Recent Posts

Artist's Notebook

Beautiful games: Football, art, beauty, spectacle 

Contributed by Astrid Dick / On December 18th, 2022, Argentina, my country of origin, won the FIFA World Cup in Qatar against France, my country of residence. It was perhaps the most epic and thrilling final in this international tournament’s history. Two months later, Argentina’s victory is still slowly settling in my mind. As time passes, I realize more than ever how football – or fútbol, soccer, calcio, etc – at its highest level is a collective practice that parallels the practice of art, where the individual and the team refine and adapt their senses and skill, where gestures leave their imprint in memory, and where a decisive move can determine the outcome.

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Solo Shows

Mining Krzysztof Grzybacz’s oblique gestalts

Contributed by Margaret McCann / “At the Center of the Onion is Another Onion” is Polish painter Krzysztof Grzybacz’s first solo show at Harkawik. Sturdy yet subtle, his paintings are as elliptical as they are intense. Beyond unpeeling their complexity, his work offers consideration of a larger onion, that of figurative painting’s path through eastern Europe.

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Exhibition essay

Riad Miah: My eyes just heard my brain

Contributed by Sharon Butler / As I walk through the dimly lit space behind an elegantly nostalgic bespoke clothing store on the Lower East Side, I feel as if I’ve landed in Desperately Seeking Susan, the iconic film starring Madonna that captured New York creative life of the 1980s. On the other side of a worn red curtain looms Riad Miah’s bright, busy studio. Confronting me is a plethora of colorful canvases, covered with writhing shapes, floating freely on irregular canvases.

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Film & Television

Art and Film: The 2022 notables

Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / This is a little late, but just in time for the Oscars. Filmmaking in the time of Covid is looking healthy, so no epochal disquisition is needed – just the usual caveat that these picks are inevitably subjective and, in some cases, perhaps eccentric. 

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Group Shows

As long as you want, at My Pet Ram

Contributed by Jenny Zoe Casey / The two-person exhibition “as long as you want,” featuring work by Julia Blume and Heather Drayzen, on view at My Pet Ram on the Lower East Side, is perceptively based on the referenced fragment of poetry written by Sappho over two-and-a-half millennia ago as a reminder of love, endurance and adaptation, and complemented by a slyly kindred show of drawings. Work by Joshua Drayzen is also on view.

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Solo Shows

Paul Mogensen’s ordering formulations

Contributed by Michael Brennan / Paul Mogensen dismisses the Renaissance. Not its considerable artistic achievements, of course, but rather its excessive emphasis within conventional art history. Mogensen is experiencing a renaissance himself with “Paintings: 1965-2022,” at Karma, a de facto mini-retrospective that includes 20 paintings and works on paper. Karma, a gallery known for its adventurous curatorial program and savvy publishing arm, has done a great deal more than most museums to sustain a variety of NYC-specific historical discourses since its inception in 2011. In the case of Mogensen, along with fabled colorist Robert Duran, Karma’s program is potentially the second coming of the legendary Bykert Gallery. This is a considerable achievement in a contemporary art world often characterized by “context collapse.”

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Museum Exhibitions

Elizabeth Gourlay: Connecticut colorist

Over 13 years ago, Two Coats of Paint noted Elizabeth Gourlay’s exhibition of abstract paintings in Chester, Connecticut. On the occasion of her outstanding solo exhibition of paintings and collages at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Two Coats took the opportunity to catch up with her.

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Solo Shows

Kahori Kamiya’s expansive intimacy

Kahori Kamiya’s New York debut solo exhibition “Long Eclipse” at Amos Eno Gallery in Brooklyn is a powerful and personal exploration of her Japanese cultural identity and experience of womanhood. Through her works, Kamiya delves into her own existential and spiritual contemplations, reflecting on acutely personal experiences such as breastfeeding her baby, facing racial discrimination during the pandemic, and grieving the loss of her mentor. 

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Gallery shows

NYC Selected Gallery Guide: March, 2023

What to see: This month, on the Lower East Side, we recommend Two Coats contributor Riad Miad’s solo show at Equity Gallery and Chris Dorland’s show at Lyles & King. In Brooklyn, look for Jessica Weiss at 490 Atlantic, and note that Sheila Pepe has curated a show at Platform Project Space that opens March 2. We’ve never been to Field of Play in Gowanus, so we’re going to try to get over there to see Hopscotch, with Alyson Ainsworth, Kat Chamberlin, and Leonora Loeb. CLEARING is opening a new space at 260 Bowery at the end of the month, with a big group show called “Maiden Voyage.” In Chelsea, who can resist “Ass Backwards,” philisophical wise-ass David Humphrey’s latest at Fredericks & Freiser? And we’ll try not to forget Josephine Halvorson’s “Unforgotten,” which opens at Sikkima Jenkins on March 17. The news from our neighbors in the global art world is that Gerhard Richter, who left Marian Goodman Gallery last year, is having his inaugural show at Zwirner this month, featuring “new and recent abstract works.”

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Interview

5 images + 5 questions for Letha Wilson

Contributed by Jason Andrew / Letha Wilson’s work reflects her persistent intention to unite two sometimes antagonistic processes: photography and sculpture. Over the last decade, she has expanded my (and no doubt others’) understanding of the potential visual and physical convergence of these two mediums. On the occasion of her completion of a Windgate Artist Residency at Purchase College and a solo exhibition at Higher Pictures, I asked Wilson five questions about her past and process.

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