palette I choose sets my parameters for each painting and it's how I create cohesion in the piece as opposed to working with line."
Krista Louise Smith, Dayglow, 2020. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 68 inches.
Dayglow is a good example of one of Smith's paintings in which she uses oil crayon and pink/blue color layering to create texture and depth. While her brushstrokes are visible, the work doesn't rely on the bravado of the gesture for its strength. Instead her hand creates a believable atmosphere, like a thick pastel humidity that you can breathe in.
Krista Louise Smith, Bad Dreams (detail), 2018 – 2020. 680 ceramic sculptures, dimensions variable.
In the center of the gallery, enveloped by Smith's transcendent womb of cloud paintings, rests a floating plinth that supports Bad Dreams, a choreographed grid of 600 ceramic sculptures of abstracted teeth. The sculptures look like little living organisms that are about to jump up and begin dancing a tooth ballet the moment no one is watching. "I was going to the dentist a lot, and had teeth on my mind," Smith explained. There is a refreshing purity, simplicity and directness that Smith translates into her artistic decisions.
Smith's teeth and clouds also strangely resemble each other. The tops of some of the ceramic teeth look like little clouds, and some of Smith's clouds looked like molars in the sky. Each ceramic tooth sculpture is unconventionally painted with acrylic paint made for porous surfaces rather than traditional glaze, which gives them a silky smooth pottery quality. As in the artist's own mouth, there are a few gold teeth that punctuate her sculpted dental display.
Sonnets of the Subconscious is on view at Carvalho Park until March 15.
All images in this article courtesy of Carvalho Park.
Posted on February 27, 2020 February 28, 2020 by Artifactoid Posted in Thought Portfolio Tagged Art Gallery, Brooklyn, Contemporary Art, Painting, Sculpture Leave a comment
The Border #1: An Exhibition of Immigrant Art Curated by Jamie Martinez
Jamie Martinez, an artist originally from Colombia and founder of Arte Fuse, the increasingly recognized art blog, has rented a small space on the first floor of the 56 Bogart gallery building in Bushwick. "The Border #1" is his first show there; it is composed of five artists, including Martinez himself. This show, and his project generally, comprises a comment on and support of the immigrant artists in New York; as everyone needs to recognize, and current politics is determined to evade, we are all from somewhere else–either recently or a few generations ago. This is obviously true in recent art, especially in New York; if we think of abstract expressionism's importance, two of the artists making up its famous triumvirate, de Kooning and Gorky, were born outside America (the third, Pollock, of course was not).
Installation view, The Border #1. © Jamie Martinez.
The infusion of work from artists new to our shores is nothing new, especially now, and Martinez is determined to offer space to and document the very good art being made by people recently established here. In this highly interesting show, five artists from elsewhere else offer works that do not necessarily look like they come from a geographical distance–an artist's origins are no longer easily Identifiable at all, in a formal sense, in contemporary art. But the point needs to be made repeatedly that the current influx of artists globally to New York, who are attracted by the city's history of international modernism and social freedoms (not by its high rents!), are contributing to the scene some of the best work being made today. This show demonstrates this high achievement extremely well.
Martinez put himself into this small artists' group deliberately, being that it is the first exhibition in the space he himself set up. His art consists of pages taken from The Book of the Dead, their individual hieroglyphs framed and emphasized by thin copper wire; a printed poem, "America" by Maya Angelou, treated the same way; and two abstract sculptures, made of triangles of metal and thin, pink neon-lit lines. If we think about it, the hieroglyphs describe, seemingly visually but indicating something readable, a voyage somewhere else, while Angelou's poem presents the harsh but actual reality of many people's experience here. Finally, Martinez explained in conversation that the triangles of metal in the two wall sculptures demonstrate the social process of tringulation, suggesting the meeting of people.
Jamie Martinez, (L-R) Copper Mesh 1, modular sculpture with copper, plexiglass, paper, jump rings and rubber cement, approx 20 inches with fiber optic lights and battery. Flow, Steel and fiber optics and battery, approx 36 inches. © Jamie Martinez courtesy Jamie Martinez.
