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10 years ago
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Katya Grokhovsky has been climbing up the ladder of success within the art world for the past five years. Most recently the School of the Art Institute of Chicago MFA graduate's work was featured in the Huffington Post in an article entitled “Ten Badass Emerging Female Artists You Should Know.” This coincides with Katya's work in the show Immediate Female is on display through March 8th at Judith Charles Gallery. It is Katya's tremendous work effort and the bold subjet matter of her art that is helping her to make waves.
Currently Katya is the artist in residence and teaching assistant at the New York Studio Residency Program in DUMBO. She is also working with the Philadelphia based gallery and performance space Vox Populi as their curatorial fellow in addition to with her own online platform. I recently spoke with Grokhovsky about her work, feminism and where she thinks the role of interdisciplinary artists fits into today's ever evolving world.
Anni Irish: What do you think it means to be an interdisciplinary artist in today's art world?
Katya Grokhovsky: I am still grappling with the various labels attached to being an artist today. I see the term interdisciplinary even though I use it as a band aid--an explanatory metaphorical bridge for all the various mediums an artist utilizes in their practice. I am more inclined to think of disciplines as fluid, mediums as transitory, ideas as central and genres as limitless.
AI: So do you think that means that labeling [...]
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10 years ago
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Given the racial landscape of the US in recent months surrounding the decisions in both the Michel Brown and Eric Garner cases, RESPOND which is currently on view in Brooklyn at Smack Mellon, really gets at the heart of the matter. Smack Mellon organized the show given the public response to the controversial verdict in the grand jury decision not to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Garner. Garner was killed on July 17th in Staten Island when a New York City police officer put him in a choke hold.
Smack Mellon directors Kathleen Gilrain and Suzanne Kim, changed their exhibition schedule to accommodate this show. The show features the work of two hundred artists and the gallery received over six hundred submissions for the exhibition. The 200 pieces of art fill the Smack Mellon space to an overwhelming capacity. Almost every square inch of the gallery is being occupied by a work of art. Many of the works are displayed salon style in the two story high gallery space. The works in the RESPOND show are diverse and feature a range of artists and mediums including video, sculpture, installation, photography and even textile work.
Skinned by Hannah Hart
Given the show's theme and the overwhelming response to the call for work, the pieces featured in the exhibition are on point. Some of the artists featured in the show include Dread Scott who has also had work shown at the Whitney Museum of Art, Heather Heart who currently has work on view at the Brooklyn Museu[...]
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10 years ago
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“Science, Fiction” is the latest show of video artist Diana Thater on view at David Zwirner's 533 West 19th street space. Thater who is one of the most influential artists working in film, video and installation today, has transformed the Zwirner gallery into a multimedia experience. Drawing on Thater's larger body of work which explores the interplay between mediated experiences and the natural world, “Science, Fiction” offers a fresh take on this subject matter.
Thater who is no stranger to the art world, earned her BFA in Art History from New York University. She would go onto pursue an M.F.A at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. This is her eighth solo exhibition at Zwirner and her work as also been shown internationally. In the fall of 2015, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will be hosting a mid career survey of Thater's work.
The show consists of two video pieces and an installation which take over the second half of the Zwirner gallery space. As you enter the space, The Starry Messenger and Sidereus Nuncius are shown on two large flat screen video pieces facing one another against opposite walls and give way to Thater's installation in the larger gallery space. The video work as well as the installation explore tension between the natural and constructed world.
Thater's installation conjures up elements of sculptor Dan Flavin's work through her use of light boxes in various colors ranging from blue to green in the installation. The[...]
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10 years ago
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“Bound and Unbound” which is currently on right now at the Brooklyn Museum is the first ever retrospective of artist Judith Scott. The show is curated by Catherine J. Morris of the Sackler Gallery and Matthew Higgs director of White Columns Gallery. Drawing from her seventeen-year art making practice, the show features over forty sculptures and drawings that span Scott’s career. Many of the works in the show are objects that have been wrapped with various pieces of yarn, fabric and other materials that Scott worked with. The bundled package-like-sculptures sit on low display structures throughout the two rooms of the gallery’s space.
