Brainard Carey's Blog, page 40

Eric Aho

Eric Aho is an American artist whose paintings are equally concerned with the physical immensity and intimacy of the natural world as much as with an ever-evolving process of extract-ing spiritual experiences discovered within it. His energetic, gestural painting process uses lively marks and swaths of color to create richly applied paint that morphs between abstract expanses and the contours of nature. Aho’s work develops primarily from his own experience and memories of the landscape. He references broadly and freely from the history of art—responding to a wide range of works from Poussin to Constable, and from Winslow Homer to Ellsworth Kelly to inform his compositions. Aho lives and works in Saxtons River, Vermont.

Ice Out (Allagash), Oil on linen, 90×80, Photography © Rachel Portesi. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New YorkIce Cut (Violet, Kennebec), Oil on linen, 80×90, Photography © Rachel Portesi. Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York

Angela Westwater

Angela Westwater at 257 Bowery, 2020, photo by Alexei Hay

Angela Westwater co-founded Sperone Westwater Fischer in 1975 with Italian art dealer Gian Enzo Sperone and German gallerist Konrad Fischer, opening a space at 142 Greene Street in SoHo, New York. (The gallery’s name was changed to Sperone Westwater in 1982.) An additional space was later established at 121 Greene Street. The founders’ original program showcased a European avant-garde alongside a core group of American artists to whom its founders were committed.

Notable early exhibitions include a 1977 show of minimalist works by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, and Sol Lewitt; seven of Bruce Nauman’s seminal early shows; six early Gerhard Richter shows; two Cy Twombly exhibitions in 1982 and 1989; eleven Richard Long exhibitions; and the installation of one of Mario Merz’s celebrated glass and neon igloos in 1979 — part of the gallery’s ongoing dedication to Arte Povera artists, including Alighiero Boetti. Other early historical exhibitions at the Greene Street space include a 1989 group show, “Early Conceptual Works,” which featured the work of On Kawara, Bruce Nauman, Alighiero Boetti, and Joseph Kosuth, among others; a 1999 Fontana exhibition titled “Gold: Gothic Masters and Lucio Fontana”; and selected presentations of work by Piero Manzoni. From May 2002 to May 2010, the gallery was located at 415 West 13 Street, in a 10,000-square foot space in the Meatpacking District. In September 2010, Sperone Westwater inaugurated a new Foster + Partners designed building at 257 Bowery. Today, over 45 years after its conception, the gallery continues to exhibit an international roster of prominent artists working in a wide variety of media.

Artists represented by Sperone Westwater include Bertozzi & Casoni, Joana Choumali, Kim Dingle, Shaunté Gates, Jitish Kallat, Guillermo Kuitca, Wolfgang Laib, Helmut Lang, Amy Lincoln, Richard Long, Emil Lukas, David Lynch, Heinz Mack, Mario Merz, Katy Moran, Malcolm Morley, Bruce Nauman, Otto Piene, Alexis Rockman, Susan Rothenberg, Tom Sachs, Peter Sacks, Andrew Sendor, and William Wegman. Past exhibitions, press, and artworks can be found on the gallery website.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Westwater received her BA from Smith College and her MA from New York University. She arrived in New York City in 1971 and landed her first job as a “gallery girl” at the John Weber Gallery at 420 West Broadway. From 1972 to 1975, she served as Managing Editor of Artforum magazine. In 1975, the same year the gallery was founded, Westwater was appointed to the Board of Trustees of The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, where she has served as President since 1980.

The books mentioned in the interview are The Free World, Art and Thought in the Cold War by Louis Menand and A Life of Picasso, The Minotaur Years by John Richardson.

Joana Choumali, Untitled (Ça Va Aller), 2019, mixed media, 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches (24 x 24 cm), 16 1/4 x 16 1/4 inches (41,3 x 41,3 cm)WE ARE STILL NOW 

 

 

John O’Connor

Untitled Collage 2

John J. O’Connor was born in Westfield, MA and received an MFA in painting and an MS in Art History and Criticism from Pratt Institute in 2000.

