On February 16, CATM chelsea opened Desde la Tierra al Cielo, “From Earth To Heaven,” a critical solo exhibition for Spanish-born multimedia artist Nuria Román who has continued to confront the innate reciprocality between human and nature. CATM’s Desde la Tierra al Cielo is comprised of various mixed-media works combining paint, ceramic, stone, metal, woodprint, site-specific installation and photography.
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Mendoza, Ciudad, 2007, ink on paper, 29 x 15 inches, image courtesy of Culturehall
Many fickle artists repel a contract with a gallery either with hopes to show at a specific gallery or due perpetual commitment issues. New York-based David Andrew Frey has created an online oasis for artists who suffer from similar aforementioned ailments by launching Culturehall, “a curated online resource for Contemporary Art.” Culturehall archives works of artists who have applied and have received acceptance or who have been invited and have decided to join the international community.
Mendoza, Egotrippin, 2008, carving on masonite, 24 x 20 inches, image courtesy of Culturehall
Culturehall Newsletter informs culture junkies with bi-weekly updates on “Feature Issues.” Feature Issues are comprised of four of Culturehall artists and curated by an invited guest “art worlder.” Along with a virtual group exhibition, each issue contains an essay.
Feature Issue 66, “Subliminal Sunlight,” is available until April 19th. Four works, by Christian Mendoza, Maya Hayuk, Hisham Akira Bharoocha and Mark Warren Jacques, have been chosen to exhibit ideologies of abstraction. Senior Editor of Artcards Review, Howard Hurst explores abstraction and admits to his own obsession with the art genre while writing on “Subliminal Sunlight.” It appears that Culturehall provokes an intimate and honest space where even Hurst comfortably refers to himself in first person. A viewer may click an artwork to enlarge the image while also being directed to the artist’s page displaying additional works, portfolio and contact information.
Mendoza, Highway Xpress, 2010, sticker collage, ink on paper, 30 x 40 inches, image courtesy of Culturehall
The four artists update traditional abstraction, yet Chris Mendoza pushes the envelope by developing a contemporary dialogue with mixed media as well as a collage of graffitied postal stickers that he has collected or marked himself. The surface of Highway Xpress explodes off paper because Mendoza has rendered tension between the foreground and background. Although the work is abstract in nature, Highway is clearly divided between light strokes of blue ink and thick application of acutely-shaped colored or monochromatic graphitized stickers. Mendoza has cut each individually and precisely. The two collages portray a brightly-colored winged creature diving into crashing waves of black and white contorted iconography.
The viewer should not distinguish such a clear narrative according to the categorical definition of abstraction. However, contemporary abstraction remains a malleable discourse as artists and critics depart from set rules; similarly, Highway’s background alludes to past abstraction, while its foreground brazenly references a trend in contemporary abstraction.
Mendoza, Inkmotion, 2010, ink on watercolor paper, 16 x 16 inches, image courtesy of Culturehall
Mendoza (born in Managua, Nicaragua) lives in New York City. His precision has been inherited from his father, an architect; his adoption of street style derives from an acclimation to the Bronx at a young age. Presently, he incorporates his home with his homeland with amalgamation of folklore, nature, New York architecture and more.
Albeit the art world lingers on opinions of online curation and exhibition, art enthusiast could not deny Culturehall’s creditability. The website displays works of accredited artists with a clean design. Moreover, the virtual gallery allows a global audience to visit Culturehall providing the artists more opportunity and collectors a simple way to survey contemporary art. Online exhibitions may not usurp all power from typical exhibitions, which offer the viewer physicality and authenticity. However, it is time that the white walls on the internet not be considered taboo but another as another outlet to interface with art.
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"Footsteps" by Louis Sarowasky
Executive Director & Owner of Gallery 151, Michael Namer restored a hidden graffiti-ed wall, which he had discovered in his SoHo building 151 Wooster. Numerous graffiti legends had contributed to the mural over time. At the 2007 grand opening of Gallery 151, Namer exhibited the infamous wall juxtaposed with works by “Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fab 5 Freddy, Keith Haring, Kenny Sharf, and ERO.”
Installation Shot
Since Gallery 151’s exposé of graffiti’s magnum opus, other significant shows continued to pop up at the storefront Bowery location featuring urban visual artists, designers and musicians.
Currently, curators Derrick Bernard Harden, Oliver “Power” Grant and Laura O’Reilly (Harden and O’Reilly are also directors at the gallery) have handpicked artists for Gallery 151’s group exhibition “Grassroots: Through the WU-mb,” up until Monday, April 4th, 2011, on view Tuesday through Sunday from 2:00 until 8:00 pm. “Grassroots” showcases Hip Hop and Street Visual Art cultures inevitable merge due to the collaboration between The WU TANG Brand and Minimal Dose 500MG, who present for the first time WU500MG MTM ALIEN spray cans and the Black Spanish Shearling Jacket Box Set.
"The Wall" by Jackson Kelsey and co.
The gallery’s atmosphere is always kicking, as it appears that even after 8.00pm (not suggesting, you arrive late), the space is clouded by spray-paint fumes and a few stray artists and viewers.
"Breaking Down the Door"
Complete List of Artist: Antonio Kel 5MH, Mint & Serf, Kipton Hinsdale, Sir Shadow, Walker Fee, Charles Shedden, Louis Sarowasky, Tobias Batz, Eric Jordan, Minimal Dose 500MG (Lucas Benarroch & Jamie Barnatan), Mickal Macraig Stubblefield, HYPNO, Maria “TOOFLY” Castillo, Jackson Kelsey, Patrick Sheehy and Neon Sandwich
Remember to visit the show before it closes because a percentage of sales and donations are given to the Red Cross towards Japan tsunami relief.
All photographs courtesy of Gallery 151
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Donna Dennis: Subway with Lighted Interior, 1974 Mixed media (wood, acrylic and enamel paint, masonite, incandescent light, fluorescent light fixture - unlit, cellulose compound, charcoal, graphite) 75" x 43" x 32" Collection of John and Thomas Solomon Photograph courtesy of Bevan Davies
On the occasion of That Is Then. This Is Now., Cameron Shaw spoke to Mr. Storr, who is the current Dean of the Yale University School of Art. He was curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art from 1990 to 2002, where he organized exhibitions on Elizabeth Murray, Gerhard Richter, and Robert Ryman, among others. A distinguished professor, writer, and artist, here, he discusses issues of memory and change and “the truly strange and wonderful things that crop up all around us.” The show is on view through October 30th, 2010 at CUE Art Foundation located at 511 West 25th Street, NY, NY 10001.
Cameron Shaw: There seems to be a dialogue between this exhibition and the High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975 show that Katy Siegel curated a few years back. In some ways, That is Then. This Is Now. functions as a coda: what happened to some of those artists, or those working with some similar ideas, after 1975.
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Kim MacConnel: Red Corner, 1978, Painted and sewn cloth strips, 36 1/2" x 52 1/2"
The 1970s is a period that seems capable of sustaining multiple rediscoveries. The spirit of liveliness, broad experimentation, and eclecticism that characterizes the art of this moment resulted in the production of works of pleasing impurity, and the recovery of this messy decade is as alluring today for those who make art as for those who make art history. From a distance of more than thirty years, the escape routes artists found by moving past creative limitations continue to surprise. The transcendence of media restrictions, combined with the ability to make art affect new Continue reading
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