The space is small, and so Martinez's works are too; but he communicates the inevitability of an American world that is based on immigration–to say otherwise is lying! The artists in the show mostly make work that doesn't directly address immigration, or New York, with the exception of the Peruvian-born woman artist C.J. Chueca, whose wall of whole and broken ceramic tiles, titled the Wall #1 (New York) (2016), clearly references our subway system. The piece is added to by a small black ceramic work on the floor, which partially represents a black plastic bag tied at the top. Called Shoes in a Trash Bag (2016), it combines with the tile wall to capture the physical decay and detritus that is so much a part of the New York experience, strange as that may be in so wealthy an urban place. Other artists' efforts here are not so transparently illustrating New York life.
C.J. Chueca, Wall #1 (New York), Ceramic tiles over wood, 2016. © C.J. Chueca courtesy Jamie Martinez.
Peter Kaspar's large, flat wooden piece (2018) must be activated by a small rock-shaped magnet that is placed on top of a rectangular box containing necessary machinery; when this is done, tiny lights, separated a bit from each other on the expanse of the wooden plane, come on. The effect is exquisite–a bit like stars flashing in a night sky (the pieces is best viewed in semi-darkness). On the other side of the panel, there is an intricate nest of wires used to activate the lights in front. There is no ostensible orientation toward the immigrant theme in this remarkable, low-tech but highly achieved work of art. But Kaspar comes from Slovakia, and that is far away. He participates in the intersection of technology and the sublime that is part of recent art history, and this work shows he is very good at it.
Peter Kaspar, wood, aluminum, rocks and fiber optics with machine, 2018. © Peter Kaspar courtesy Jamie Martinez.
Levan Mendiashvili's suite of three small, plaster-and-wood building fronts and cloth-backed photo of what looks like a discarded building's facade, both taken from his ongoing series "Urban Archeology," feels like an abstracted treatment of homes and city fronts taken over by decay; it is impossible to specify the specific place of either the reliefs or the photographic image. Still, the point is made–we are living in a time when urban life is constantly being rearranged by the rebuilding of neighborhoods. It doesn't matter where–this is happening all over the world. This Georgia-born artist creates work that documents the change without specifying where it comes from, so that it becomes a general feature of immigrant/urban experience.
The last artist to be mentioned, Aphrodite Desiree Navab, is of a mixed background: Iran and Greece. Her suite of eight small ink-on-paper works, titled "Love Labyrinth," refers to the Minotaur myth, in which Ariadne gives Theseus the string to make his way out of the labyrinth after slaying the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull figure ruling the maze. According to Navab, after Ariadne betrays her father King Minos by giving Theseus the thread to escape, Theseus betrays her love for him. The artist makes it clear in notes that the drawings, beautiful improvisations on a maze-like form, are meant to illustrate the problem of such a story occurring regularly in real life. It is the theme of betrayal, referred to indirectly, which concerns the artist. As for the drawings, they are marvelous squared or circular treatments of a labyrinthian form. This is ancient mythology, treated in a contemporary fashion; we remember that the artist's background is Iranian and Greek, sites of archaic stories.
Aphrodite Désirée Navab, "The Love Labyrinth", 2018, Ink on paper, 8" x 10." © Aphrodite Désirée Navab courtesy Jamie Martinez.
Despite their very old origins, the drawings feel quite new; they were executed this year. They are not relevant to the notion of immigration in a particular manner, but we know that an immigrant made them, and the myth originated in the Mediterranean's venerable culture. Navab, like the rest of the artists in this very fine introductory show, is committed to making something new. But her inspiration here, like the visual materials made available by Martinez's use of The Book of the Dead, is very, very old. The themes must be contrasted with art experience in New York City, where our vision is supposed to be utterly new. Novelty may not be possible visually anymore–we may have come to the end of the road, imagistically speaking (this can be argued about). But the real-life event of immigration provides a continuing newness to the art world in this city. One of the excellent things about "The Border #1" is its penchant for originality, as expressed by people who are recently established here. It doesn't matter if the origins of the work are archaic or recent, but it is very important that we take notice of art made by people whose lives might, wrongfully, be considered too marginal, or too recently evident, to take part in our political and cultural life.