He attended The MacDowell Colony, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, was a recipient of New York Foundation for the Arts Grants in Painting and Drawing, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Studio residency.John has been in numerous exhibitions abroad, including The Lab (Ireland), Martin Asbaek Gallery (Denmark), Neue Berliner Raume (Germany), Rodolphe Janssen Gallery (Brussels), the Louhu District Art Museum (Shenzhen, China), TW Fine Art (Australia); and in the US at Andrea Rosen Gallery, Pierogi Gallery, Arkansas Arts Center, Weatherspoon Museum, Ronald Feldman Gallery, Marlborough Gallery, White Columns, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Baltimore, the Queens Museum, and the Tang Museum.His exhibitions have been reviewed in Bomb Magazine, The New York Times, Artforum, the Village Voice, Art Papers, the Brooklyn Rail, and Art in America. John presented his work in discussion with Fred Tomaselli at The New Museum, and his work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Weatherspoon Museum, Hood Museum, Southern Methodist University, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. A catalogue spanning 10 years of John’s work was published by Pierogi Gallery with essays by Robert Storr, John Yau, and Rick Moody. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.The upcoming shows mentioned in the interview will be at False Flag Gallery and Pierogi Gallery. The books referenced in the interview were Daniil Kharms, “Today I Wrote Nothing” and Antonio Damasio, “Feeling and Knowing.”“I Shot,” 82.25 x 70.25 inches, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 2020“Charlie (Butterfly, day 3),” 86 X 70 inches, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 2018

Brandi Twilley

Brandi Twilley was born in 1982 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She received her MFA in 2011 from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Her work has been exhibited at: Josh Lilley in London, UK; Zero Gallery in Milan, Italy; the Museum of Sex in New York City; and Kate Werble Gallery in New York City; among others. Three solo exhibitions of her work have taken place at Sargent’s Daughters in New York City.

Her work has been reviewed in: The New York Times; ARTFORUM; ARTnews; The New Yorker; Artnet News; Time Out; The Observer; and Hyperallergic; among others.

2020, Oil on Canvas, 16 by 20 inches. Manhattan Skyline2019 Oil on Canvas, 14 by 26 inches, Washing my Hair

Hugo McCloud

Stylist/Creative director: Rebekka Fellah Photographer: Enrique Leyva © Hugo McCloud Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York

Born in Palo Alto California in 1980, Hugo McCloud is one of the most prolific young artists working today. In a career that has now spanned fifteen years, Hugo McCloud’s work has quickly evolved through a process of restless experimentation, bringing inventiveness and fearlessness to the act of making. The artist is engaged in an ongoing quest to elevate and master diverse methodologies and the array of subjects his work addresses. An abiding, unifying theme is Hugo’s preoccupation with finding beauty in the everyday.

Self-taught with a background in industrial design, McCloud’s practice is unrestricted by classical, academic tenets. He has gravitated toward materials that could be considered abject – roofing materials, solder, and presently, single-use plastic bags. Drawing inspiration from the rawness of the urban landscape, McCloud creates rich, large-scale abstract paintings and by fusing unconventional industrial materials with traditional pigment and woodblock printing techniques. McCloud’s newest body of figural work touches on notions of class, particularly through his use of plastic bags. His investigation into plastic began approximately five years ago after traveling to India and seeing multi-color polypropylene plastic sacks everywhere. Observing the downcycle of these bags from their creation, to the companies that purchased them for the distribution of products, to the trash pickers in Dharavi slums, McCloud saw how this ubiquitous material passed through the hands of individuals at every level of society.

These representational works address issues concerning the economics of labor, geopolitics and the environmental impact of plastic. McCloud continues his practice of incorporating industrial materials using plastic as a tool to better understand our similarities and differences as a human race; to connect to our environment; and to contribute to reversing the negative impact of our carbon footprint.

McCloud has been the subject of solo exhibitions at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, The Arts Club, London and Fondazione 107, in Turin, Italy. He has also been featured in group exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and The Drawing Center, New York. His work is in the collections of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the Brooklyn Museum, the Mott Warsh Collection, and The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection.

