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The DART BOARD: 10.13.2013

By Peggy Roalf   Wednesday October 13, 2021

Performa 2021 | 8 Commissions for The Streets of New York. October 12-31

Performa, the internationally acclaimed organization dedicated to live interdisciplinary performance by visual artists, is pleased to announce details for the ninth edition of its city-wide biennial. The program will focus on New York City as it re-emerges from the prolonged trauma of the pandemic that has radically altered our way of life, affecting the larger social infrastructure as well as the everyday details of our day-to-day existence. Taking place almost entirely outdoors from October 12-31, the Performa 2021 Biennial will use the city as its backdrop, and feature new live performances by Kevin Beasley, Ericka Beckman, Sara Cwynar, Danielle Dean, Madeline Hollander, Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation), Tschabalala Self, and Shikeith. Info

Performa Radio and Performa TV will form respective cultural alliances and producing relationships with sister cultural broadcasters across the city and internationally to work with community groups to connect them to artists as collaborators and co-conspirators. Info Above: Danielle Dean, Amazon (Proxy), Amant, 306 Maujer Street, Brooklyn, NY October 21-23

  

In Museums

Greater New York 2021 | MoMA PS1
Featuring the work of 47 artists and collectives, Greater New York opens up geographic and historical boundaries by expanding familiar narratives around artists and art movements in New York. Bridging strategies of the documentary and the archive on the one hand, and surrealism and fabulation on the other, the exhibition considers the ways that artists record experiences of belonging and estrangement. Drawing connections across the interdisciplinary practices of international and intergenerational artists, Greater New York examines the many ways that affinities are formed in relation to place and through time.

The exhibition foregrounds the resilience of artists and artist communities in the city, while marking ways these artists have both profoundly shaped New York, and borne witness to its many transformations. As New York emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibition offers an opportunity to mourn, celebrate, and reconnect with artist communities. This iteration of Greater New York honors not only the persistence of artists, many of whom have worked unrecognized over decades, but their ability to help us make sense of the many ruptures—social, political, and ecological—that have shaped New York City in this critical and transformative moment. Above: Shanzhai Lyric, “Incomplete Poem” (2015-ongoing).Photo © Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
Through April 18, 2022, MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Ave., Queens; (718) 784-2084 Info

 

New Museum 2021 Triennial: Soft Water Hard Stone | Opening October 28
The title of the 2021 Triennial, Soft Water Hard Stone, is taken from a Brazilian proverb, versions of which are found across cultures: Agua mole em pedra dura, tanto bate ate que fura (Soft water on hard stone hits until it bores a hole). 

The proverb can be said to have two meanings: if one persists long enough, the desired effect can eventually be achieved; and time can destroy even the most perceptibly solid materials. The title speaks to ideas of resilience and perseverance, and the impact that an insistent yet discrete gesture can have over time. It also provides a metaphor for resistance, as water—a constantly flowing and transient material—is capable of eventually dissolving stone—a substance associated with permanence, but also composed of tiny particles that can collapse under pressure. Soft Water Hard Stone brings together works across mediums by forty artists and collectives living and working in twenty-three countries. Above: Kate Cooper, Symptom Machine, 2017
Soft Water Hard StoneOctober 28-January 23, 2022. The New Museum 235 Bowery, NY, NY Info Public programs for the 2021 Triennial will be offered on Zoom Info

  

 

In Galleries
Moments in Time / Robert Braczyk & Carol Massa; Departures: Karin Bruckner; On the Wall: Mary Rieser Heintjes | Opening reception: Thursday, October 14, 3-7 pm
As an environmentalist Robert Braczyk calls attention to climate change through carved, dynamic sculptures that are inspired by the origin of the material they are created from, the tree. The branches that are used in the pieces provide a variety of long gently tapering rods, sweeping curves, jogs and forked joints. Braczyk states, “The material itself is a subject.”
Karin Bruckner presents a range of works from printmaking composite pieces to assemblage wall sculptures created before and during the Pandemic lockdown. She writes, “The outward strictures of confinement lead to hitherto unknown worlds of inner artistic avenues, facilitating a capacity to maximize material and color and revealing silver linings. Arrivals depend on Departures and the journey taken, wherever it may lead us.”

Since the early 1980’s Carol Massa has explored the use of dots as a metaphysical representation of their energy. Massa explains, “I began feeling every dot as a heartbeat…”. This new series was inspired by a trip to Mexico the artist took last year. Influenced by the onset of the Pandemic, the paintings suggest a balance between joy and sorrow, darkness and light.
Reacting to the environment has always encompassed all aspects of Mary Rieser Heintjes’ work. Grasping onto sites in nature that an inner desire to weld, paint, fuse glass, draw, and photograph fuels her artistic process, in this case, the demolition site where she rescued praying mantis eggs, then raised to maturity in her studio.
Continuing through November 4 at Carter Burden Gallery, 548 West 28th Street, NY, NY Info

  

David Maisel | Expanded Field at Edwynn Houk Gallery;  opening reception Saturday, October 16, 2-5 pm.

At first glance, viewers are transfixed by the poetic nature of Maisel’s seemingly abstract aerial images of sites of environmental transformation, some of which could be mistaken for color field paintings. Mineral concentrations in the earth produce an array of stunning saturated hues, and, from thousands of feet in the air, the scars of human intervention into the landscape read as delicately balanced compositions of geometric forms.