Take a tour of the show here courtesy of Jamie Martinez and © VTV:
Jonathan Goodman is an art writer based in New York. For more than thirty years he has written about contemporary art for such publications as Art in America, Sculpture, and fronterad (an Internet publication based in Madrid). His special interests have been the new art of Mainland China and sculpture. He currently teaches contemporary art writing and thesis essay writing at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
Posted on April 13, 2018 April 13, 2018 by Artifactoid Posted in Contributors Tagged Art, Art Gallery, Brooklyn, Contemporary Art, Immigrant Art, Immigration, Multimedia, VR Leave a comment
John Torreano: Dark Matters Without Time at Lesley Heller Gallery
Above: John Torreano: Dark Matters Without Time (installation view, Lesley Heller Gallery, New York, 2018). © John Torreano courtesy Lesley Heller Gallery.
Now in his late seventies, painter and sculptor John Torreano has been well known as an artist for half a century. He is recognized particularly for his inclusion of acrylic gemstones in his art. His studios are set up in New York and Abu Dhabi, where he has been teaching in the last few years. In this show at Lesley Heller Gallery, Torreano is exhibiting both paintings and wall reliefs; he remains an unrepentant abstractionist, someone whose art connects with the well-established history of the New York School. His synthetic gemstones, though, add a bit of decorative play to his nonobjective language; because of their artificial character, the gems provide Torreano's efforts with a partially ersatz character that undercuts the high romance of the abstraction. This is likely a good thing, late in the second decade of the twenty-first century, as we seem to have tired of the idea of noble motives alone. But, whatever the intentions behind the paintings and wall reliefs, we see that Torreano is not only a craftsperson of note, he is also an esthetician of considerable ambition. His works stand out both as examples of skill and as efforts meant to communicate a paramount belief in beauty. Perhaps his experience in the Middle East is leading him further in the direction of beauty; the long horizontal wooden panel painting, titled Sea Sky Gold (2018), feels like it owes its exquisite colors–dark blue and gold–to a geography we do not find here in New York.
John Torreano, "Sea Sky Gold," 2018. Acrylic paint and gold leaf on plywood 45 x 180 inches. © John Torreano courtesy Lesley Heller Gallery.
Sea Sky Gold is the major work of this excellent show. Its dimensions are more than considerable: 45 by 180 inches. The work consists of four panels of deep blue, with numerous oval gouges, clumped in groups and covered with gold. Its appearance begins with a surface of decorative flair, but then moves beyond that to a place of elegance and artistry (not that decoration always excludes such qualities!). Torreano appears to have learned something about the inherent attractiveness of well-appointed color–an insight evident throughout the exhibition. The danger exists that this painting, a genuine tour de force, would end up overwhelming the show, but this doesn't happen; instead, it serves as an anchor for a body of works that cumulatively appeal to the audience. For example, DM's & Hot Stars (2015), a large painting in a small space at the front of the gallery, works its effects seamlessly within an allover compositional field. The squared painting, consisting of four large panels, exists in a matrix of organically shaped contours–mostly tan and blue, with a bit of black. Although the work's title skews it toward science, it very much exists within the established language of abstract expressionism. It can be easily argued that we have been revisiting this movement too often and too long, but, as still happens regularly in New York, Torreano's painting establishes itself without bowing excessively to the past.
John Torreano: Dark Matters Without Time (installation view, Lesley Heller Gallery, New York, 2018). © John Torreano courtesy Lesley Heller Gallery.
The column wall sculptures–thin sticks of color studded with mock jewels–look at first like objects of deliberate desire (they range in dates from 2014 to 2017). And so they are, up to a point! These four works, arranged on a side wall, descend slightly in size from left to right. The acrylic gemstones stud all of them, adding to the surfaces' sculptural intricacy and presenting an alluring, albeit entirely synthetic, exterior. They do enact a singular attractiveness, but that doesn't really matter–what counts is the artist's willingness to undercut the abstraction with an imagery that clearly is counterfeit. This is likely an attempt to remain resistant to the pull of something overly attractive. Even as the show refers to high culture, there is a healthy disregard for its imagistic excesses, driven as they are by ego here. But, at the same time, for the more seasoned among us, the use of such fakery causes some anxiety–at what point does the falsehood take over and make barren the eminent history that precedes it? This is a question for philosophers and art historians more than it is a query for the general public, composed as it is of artists and, usually, connected viewers who want the simple chance to enjoy what they see. Torreano's art does this wonderfully well, providing admirers with the chance to lose themselves within a language both established and new. And his slight disregard for the fulsomeness of New York's painterly past is a welcome reminder of its historical limitations.
