Upstate Art Weekend [UPAW] is one of the miraculous outcomes of the Pandemic lockdown. Founded by art world phenom Helen Toomer in 2000, it has grown from a smattering of 23 participating galleries and institutions to more than 145 this year, running from Thursday, July 18 through Sunday, July 21. The opening celebration of the fifth edition takes place at The School | Jack Shainman Gallery  on Friday, July 19 from 6-9 pm. Please RSVP through this link You can follow @upstateartweekend to receive updates. 

The current show at Jack Shainman Gallery features LIE DOGGO is a monumental exhibition of work by Nina Chanel Abney that spans her creative practice, uniting a new series of paintings with collages, site-specific murals, an immersive digital art installation, and the debut of a new body of large scale sculpture. 

The School | Jack Shainman Gallery, 25 Broad Street, Kinderhook, NY Info

In a recent interview with Toast magazine, Helen Toomer said, “I was feeling so disconnected from people, and also realised how privileged my family was to be upstate, stewarding such beautiful land, and able to safely host people getting together [at Stoneleaf Retreat]. I woke up in June 2020 and said, ‘I’m doing this’. …This year, the initiative has 145 participants “comprised of local arts organisations, galleries, museums, residencies and creative projects, mixed with temporary exhibitions and events staged especially for Upstate Art Weekend…..Just getting out of the city for me was a healing experience – from the very beginning.” Above: Stoneleaf Retreat, created by Upstate Art Weekend Founder Helen Toomer

Thursday, July 18, from 5-7 p.m.: Jeffrey Gibson at Alpana Bawa 

This weekend, artist Jeffrey Gibson will unveil a series of tile paintings at the India-inspired Alpana Bawa shop in Ellenville, New York. Gibson is the first Indigenous artist to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale, with a psychedelic and extremely colorful immersive pavilion show, The Space in Which to Place Me. Above: Jeffrey Gibson in his upstate studio

These tile paintings are his first foray into ceramics, and they consist of a series of intimate painted tiles that reflect the geometry that the artist uses throughout his work. The shop will host a special event this Thursday during which they will have available for purchase Gibson’s book “An Indigenous Present,” which visitors can peruse in between sips of Aaron Burr Cider. Thanks to friend and colleague, artist @PollyGiragosian, for alerting me to this. The cider being offered is from her family Cidery in Wurtsboro

Alpana Bawa, 148 Canal Street, Ellenville, NY Info

Saturday, July 20 from 3 - 5 pm: James Casebere | Shou Sugi Ban at ‘T’ Space Reserve

This just in from long-time DART contributor, Susan Wides: For this exhibition, Casebere will present a new series of large-scale wooden geometric sculptures that engage notions of synthetic nature: bio-design—or self-generating forms that suggest organic or inorganic growth. The impulse behind the sculpture was, for Casebere, partly about real life experience instead of on-screen, and the materiality, space, and use of light—crafting an analog experience that engages all the senses in a social context.

With this new work, Casebere embraces the traditional vernacular Japanese method of wood preservation through treatments at high temperatures known as “Shou Sugi Ban,” and uses a sustainable bamboo plywood as the base material, constructing it out of planar surfaces. While the burning creates a warm, soft, and organic surface instead of something cold and hard like steel, it refers to the destructiveness of fire, and hence, change over time—simultaneously presenting both tradition, and technological innovation, past and future. Above: Photo copyright and courtesy of Susan Wides

Casebere will participate in the ‘T ‘Space Virtual Public Lecture Series, presenting further insight into his artistic practice. Join live on July 23 at 11 AM, or a recording will be available to follow on our YouTube Channel.

Saturday, July 20 – Sunday, July 21: Two days of free guided tours including the Architectural Archive + Research Library and Ex of IN House will begin on the hour between 11 am – 5 pm, starting at the Archive building: 60 Round Lake Road, Rhinebeck, NY. The last tour leaves at 4 PM. Sign up here.

‘T' Space Archive Building, 60 Round Lake Road, Rhinebeck, NY Info

Saturday, July 20, 6-11pm: Ends Well at Mother-in-Laws, Germantown 

Just in from sculptor Eric Araujo, a DART contributor; “For the past couple of months I've been focused on the completion of a new large-scale outdoor site specific sculpture on the grounds of Mother-in-laws in Germantown, NY as part of a group exhibition entitled Ends Well curated by Jacob Rhodes of Field Projects.” Featured artists; Alison Kudlow, Amanda Browder, An Pham, Barry Hazard, Bob Szantyr, Chiara No, Chloe Mosbacher, David Herbert, DeepPond Kim, Emily Janowick, Eric Araujo, Gabrielle Duggan, Jamie Martinez, Jemila MacEwan, Lara Saget, Lisa Schilling, Lizzie Wright, Lydia Kern, Nazli Efe, Noémie Jennifer Bonnet, Padma Rajendran, Paul Gagner, Peter Hoffmeister, Rachel Frank, Ruth Jeyaveeran, Sarah Grass, Tom Costa, Weihui Lu, Z Behl, Zaq Landsberg. Aobve: Installation by Eric Araujo; photo courtesy of the artist

Mother-in-Laws, 140 Church Ave. Germantown, NY 12526

Last chance, Sunday July 21: Mark Milroy | Seeing is Creating at Pamela Salisbury

Having created some nice drawings in the past at Mark Milroy’s National Arts Club salon, I was thrilled to find this review by John Yau in Hyperallergic:

In creating space without relying on perspective, Milroy hints at the influence of 15th-century Florentine portraits and Morris, as well as Philip Guston after his move away from abstraction, and Marsden Hartley, especially his still lifes. While I see these connections, I feel that Milroy has established his own territory.

“Erased Drawing” (2022) depicts a potted cactus in front of a drawing taped to a mottled khaki gray wall. The drawing portrays what looks like a young woman facing forward and a young man in profile, his face obscured by the plant. The juxtaposition of the drawing and cactus is disarming. The pairing of these two items might have been influenced by Surrealist art, but at the same time it has a discovered quality, as if he saw it in his own house. The yellow marks on the paper could feel arbitrary, but they don’t come across that way. Yet, importantly, they remain inexplicable.

Just the Thing (2024, above) is divided horizontally. The bottom is a table whose surface is flat against the picture plane; on it is a copy of Just the Thing: The Selected Letters of James Schuyler 1951–1991, edited by William Corbett, beside white flowers. The top is the wall, on which we see two heads facing each other, surrounded by black. Is this a photograph or a painting? No answer is forthcoming. Read the rest here

Pamela Salisbury Gallery, 362 1/2 Warren Street, Hudson, fNY Info

This is just the tip of an exceptional  iceberg – to help plan your Upstate Art Weekend, the organizers have created a comprehensive and customizable google map as a guide—spotlighting all key program details happening throughout this picturesque region.

And if the Hudson Valley is something new to you, read Maya Pontone’s Brief History of Art in the Hudson Valley for Hyperallergic here