Hugo McCloud lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and Tulum, Mexico.

Hugo McCloud upcycled, 2021 single use plastic mounted on panel panel: 65 x 94 inches (165.1 x 238.8 cm) framed: 66 1/2 x 95 1/2 x 2 7/8 inches (168.9 x 242.6 x 7.3 cm) © Hugo McCloud Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New YorkHugo McCloud evening stroll, 2022 single use plastic mounted on panel panel: 76 x 66 inches (193 x 167.6 cm) framed: 77 1/2 x 67 1/2 x 2 1/8 inches (196.8 x 171.4 x 5.4 cm) © Hugo McCloud Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York

m burgess

When m was seven, they had a pet snake named Herman. Kept him in a bubble bath container shaped like a train, and when they opened the lid, they could see him peering back. Everyone else in their family was afraid of snakes. Them favorite was the gentle black king snake. Herman was tiny and green. A rubbery toy they had to hide from their mother, who had a way of making things disappear. Like their sixth finger, which they wore between thumb and index, from which they shot little projectiles that contained messages. Like the satanic bible, which they read to investigate the opposition, since their father was a born again man of the cloth. Being a gender fluid person was likely going too far, but eventually, it wasn’t something they could put a lid on. Around the same time as Herman, they started rink roller skating, dressing in wide cords with an alligator belt, a white cotton shirt, and beneath it, a striped cravat they called a dickey. One day, m peered at Herman peering back at them and felt a sudden fear, realizing that soon, they would also be hiding. In high school, they excelled in Science and Art. In college, Psychology and Philosophy. Them was enamored of semiotics, game theory and topography while getting their mfa at Yale. No wonder that their work evolved into computer spaces, where they wove Queer meaning into photographs and made installations that were given Guggenheim, NYFA and Jerome Foundation awards. Currently, m is offering tours of their studio, working on an installation performance and editing seven years of work into a “book.” As a Professor in Exile at The New School, m teaches outside of University settings, offering group studio courses and individual mentoring.

m is currently reading these books mentioned in the imterview: The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment Volume One, by Je Tsongkhapa (Translated by Lam Rim Chen Mo); Paul Outerbridge: New Color Photos. Nazraeli Press, 2022, One Thing Well: 22 Years of Installation Art by Kim Davenport.

 

Cynthia Daignault

Cynthia Daignault received a BA in Art and Art History from Stanford University. She has presented solo exhibitions and projects at many major museums and galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Museum of Contemporary art, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, MASS MoCA, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Kasmin Gallery and White Columns. Her work is in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Daignault is a regularly published author, and editor of numerous publications.

The first major monograph on her work, Light Atlas, was published in 2019, and a new paperback edition will be released in early 2022. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2019 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, a 2016 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts Award, a 2011 Rema Hort Foundation Award, and a 2010 MacDowell Artist Fellowship. She lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.

Paco Barragán

Paco Barragán (Oviedo, Spain) is a curator and culture theorist that believes that the so-called “white cube” is dead. Since 2016 he doesn’t do “white cubes.” Between 2015 and 2017 he oversaw the visual arts section of Matucana 100 in Santiago de Chile. As a curator he is interested both in the history of museology and exhibition design and the history of the making of the art market. Why? Because you can´t have a good command of curatorial practices without a profound knowledge of the art market, which had a profound impact on museological and curatorial practices. Most of the known museological displays, from the Period Room to the Impressionist or Expressionist hang respond after all to profound commercial goals. For this reason, Barragán wrote a book about the history of art fairs and biennials since ancient Greece and Rome until today as he understands that we need a longue durée perspective. At this very moment he’s finishing a book about the history of collecting since Assyria until today. Museums are the result of all kinds of collecting, so it has sense to dive into that. Barragán thinks that a curator must be a narrator, a museologist, and an exhibition designer. Today curators are only narrators, the so-called Harald Szeemann model, but we need to go back to the practices of Wilhelm Bode, Ludwig Justi, Alexander Dorner and Alfred H. Barr, Jr. to do our job properly. In other words: to be a Gesammtkurator. That is also the reason why we only see “white cubes”, from Tate to MoMA to Mori Museum, because curators these are only narrators and have no love for the past. But the future of curating lies in creating “contextual museologies”, id est, better and more attractive presentations.