View John Torreano: Dark Matters Without Time at Lesley Heller Gallery through Sunday, April 8, 2018.
Posted on April 7, 2018 April 7, 2018 by Artifactoid Posted in Contributors Tagged Abstract Expressionism, Art Gallery, Contemporary Art, Gallery, John Torreano, Lesley Heller Gallery, MoMA, New York, Painting, Sculpture Leave a comment
Tabaimo Transforms Ancient Artifacts into Surreal Animated Worlds at James Cohan
Above: Installation view, "Tabaimo: Clue to Utsushi," James Cohan, New York, 2018. Photo: Phoebe d'Heurle.
James Cohan Gallery on the Lower East Side is known for transforming its space for interesting installations that create an environment. You may remember Omer Fast: August, a recent controversial exhibit where the street-facing portion of the gallery was transformed to simulate a rundown Chinatown storefront, revealing video art in the back. James Cohan's current museum-quality installation, Clue to Utsushi, comprises surreal animations by Japanese artist Tabaimo. Each animation is projected onto a wall (or custom structure) in its own shape and size relating to an ancient artifact from the Seattle Art Museum. The gallery space is transformed into an unfamiliar, austere world that invites viewers to lurk around its dark corners and discover that there is more to unfold in each animation than first meets the eye.
Installation view, "Tabaimo: Clue to Utsushi," James Cohan, New York, 2018. Photo: Phoebe d'Heurle.
Each of Tabaimo's video projections allures with symbols of beauty, like a woman's silhouette, a butterfly, a bird, or a set of armoires, yet leaves hints to the viewer that cohabiting with this beauty might be something sinister, and that watching and following the beautiful thing can lead you to a darker unknown place. Tabaimo creates an "Alice in Wonderland"-like universe where we are unfamiliar with where our curiosities will take us as we are drawn into the bizarre visual settings she imagined.
Still from "Shinju Trail" by Tabaimo at James Cohan, New York, 2018. Image © Tabaimo. Photo: Artifactoid.
Clue to Utsushi is directly connected with Tabaimo's 2016 exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), Utsusushi Utsushi. At SAM, Tabaimo discovered that ancient artifacts around the Seattle Art Museum were calling to her with different energies, leading her to create works of video art that brought the antiques to life and opened them up to reveal new narratives. Four of the resulting videos are now on display in Clue to Utsushi, plus Shinju Trail, pictured above, which was created specifically for this show.
Round-corner wood-hinged Cabinets (GUI), 16th Century, Chinese, that inspired the work "Two" by Tabaimo. Image © Seattle Art Museum.
Clip from "Two" by Tabaimo at James Cohan Gallery. Video © Tabaimo. Footage: Artifactoid.
Carrying the ancient to the present, Tabaimo, an artist known for critiquing Japanese culture, speaks to the concept of Utsushi, or, emulating artwork by masters of the past. Instead of physically copying the art of the masters, Utsushi refers to keeping the same "energy" of the master's artwork while simultaneously bringing it into a new contemporary form. Though we don't necessarily have this exact word in English, I believe that a lot of the best contemporary artwork from around the world demonstrates Utsushi by being original while maintaining a strong dialogue with the past and ultimately connecting it with the present and future.
Image of an artifact that inspired the below animation, "Crow" by Tabaimo. © Seattle Art Museum.
Clip from "Crow" by Tabaimo at James Cohan Gallery. Video © Tabaimo. Footage: Artifactoid.
James Cohan Gallery is located at 191 Grand Street in Manhattan. Today is the final day to view this exhibition.
Posted on February 25, 2018 February 25, 2018 by Artifactoid Posted in Thought Portfolio Tagged Animation, Art Gallery, Chinatown, Contemporary Art, Installation, James Cohan, Japan, Lower East Side, Seattle Art Museum, Video Art Leave a comment
When 1960s Sci-Fi and Surveillance Collide in 21st Century Sculpture: Björn Schülke Vision Instruments at bitforms gallery
Above: Björn Schülke, Beam Engine #1, 2016, Brass, mirror, paint, electronics, solar cells, motors, laser, 7.1 x 15 x 9.9 in / 18 x 38 x 25 cm
This article was originally published in Whitehot Magazine.
