Thursday, May 23, 6-8pm: Trang M Uyen | The Theory of Color at Fremin

Trang M Uyen (TMU) is an artistic collaboration between Mary “Trang” Nguyen and Denise “M Uyen” Nguyen. Depicted in this series is the pastoral landscape of the Hamptons, imagery that remains etched in memory from summers spent on Long Island, where Mary recalls wandering the idyllic shores and cliffsides of Montauk as a child. But the work of Trang M Uyen goes beyond the physical landscape of Long Island. These oil paintings convey the expansive imagination of adolescence. Depictions of landscapes of the sea and surrounding cliffs are reinterpreted through the tender looking-glass of an adult fondly recalling the sentimentality of youth.

Through a distinct style that combines geometric abstraction with the modern landscape, each section of the rocky terrain is leveled down and reduced to its fundamental elements. The scenery is expressed in colorful patterns that recall the playful aesthetic of paint-by-number paintings that were popular throughout the 1970s and 80s, again drawing inspiration from her youth. Each work is composed of tiny jigsaw puzzle pieces that together create a tapestry of sky, sea, and land. More about the collaborators here

Fremin Gallery, 520 West 23rd street, New York, NY Info  

Through September 1: Cuerpo | Carlos Martiel at Museo del Barrio

This survey exhibition encapsulates Carlos Martiel’s performance-based practice of nearly two decades. Employing his body as a primary medium, Martiel utilizes endurance performances in both public and gallery spaces to delve into the complex legacies of colonialism on race, labor, and migration. The exhibition features a selection of the artist’s most significant projects to date, bringing together different spaces and temporalities through preparatory drawings, photographs, and videos, as well as the remains of past sculptural performances. 

Carlos Martiel has been a prominent figure in the New York art scene for the past decade. However, his practice transcends strict geographic limits, responding to different politica
l and cultural contexts. His approach pushes the limits of self-expression to explore the impact of systems of oppression on BIPOC and Latinx communities.

This exhibition marks his return to the institution since his debut in La Trienal, in which Martiel presented the first version of his Monuments series. Since then, additional iterations of this ongoing work have been performed in New York, Dakar, and Mexico City, all of which will be included as part of the El Museo del Barrio presentation.

Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Info 

Saturday, May 25, 2024: Last Chance to see: Julia Bland | Rivers on the Inside at Derek Eller

In this solo exhibition of monumental textile and painting based works, Julia Bland employs hand weaving, dying, embroidery, oil paint, braiding, and personal fabrics. In these new works, Bland builds the architecture of her compositions through an intuitive process of assembly, dis-assembly, gathering, and sorting.

Personal fabrics such as her family’s clothes and bed sheets are braided together with traditional art materials such as canvas and linen. The braids are dyed and stitched together across the surface, forming boundaries and also crossing them, conjuring an abstract fluidity between art and life. 

Moving away from symmetry, these complex interwoven structures generate a shifting gestalt, wherein the geometric center of the composition continually moves from one place to another across the surface.

Additionally, the process embeds palpable material construction with various optical illusions. The results increase a sense of cognitive dissonance, as Bland engages individual perception and autonomy while at the same time questioning it.

Derek Eller Gallery, 300 Broome Street, New York, NY Info

Friday, May 31, 6-7pm: Artists on Art | Kabi Raj Lama at The Rubin

Kabi Raj Lama works at the intersection of neuroscience and art. Descended from a line of Buddhist monks in the indigenous Tamang community in Nepal, he grounds his work in the ideals of his community.  Kabi Raj Lama graduated from Kathmandu University in 2009, and in 2011 he went to Japan to study printmaking at Meisei University. He is currently based in New York, and is enrolled in the MFA program at Rutgers University.

This program is offered in conjunction with the Rubin’s 20th anniversary exhibition, Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now, which transforms the entire Museum with new commissions, some site-specific, and existing works juxtaposed with objects from the Museum’s collection, inviting new ways of encountering traditional Himalayan art.

The Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17^th Street, New York, NY Info

Saturday, June 1, 2pm: Curator tour of The Apex Is Nothing at Pratt Manhattan

Curators Ken Weathersby and John O'Connor will provide an in-depth look at some of the featured works, explain their approach to grouping works by 15 artists in this show, and delve into the theoretical underpinnings that connect the works.

The Apex Is Nothing is inspired by Alfred Jensen, whose paintings and drawings maintain a center of energy between abstract form and an array of idea structures. Jensen's thinking was shaped by his deep interest in realities outside of the strict visual concerns of painting or drawing, such as philosophy, physics, mathematics, and calendrical time. The other featured artists in the exhibition similarly draw upon diverse systems, including statistical data, language, and text, and mapped social or political matrices.

Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 W 14th St 6th floor, New York, NY Info