Contributed by Sharon Butler \ I was recently invited to select work from an Open Call at the Ely Center for Contemporary Art in New Haven. Looking at more than 300 worthy submissions (and reading all the artist statements) I was drawn to work that�s rooted in materiality, ritual, and […]
Group Shows
Los Carpinteros: When citizens outlive their heroes
Contributed by Katarina Wong / “Cuba Va! (Cuba Goes!)� at The Phillips Collection in DC is a small but powerful exhibition of recent work by the renowned Cuban artist collective Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters). Born and raised in post-Revolution Cuba, Los Carpinteros were educated in the Cuban boarding school system, […]
The Abstract Zeitgeist in Storrs
Contributed by Stephen Maine/ On view at the University of Connecticut’s Contemporary Art Galleries through November 29 is “Constructed,” a lively exhibition of seventeen works by five distinguished midcareer painters whose handling of color — as a kind of visual armature — is inseparable from structure. The show’s curator, Museum […]
Peter Krashes: Summer in the city
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Spending summer in the city means that each weekend, in neighborhoods far and near, street traffic is rerouted to make way for lively festivals featuring food, music, facepainting, games, dancing, and more. Peter Krashes, a political organizer in Prospect Heights, makes paintings based on snapshots he takes during […]
Our woman in Havana: Exploring what it means to be Cuban / The Havana Biennial, Part 2
Contributed by Katarina Wong / One of the strongest and most ambitious exhibitions in the 13th Havana Biennial is at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA), which is on view through September in celebration of the city�s 500th anniversary. The ground floor exhibition �Museos interiores (Interior museums)� features new […]
Our woman in Havana: The Construction of the Possible, Part 1
This is the first of two posts that highlight work from the 2019 Havana Biennial in and around Old Havana area. Look for Part 2 next week. // Contributed by Katarina Wong / After being postponed due to hurricane damage from 2017, the Havana Biennial, organized by the Centro de Arte […]
CounterPointe: Artists and choreographers collaborate
Contributed by Sharon Butler / For the past seven years, Norte Maar, an enterprising and energizing interdisciplinary arts group based in the Cypress Hills neighborhood of Brooklyn and led by Jason Andrew and Julia Gleich, has organized CounterPointe, a series of short dance performances that pair female choreographers with female visual artists. […]
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Call it soulfulness
Contributed by Matt Mitchell / Reviewers have compulsively apprehended Lynette Yiadom-Boakye�s loving images of dark-skinned people as manifestations of black identity politics, despite the artist�s insistence that those issues are not central to her work. And, in fact, her paintings can yield some penetrating insights about the new figuration when the viewer […]
Artist to artist: An exchange with Cuba
At the official level, the United States has politically and economically ostracized Cuba for the past 60 years, since communist dictator Fidel Castro took power and helped precipitate the Cuban Missile Crisis. But after�the Cold War ended, mutual cultural exploration expanded;�recall,�for instance, the stateside success of�Ry Cooder�s 1997 album�Buena Vista […]
New subjectivity: Figurative painting at Pratt Manhattan Gallery
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In a lively group show of large canvases at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, curator Jason Stopa makes a strong case that contemporary painters, particularly those working figuratively, are cultivating a new form of Expressionism. He cites popular culture (cartoons, fashion photography, YouTube videos), personal narrative, […]