Would there be world peace if aliens attacked Earth? After all, doesn't everyone get along better once they share an enemy?
In the divisive global political environment confronting us, I find myself wishing for the aliens to appear.
I started thinking about this after learning about Raumpatrouille Orion, or, "Space Patrol Orion," (1966), the first ever German science fiction TV series, which inspired Vision Instruments, a collection of sculptures by Björn Schülke currently on view at bitforms gallery on NYC's Lower East Side. According to bitforms gallery, Raumpatrouille Orion reflected a certain Cold-War era global attitude of idealistic utopianism, and the mentality of conquest and emphasis on space travel, which is also present in a lot of Schülke's work.
Schülke was born in Cologne, Germany in 1967. Perhaps as an artist he was drawn to exploring the collective psychology of the environment into which he was born, utilizing Raumpatrouille Orion as his case study. But, what can we learn from Raumpatrouille Orion now? I think that some of the answers might lie in what else Björn Schülke focuses on in his sculptures.
Björn Schülke, Vision Machine #8 , 2016, Brass, steel, wood, mirrors, paint, camera, display, sensor, electronics, 15.75 x 11.8 x 14.2 in / 40 x 30 x 36 cm, Edition of 3, 1 AP (variant)
The other central theme of much of Schülke's work is questioning the ways in which we interact with technology. To us in 2017, the "technological frontier," its own universe without borders, can be compared to the physical universe within which exploration was idolized during the Cold War. At that time, we worshipped astronauts like rock stars. Today, we worship tech innovators like rock stars. That is absolutely not to say that we have stopped revering our astronauts, but rather to say that when it comes to astronauts versus tech innovators, the media has switched their "it girl" over the decades and the technologists are their latest sweetheart.
So, how are we interacting with technology, this thing that we worship? I think that one thing that Schülke is trying to say with his art is that we are giving it too much power.
His shiny, white, mechanical, stick bug shaped kinetic sculptures range from about the size of a football to the size of a refrigerator, and are mounted on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the gallery, surrounding viewers from all sides. They each have unique sleek, futuristic designs, but are futile in function, clearly separating them from the product design prototypes of the tech world and setting them firmly in the art category.
Although futile, they each beckon us to interact with them. For example, we look to find our reflections in the tiny circular mirrors that some of them have, and look to see our images picked up by their cameras, even though their cameras are operating in connection with a surveillance system. This evokes the Privacy Paradox, in which we are tempted to upload mass quantities of information about ourselves onto the Internet, almost like a mirror of ourselves, even if it is at the risk of our own security – which we then express simultaneous concern about.
Björn Schülke, Drone #9, 2016, Fiberglass and epoxide, wood, mirrors, aluminum, display, camera, electronics, sensors, video transmitter, 43.4 in / 110 cm, height, 118.2 in / 300 cm, diameter
In addition, many of the sculptures are equipped with small solar panels that take in light and charge the small batteries within them. Once the charge of the battery reaches a certain level of fullness, the sculpture moves, and is brought to life, like a little anthropomorphic creature that we created, but that now has a mind of its own and operates without our assistance, catching us off guard.
This is not the first time I have seen the issue of surveillance explored in art. In fact I have seen it utilized many times, and have written about it on several occasions as I consider it one of the interesting current themes that the global creative community is having an active discourse about. You can see some of my prior explorations of this topic in my articles about The Privacy Paradox 2016 group show at Reverse Gallery, the artist Joel Holmberg at New Museum, the artist Lorraine Oades and her project TV Tracker (a part of a 2015 group show of artists from Quebec at Knockdown Center). To note, there is also a radio show on NPR right now called The Privacy Paradox.
Björn Schülke, Supersonic #3, 2008, Fiberglass, plywood, steel, motion sensors, theremin, woofer, tweeter, amplifier, paint 22 x 46 x 15 in / 56 x 117 x 38 cm
So, back to my original question, what can we learn today from Schülke's revival of ideas from Raumpatrouille Orion? I think that the obvious conclusion is that while it was the first German sci-fi television show, from over fifty years ago, those same issues in the show apply now. Today it seems that it might still require this threatening, alien outside force to attack for all of us humans to band together to achieve peace on earth. What shape and form would that "force" take if the show were remade today? Could it be something like climate change, or related to technology?