Born in 1943, with Down Syndrome, Judith Scott would go onto become an internationally recognized fibers artist. Scott spent the first thirty-five years of her life living in a institution geared towards individuals with disabilities. In 1987, she was introduced to the through her twin sister and legal guardian, Joyce Scott which helped to put her on a creative path. The CGAC was founded in 1974 in Oakland, California by artist Florence Ludnis-Katz and her husband psychologists Elias Katz. CGAC is still active today and offers art based programs and residencies to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. The time that Scott spent at CGAC would not only greatly change the way in which she would be able to communicate but also allowed her to grow as a person and artist. Scott was also famously featured on the cover of academic writer a[...]
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10 years ago
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“Beauty is intimately engaged with darkness, with chaos, with destruction. From the depths of darkness, beauty transforms and transcends.”
Thus Lily Yeh explains the philosophy of her art, through which she has engaged denizens of traumatized communities and impoverished areas all over the world for nearly three decades. The Chinese-born, Philadelphia-based artist runs the nonprofit Barefoot Artists (“recognizing that creativity and beauty are powerful agents for healing and change”) and is the subject of new film The Barefoot Artist, co-directed by documentarian Glenn Holsten and her son, Daniel Traub, a photographer and cinematographer. (The two previously collaborated on OC87: The Obsessive Compulsive, Major Depression, Bipolar, Asperger’s Movie, among other projects.)
The film combines two threads: first, it’s the story of Yeh’s development as an artist and her work with various communities. There’s footage of the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia, which Yeh created out of an abandoned lot; her transformation of a garbage/hospital dump in Korogocho, Kenya, into a vibrant environment of communally-produced murals and sculptures; and, most poignant, scenes of a genocide survivors camp in Rugerero, Rwanda. There we witness deadened souls who have suffered unbearable loss come alive by telling their stories through drawing and painting, under Lily’s tutelage.
The film’s second thread is Yeh’s exploration of her family, including a hidden side. Her desi[...]
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10 years ago
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Chris Ofili has been producing paintings for the past two decades that have managed to captivate and bewilder audiences. A member of the Young British Artists-- a group of British artists who began exhibiting together in 1988, Ofili managed to distinguish himself from the rest early on. In “Chris Ofili: Night and Day” which on display at the New Museum through January 25 many works spanning his illustrious career are on display. The exhibition was organized by Massimiliano Gioni, the New Museum’s artistic director, its curator, Gary Carrion-Murayari; and assistant curator Margot Norton.
Ofili was Born in 1968, to Nigerian parents. At age eleven, he and his family moved back to Nigeria. Ofili went onto attend the Chelsea School of Art where he received his BFA in 1991 and then the Royal Academy of Art in 1993. It was these early experiences with living abroad and his art training, which would play an influence in the work he would create. In 2003, he was the recipient of the prestigious Turner Prize and also represented the United Kingdom in the Venice Biennale the same year. Much of Ofili's work deals with issues surrounding race, class and gender which is evident in the work featured in “Night and Day.”
The exhibition spans three floors of the New Museum's space and explores six distinct bodies of work that Oifli produced over the last twenty years. When you first enter the galley space, you are confronted by over seventy small framed paintings. These works entit[...]
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10 years ago
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New York City has an ever changing art landscape. With the countless shows that go up on a weekly basis there are many topics that are explored and a wide array of artists featured in them. One such show opening this week is Art for Progress's "Déjà vu." This exhibition will be on display from October 30th through November 12th with an opening reception being held on Thursday evening from 6-10 pm at NOoSPHERE Gallery.
Two of the the artists in the show, Essam and
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10 years ago
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September has been another exciting month for AFP Arts Education. We have been forming alliances with a variety of other non-profit groups, as well as getting this semester’s programs under way. Teaching artist Elio Schiavo has been doing a great job with our new partner LACASA at P.S. 84. Elio is teaching four percussion classes per week to K-4 students.