These otherworldly photographs transport the viewer toward the margins of the unknown, and posit an expanded definition of contemporary landscape. Rather than simply documenting environmental change, Maisel positions his work between the evidentiary and aesthetic functions of photography. The resulting images subvert cartographic mapping, instead occupying a zone that is both imaginative and descriptive, informed by the politics of land use. Left: Desolation Desert, Tailings Pond2, Minera Centinela Copper Mine Antofagasta Region, Atacama Desert, Chile, 2018
Continuing through November 20 at Edwynn Houk Gallery, 745 Fifth Avenue New York NY 

  

Opening reception, Friday, October 15, 5-8 pm: To Be an Artist Is to Embrace the World in One Kiss, works by Mercedes and Herbert Matter at Mark Borghi Gallery

Although many curatorial efforts have emphasized the influence of both Herbert Matter and Mercedes Matter on other artists, the influence of Herbert’s photography on Mercedes’ drawings and paintings has not been thoroughly examined because of how seemingly independent the visions of both artists were. However, by showing Mercedes Matter’s drawings and paintings alongside Herbert Matter’s photography for the very first time, this exhibition emphasizes a clear relationship between Herbert’s abstract and surrealist approach to photography with Mercedes’ own abstractions of source imagery.
Continuing through November 4 at Mark Borghi Gallery, 34 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY Info

  

Katherine Earle and Defne Tutus | Dappled Things; Opening reception, Thursday, October 14, 7-8 pm. Ed. Note: the opening is the only public view, as this show is part of the art education initiative of the Academy of St. Joseph in which it is presented. Right: Katherine Earle, 117th and Third, plastic bag and plastic straw, metallic filament

Dappled Things brings together the work of Katherine Earle and Defne Tutus, artists whose explorations of weaving reflect on the elemental and intrinsic connection humans have with nature through their woven textile artworks.….Inspired by the poem “Pied Beauty” written by Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1877, they call attention to the ways we can induce materials to echo the multicolored, and varied structures, surfaces, shapes and patterns that exist in nature - in the sky, on animals’ skin, and in fields of grass where creatures roam and humans work. Beauty refracted through garbage and wrought from waste urges us to rethink the speed with which an object or its packaging becomes discarded, and strive to improve our habits by wringing more use, and even magic, out of the things we bring into our lives. 
Dappled Things, Academy of St. Joseph, 111 Waverly Place, NY, NY Info

 

 

LJ Roberts | Carry You With Me: Ten Years of Portraits continues at Pioneer Works. Roberts’s first solo exhibition in New York City as well as first publication, is the result of a long-term, ongoing project, consisting of 26 six-by-four-inch embroidered portraits of the artist’s friends, collaborators, and lovers within New York City’s queer and trans communities.
Writing in Hyperallergic, Alexis Clements says, “Roberts’s work taps into a long history of portraiture by queer artists, yet the project steps outside of the more typically dualistic relationship between the artist and their sitters.

In Carry You With Me, the artist’s first solo exhibition, we get the chance to spend time with their embroidered depictions of compatriots, loves, and fellow travelers, but something more is happening when you take in the show as a whole. While the sentiment and care that Roberts holds for their individual subjects is exquisitely evident in both the work and the writing they share in the book that accompanies the exhibition, what struck me most about the show as a whole is the way in which it depicts some of the complexity of queer New York.” Above: LJ Roberts, “Sarah Zapata in her Red Hook, Brooklyn Studio” (verso) (2019-2020

LJ Roberts | Carry You With Me: Ten Years of Portraits continues through November 28 at Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer Street, Redhook, Brooklyn, NY Info

 

 

Open Studios

25th edition of Gowanus Open Studios | Saturday-Sunday, October 16-17 

Presented by Arts Gowanus, more than 400 artists and venues in the greater Gowanus neighborhood will open their doors, giving the public a rare glimpse inside the former factories, warehouses, and studio buildings of this vibrant neighborhood. 

Artists will be on hand to discuss their work, share their processes, and showcase their latest projects. Partner businesses in the neighborhood will be offering discounts. Right: work by syma_ceramic_artist at 183 Lorraine Street, #26

Highlights:

• A series of curated lists of “Self Guided Tours for GOS 2021” by prominent artists, curators and community leaders

• Amazing local sponsors and businesses to explore in the neighborhood.

• Closing party at the Gowanus Dredger's Boathouse (165 2nd St) on Sunday night starting at 6:30

This Gowanus Open Studios features venues and studios from Atlantic Ave. to 20th St. and from Court St. to 7th Ave. Directory

 

Chachama Open Studios | Saturday-Sunday, October 16-17 at Brooklyn Army Terminal

Explore the studios of over 100+ visual artists and wander through the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal. This event is produced in tandem with Open House New York and Sunset Park Wide Openwhere arts organizations from across the neighborhood will be hosting events and open studios.

SPWO consists of a collaborative of art organizations based in Sunset Park including Art CakeBioBAT Art SpaceGenspaceJ&M StudiosNARS FoundationTabla Rasa Gallery and Target Margin Theater

Info @chachama

 


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