Finally, it is this issue of surveillance resurfacing in both the outer space universe and the technology universe. During the Cold War era of Raumpatrouille Orion, sci-fi fear of aliens was this major allegory for xenophobia, fear of other countries, and fear of apocalyptic nuclear disaster. Sound familiar? At that time, a person might have asked, who are the aliens from outer space who are watching us, spying on us, maybe ready to attack? Today, we could think in those same terms, but digitally. Who is watching us, spying on us, maybe ready to attack, replete with our data?
Posted on March 16, 2017 March 16, 2017 by Artifactoid Posted in Thought Portfolio Tagged Art, Art Gallery, Contemporary Art, Cybersecurity, NYC, Privacy, Sculpture, technology Leave a comment
The Runway and The Slaughterhouse: In Conversation with Artist Tamara Kostianovsky
Full Original Article in Spanish Available in Vice-Versa Magazine.
Born in Jerusalem and raised in Buenos Aires, Artist Tamara Kostianovsky was affected by the strong culture of animal consumption in Argentina during her upbringing so much so that it became a main focus of her artistic practice. During her youth, Kostianovsky became fixated on the ubiquity of animal carcasses around her city, and came to view them as tragic and sacrificial entities that possessed a certain melancholic beauty.
What's more is that Kostianovsky's experience surrounded by carnage from a young age didn't stop at animals; her father was a plastic surgeon, and in a recent conversation, Kostainovsky explained to me that not only did she have a stint working at his office, but medical images of surgeries and dissected human body parts were commonplace in her childhood home, laying around casually, even on her kitchen table.
As an artist, Kostianovsky transitioned her career from focusing on painting to sculpture, and felt compelled to creatively work with her memories of the torn body and themes of consumption. Her 2014 collection of sculptures, "Actus Reus," comprised a series of hanging "meat" and "animal carcasses," which she would meticulously assemble using only her own discarded clothing (sometimes working around an armature).
Continuing to experiment with these themes, Kostianovsky began to diversify her subject matter when a friend of hers suggested that she begin to work with birds. Kostianovsky liked this idea, and she started experimenting with feathers, ordering them off of the Internet, studying them and replicating them with fabric using new techniques.
One day, she ordered what she thought were feathers online, but what arrived instead in the package was a full pheasant for taxidermy. She looked down at the deceased bird in the box, and thought that it shared this certain tragic beauty to it that she had always felt inspired to work with. This launched her 2016 collection of hanging dead bird sculptures titled "Relic," which she recently exhibited as a part of a group show at Y Gallery called "Natural Resistance" that dealt with the tension between violence and nature.
To note, by working with nearly exclusively recycled clothing, towels and blankets to create works that highlight how we consume nature and animals, Kostianovsky continually makes a conscious and dynamic political statement of "anti-consumption."
In the following interview, Artifactoid sits down with Kostianovsky to discuss her artwork's connections to art history, the inspiration that arose from working with clothing and dead animals, and the artist's current participation in the exhibition, "Weave Wars" at the Indianapolis Arts Center from September 23rd through November 19th, 2016.
Artifactoid: Many people have compared your sculpture work to imagery present in Flemish still life paintings. Was the connection intentional, and what is most important about its influence on your work in your opinion?
TK: The connection between my work and Art Historical Still Life paintings is intentional. For years, I've been enamored by the way Flemish artists were able to turn images of dead animals and flesh into complex mirages of luxury and excess. I'm drawn to the expressive and dramatic character of this imagery and seduced by the issue of wealth that these works present. In the 17th Century, owning one of these works was a strong status symbol. They perpetuated a "full plate" on the walls of a house, while reassuring noblemen of their class, as hunting was only reserved for the nobility at the time.
As for me, I've come to the world of flesh from a unique experience. While living in Argentina as a teenager, I worked at a surgeon's office at the same time that I was going to art school. The transition between work and school became quite seamless and I was able to connect the sightings of blood, ligaments, and fat I saw at work with my early experiences as a young painter. Since then, I've been interested in looking at images of torn flesh from that perspective, so when I came across the Dutch Still Lives, I recognized that impulse to make the inside of the body appear luxurious and seductive, and I was transfixed…
Artifactoid: At a recent panel discussion at Y Gallery you mentioned the idea of links between a meat slaughterhouse and a fashion runway. Can you please expand on your ideas about this comparison and how it inspires you artistically to explore?