I have hit the ground running at Humanities Prep this semester. In addition to having two great groups of kids in my regular classes, I have some very dedicated and focused students attending, and we are getting into some great stuff, including song analysis, learning how to identify the key or keys of a song, and some new improvisation techniques.
One of my favorite things about having the opportunity to teach at the same school for a third consecutive year is that new students have heard exciting things about my class from their friends. When they come to class in the beginning of the year they are eager and hopeful, they know the class can help them achieve goals that are important to them, and they are attentive and participate with less self-consciousness. Some students who have excelled and some who were slow to appreciate the opportunity actually request to be enrolled in the class for a second time. Whether they are expanding their repertoire or finally taking the class seriously, returning students are enthusiastic and focused without exception. Because there is a well established creative musical culture th[...]
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10 years ago
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Alan Lupiani has been a involved in the New York art scene since 1996. In this time, he has built an impressive resume of exhibitions that he has participated in and curated himself. Lupiani, a graduate of Binghamton University, earning a BA Studio Art 1988, would go onto receive his MBA in Arts Administration from the same institution in 1991. While Lupiani is a trained painter, his most recent work questions the conceptual bonds between painting and performance based work.
In 2007, he launched his own LIVE Internet show entitled, “Dear Immaculately Groomed Italian Guy.” The show was successful in that it attracted as many as 10,000 viewers per episode. Lupiani produced approximately fifteen live episodes. Each episode utilized a similar format: cooking dinner for a guest in his apartment, while taking Skype calls from a global audience base. He also presented previously recorded clips with his guest at various locations around New York City. Lupiani recruited the individuals he hosted through the “Gigs” section of Craig's List. These meetings via Craig's List created the vibe of chance intimacy which resulted in provocative, comedic interactions.
Currently Lupiani “utilizes painting as a metaphor to deconstruct various “situations” which he discovers through the internet, pop culture, and his personal biography. This approach to painting involves picking words and images that Lupiani responds to on a daily basis. He then manipulates the images in Photoshop, prints [...]
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10 years ago
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Art for Progress (AFP) is pleased to announce a group exhibition of new works by artists from New York City, Los Angeles, Spain and Israel. The show entitled “Déjà vu” will run from October 30th to November 12th, 2014 at NOoSPHERE Arts in New York City, and the opening reception will take place on October 30th from 6 to 10 PM.
The exhibition will include a variety of mediums, from painting to sculpture, which tackle the theme of déjà vu. The term can be described as “a feeling of having already experienced the present situation” or “a tedious familiarity.”It first appeared in a 1928 text entitled a Text for Psychology. Since then, the topic of déjà vu has been addressed from the big screen to Sci-Fi novels. It is a concept and sensation that has captivated audiences for generations and in this exhibit AFP hopes to push the boundaries of this.
For this show, the concept of déjà vu has been explored from several vantage points, from ideas of storytelling to an affective feeling. This exhibition is seeking to both comment on this topic and try to rethink the way in which it has been socioculturally situated. Déjà vu has come to occupy a very specific place within popular culture and this exhibition aims to build on that while also carving out new meaning for it.
Fourteen artists will be featured in the show: Rocco Alberico, Ted Barr, Bill Claps, Lance Dehne, Tony DiBella, Essam, gilf!, Diane LaRaja, Lichiban, Sona Mirzaei, Carol Nussbaum, Juan Manuel Pajares, Jeanne Wilkinson[...]
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10 years ago
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The Soho Grand Hotel was the place to be for art enthusiasts on Wednesday September 10th as New York's fashion week kicked off. Known as a feminist artist and yarn bomber, Olek's latest show, "Reality What a Concept" opened to rave reviews. The show, curated by the uncompromising Natalie Kates, included performance pieces in addition to the crocheted playground created by Olek.
Olek's work will be featured at the hotel through the end of the year. The show is part of a year long curatorial series by Natalie Kates which includes an upcoming exhibition by artist Ron English.
- Frank Jackson
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