“The Nine Mile Twine”, re-staging Duchamp’s 1942 twine and performance of First Papers of Surrealism exhibition “The Vertigo of Modern Life”, 18 February 2022, Domus Artium (DA2), Salamanca, Spain Photo: Santiago SantosRe-staging the Expressionist “Die Brücke Hang” of 1905-1911, “The Vertigo of Modern Life”, 18 February 2022, Domus Artium (DA2), Salamanca, Spain Photo: Santiago Santos

Molly Hassler

Molly Hassler is an interdisciplinary artist, often embracing collaboration and primarily using drawing and fibers techniques to mine the complex relation between representation and identity as a queer person in the Midwest. Through printing, drawing, weaving and quilting, she is actively sewing up the past, literally and metaphorically mending. Her fine art practice rests most comfortably between peculiar three dimensional objecthood and semi-narrative works containing drawings and text that speak to the sweetness and trauma of queer and trans coming of age.

Hassler is a 2022 recipient of the Mary L. Nohl Fellowship and 2021-2023 Springboard for the Arts: Rural Regenerator Fellowship. She has shown her work in exhibitions including Ortega Y Gasset Projects in Brooklyn, New York, The Jackson Dinsdale Art Center in Hastings, Nebraska as well as Portrait Society Gallery and Real Tinsel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Currently working as a teaching Artist in Residence with Lynden Sculpture Garden and Woodland Pattern Book Center, she carries out multiple community based projects in Milwaukee Public Schools.

The book mentioned at the end of the interview was Johnny Appleseed.

“I Keep My Feelings In My Chest”  Quilted Chest Binder;  Hand Dyed Cotton, Piecework, Thread, Fringe 2020“She Was a Public House” : Detail of “Serving Fish”, Ongoing Installation; Gouache Painting, Wood, Soft Sculpture, Paper Mache, Plaster, 2019 – 2020 

Betty Yu

Betty Yu is a multimedia artist, photographer, filmmaker and activist born and raised in NYC to Chinese immigrant parents. Ms. Yu integrates documentary film, new media platforms, and community-infused approaches into her practice, and she is a co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade, a cultural collective using art to advance anti-gentrification organizing.Ms. Yu has been awarded artist residencies and fellowships from the Laundromat Project, A Blade of Grass, International Studio & Curatorial Program, Intercultural Leadership Institute, Skidmore’s Documentary Storytellers’ Institute, KODA Lab, Asian American Arts Alliance, En Foco, China Residencies, Flux Factory and Santa Fe Art Institute.Her work has been presented at the Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, NY Historical Society, Artists Space, SPACE Gallery, Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, Tribeca Film Festival’s Interactive Showcase, 2019 BRIC Biennial; Old Stone House, and Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center. In 2018 she had a solo exhibition at Open Source Gallery in New York. In 2017 Ms. Yu won the Aronson Journalism for Social Justice Award for her film “Three Tours” about U.S. veterans returning home from war in Iraq, and their journey to overcome PTSD.She holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, a MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College and a One-Year Certificate from International Center Photography New Media Narratives program. Ms. Yu teaches video, social practice, art and activism at Pratt Institute, Hunter College, and The New School, in addition she has over 20 years of community, media justice, and labor organizing work. In the Fall 2020, Betty had her curatorial debut as she presented Imagining De-Gentrified Futures, an exhibition that featured artists of color, activists and others along with her own work at Apexart in Tribeca, NYC. Betty sits on the boards of Third World Newsreel and Working Films; and on the advisory board of More Art.The current project that was discussed in the interview: We Were Here: Unmasking Yellow PerilThe book mentioned in the interview was Race for Profit.My grandparents in New York City in the 1950s with the cut out of 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act in the Background, Digital Collage, 2020.

(Dis)Placed in Sunset Park: My Personal Story from Betty Yu on Vimeo.