TK: In recent years, research for my work has made me take a close look at both slaughterhouses and the fashion world. On a first look we tend to see these systems as complete opposites: slaughterhouses hide the abject, the disgusting, and the cruel, while the fashion world is involved with beauty and perfection. In my view, strong resemblances between these two systems exist, particularly in the rhythmic, mechanical way that bodies circulate in choreographed way around a space, a topic that fascinates me because of its connection to sculpture, to architecture, and to our most primal experience of existing as physical beings in the world. Because of efficiency, optimization, and organization, direct connections can be established between the diverse systems that dominate the production of goods across different industries in today's world. I am interested in making work that inhabits this intersection, artwork that on some level articulates the contemporary experience of consumption, industrialization, and that questions the modern ways in which we've become "modern predators."
Artifactoid: Who are some of the other talented artists working with fabric who inspire or influence you?
TK: Discussing textile art can be conflictive. From a Latin American perspective, fiber has a rich, ancient tradition that speaks of nobility, community and a spirit of collaboration with the animals of the Andes. From a contemporary Latin American art point of view, fiber is often a material of choice that can successfully articulate with sensibility and humbleness some of the sociopolitical and economic problems of the region. Within a more international contemporary art perspective, textile art is often linked to "craftiness", "softness", and the "feminine". I reject the notion that I make "soft sculpture"– there isn't anything "soft" in what I intend to say or the way I say it. In using fabric, I see an opportunity to expand the scope of what this material can do, but most mostly an opportunity to redefine the gender notions that still haunt women artists.
I came to fabric through surgery, and because I use mostly my own clothing to make art, I see this material as a second skin, a surrogate of my own body. Janine Antoni has been a big referent for me in the way she used her body to activate sculptural processes. Louise Bourgeois comes to mind as well, but mostly because of a kinship to a dramatic sensibility, not so much because of the material choice.
Artifactoid: What are you most excited about regarding your participation in the "Weave Wars" exhibition?
TK: I've recently discovered the artwork of Ben Venom, whose work is featured alongside my own at the new exhibition "Weave Wars" that opened on September 23rd at the Indianapolis Art Center. I'm excited about his very alternative and badass quilts but mostly about having my work featured within an incredible group of artists who are thinking of ways of pushing the limits of fabric as material. Because I am a little fatigued of media-specific exhibitions, I tend to not participate in fiber-art shows, but this one seems to be energized, radical, and original. I'm excited about what curator Kyle Herrington has put together.
Tamara Kostianovsky was born in Jerusalem, Israel and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Her work has been widely exhibited internationally, as well as presented in solo and group shows at venues including: The Jewish Museum (NY, USA), El Museo del Barrio (NY, USA), Nevada Museum of Art (NV, USA), Socrates Sculpture Park (NY, USA), The Volta Show (NY, USA), Maison et Object (Paris, France), and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (MI, USA). Kostianovsky is the recipient of several grants and awards, including: The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, The New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants, and a grant from The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
Posted on November 14, 2016 by Artifactoid Posted in Interviews Tagged Art Gallery, Art Studio, Artist, Artist Interview, Brooklyn, Buenos Aires, conceptual art, Contemporary Art, Contemporary Artist, Fine Art, Indianapolis, Interview, Israel, New York, Sculpture, Surgery, Textile Leave a comment
Culture Beach: There's More to See at Fort Tilden than Katharina Grosse's Painted House
The Rockaways: Your friends might all be going to The Hamptons or Fire Island – hey, maybe you are too! But you might also be stuck thinking (like I am many times), the only way I'm getting to the beach this weekend is by taking the subway and bus. And you know what? I've learned it's pretty darn awesome. Especially when your day can be filled as filled with arts and culture as it is with seashells and waves. And that's what brought me to Fort Tilden.
Fort Tilden is an historic district next to Jacob Riis Park. Its initial building was constructed during the War of 1812 as a part of the "2nd system" of defense to protect the area from the possibility of British attacks coming from the ocean. The fort wasn't expanded and reactivated again until World War II, and remained active during the Cold War, but was officially deactivated in 1974 when it became an official national recreation area.
While Jacob Riis Park is now a lot of fun with eclectic food stands, live music, a bar or two, and a diverse family-oriented crowd, Fort Tilden beach is more like a quiet, hipster, adult beach where (ladies) you can freely go topless without anyone bothering you as if you're in Europe, and check out a variety of artistic interventions thanks to MoMA PS1's Rockaway!, the Rockaway Artists Alliance, the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy, the National Park Service, the Central Park Conservancy, NYC Parks & Recreation and Rockaway Beach Surf Club.
MoMA PS1's Rockaway! has become a known program in New York City over the past couple of years since its inception in 2014, and deservedly so. It came to life as a collaboration between MoMA PS1 Director Klaus Bisenbach and Patti Smith, a Rockaway resident who has been visiting Fort Tilden beach since the 1970s with Robert Mapplethorpe. Rockaway! celebrates bringing the area back to life after it suffered destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy, two weeks prior to which Smith had bought a house there (queue Alanis). The debut of Rockaway! included a large-scale, site-specific work by Smith titled, "Resilience of the Dreamer," along with projects by Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas, Canadian artist Janet Cardiff, and a Walt Whitman poetry reading performed by Smith together with James Franco (a friend of Bisenbach).
This year's main attraction is the site-specific project created by Katharina Grosse, a mid-career German artist with a hefty CV whose painted post-Hurricane Sandy ruin is generating ubiquitous buzz this 2016 summer season. So much so, that it appears to have sealed the deal making her the latest addition to the Gagosian Gallery's roster (which looks like it could be confused with a hall of fame of sorts but could seriously use a few more female artists in the mix). Grosse's Rockaway! exhibition will be on view through November 30th, 2016, and her first commercial solo show with Gagosian is expected for early 2017.
If you aren't yet aware, Grosse painted a similar dilapidated house in New Orleans' 9th Ward following Hurricane Katrina as a part of their 2008 biennial, so this Fort Tilden installation following Hurricane Sandy can be viewed as the second in a series. According to the New York Times, Grosse's 2008 project actually humiliated one of the hurricane's survivors. I have yet to find more details on that story, but learning that that happened piqued my interest. I wonder how that individual felt about the art, and what his or her perspective was.
To me, something that was important while visiting was to pay attention to the fact that PS1's Rockaway! is not the only cultural attraction to participate in in the Fort Tilden beach area. There are additional cultural centers and installations to check out that have a beautiful local vibe and help you feel the soul of the community and more intimately connect with it.
These include The Rockaway Artist Alliance gallery, and The Rockaway Theatre Company, a thriving center for the performing arts which was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts this June.
Dan Guarino, president of the Rockaway Artists Alliance, was kind enough to give me a great tour of the space and a special peek into a rehearsal for "La Cage aux Folles," which opened at the theater last weekend to great success.
John Gilleece, Artistic Director of the Rockaway Theatre Company and Director of "La Cage aux Folles," notes:
"Rockaway Beach, New York is a beach community with a summertime feel. Sun and surf take precedence over many other pursuits. But, what makes the Rockaway arts community unique is that the art does not begin on Memorial Day and stop after Labor Day. The two major arts groups, the Rockaway Theatre Company and the Rockaway Artists Alliance, offer year-round shows, exhibits and events. Nineteen years ago, when the RTC started, Rockaway Beach was very much underserved in the area of local, live theater. But endurance and hard work bore fruit. Today, our reputation for Broadway-quality musicals has enlarged our audience base so that we have people coming from all over the New York area."
At the Rockaway Artists Alliance art gallery, you can currently enjoy an indoor/outdoor art show including a display of sizable paintings from the exhibit, "Forbidden Fruit: Street Art in a National Park," and enter the large abandoned locomotive repair space where Patti Smith's 2014 project was staged. At the theater, "La Cage aux Folles" has three upcoming performances on August 19th, 20th, and 21st, and you can get tickets here.
Posted on August 14, 2016 August 19, 2016 by Artifactoid Posted in Thought Portfolio Tagged Art, Art Gallery, Artist, Beach, Contemporary Art, Culture, Fire Island, Fort Tilden, Gagosian Gallery, Gallery, Hamptons, James Franco, Katharina Grosse, MoMA, MoMA PS1, New York, NYC, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Rockaway, Walt Whitman, World War II Leave a comment