April 11 – June 27, 2010
11-03 45th Ave
Long Island City 718 937 6317

Six artists who make works that resemble quilts have been gathered together at the Dorsky Gallery in Long Island City in an exhibition called Assembling Narratives: Quilting Impulses in Contemporary Art.   The show, curated by Donna Harkavy Flavia S. Zúñiga-West, draws from a diverse group of mostly women who are using with quilting techniques in a variety of ways.

Traditional quilting is a communal activity; made in quilting circles or “bees.” It offers rich associations: family, tradition, home, bed, hand, the individual and their relationship to the community.  Quilts were made for a significant time in a woman’s life and usually displayed the creative thrifty-ness of materials; the idea that things must be re-purposed and useful for generations to come.  Traditional quilts also offered women an outlet for astonishing creativity in the piecing together of materials, as evidenced by the magnificent quilts of Gee’s Bend.  As quilts began to move off the bed and onto the wall, it was inevitable that they began to be seen in relationship to painting and drawing.

It is a rich field for an artist to explore and contemporary female artists began to incorporate elements of quilting in the 1970s as both a way to empower the materials and techniques of craft and to reject the “male dominated” materials of traditional painting and sculpture.

Faith Ringgold is a pioneering figure in this genre.  Her work from the 1980’s combines elements of story telling, painting and quilting in her “story quilts.” On display at the Dorsky Gallery, No More War Stories Quilt and No More War Stories Part II records the memories of African American wives and mothers of GI’s from the Vietnam War.  The stories are written in vernacular, by hand along the borders of the quilt, which also includes tie-dyed and camouflage fabric.  The stories are poignant, fragile, tender and personal, which matches nicely with the feeling of the artist’s hand in the writing and visible stitching.

Sabrina Gschwandtner uses strips of 16mm film to make her intricate and labor-intensive translucent quilts.  The films are painstakingly sewn together in a traditional strip quilt pattern and are shown on a giant light box.  Upon close inspection, you can make out tiny figures and images in the strips and the resulting quilts have a rosy coloring of decayed 1960’s film.  Strip quilts were an exceptionally thrifty way to make use of even the smallest scrap fabric. Gschwandtner also used a salvaged material: the films are educational shorts deaccessioned from the Fashion Institute of Technology that cover topics such as the history of fashion, textiles and (appropriately enough) quilting.  The titles, Quilts in Women’s Lives and Once Upon a Sunny Morning refer to the films from which the quilts are constructed.

Donna Sharrett’s large decorated doilies are composed of a laundry list of materials–rose petals, hair, lace, pearls, rings, silk, old pennies, bone–much of which has personal significance to the artist that is not necessarily conveyed to the viewer without reading her artist statement.  The rose window composition and variety of materials has a Victorian feel. The titles of her two works, Forever Young and The Long Black Veil, hint of a personal tragedy.

John Sims, the only male artist in the show, investigates quilting as a community activity and his African heritage by using African fabrics and black squares in a checkerboard grid.  Each black square features an embroidered black square, and the title, My Square Roots, brings home the pun.  He sought out the help of an Amish quilting group to learn the technique.  Sims is also the only artist who combines quilting and video: a projection of another checkerboard quilt is projected onto the floor.  But this one, maddeningly out of focus and too dim for the space, was less revealing.  HyperQuilt was composed of images of 13 other quilts plus some images of the artist.  According to Sims’ artist statement, it was created by a mathematical process relating to p and a spiral number sequence with traditional Amish colors assigned to the numbers, although this was not evident in the projection.

The most stunning and interesting work in the exhibition was from Anna Von Mertens.   Unlike the other works that were made by assemblage of materials, this work is one solid piece of fabric that is dyed to read like a landscape.  The luminous hand-dyed color goes from a dark blue on the top to a golden yellow strip at the bottom, like the first pale light of dawn in an utterly featureless landscape.  White stitches of varying length and thickness arc over the dark sky like time-lapse photos of the movement of the stars.  The title, Dawn (Left Illinois for California, April 15, 1859) refers to an inscription on an 19^th century quilt made by two pioneer families as they are about to head west for California.  The stitching refers to exact star movements, plotted by a computer, in the hours that led up to dawn on this date.  The work embodies all the hope and fear of a significant moment in time without depicting the story in a way that is genuinely satisfying.

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Art Interview, an online magazine devoted to exclusive interviews with artists, curators, and art dealers offers an online competition four times a year open to artists working in all types of medium.

The competition is entirely digital; artists can submit up to three images for a fee of €25.  Every three months a first, second and third prize winner are chosen by a jury of recently interviewed artists from the magazine.  Cash prizes are awarded, up to €10,000 for first place, €5,000 for second and €2000 for third.  The cash prize amounts are determined by the number of applicants for that particular quarter.

Most recently, the 20^th International Online Competition winners were announced:  photography by Nic Lyons, egg tempera paintings on linen by Xiao Guo Hui and inkjet prints by Thomas Spradling took first, second and third, respectively.  The selections were made from 405 original works submitted by artists from 135 countries.   Six honorable mentions are also chosen, and their work is on display on the Art Interview website.

The competition, and the publication of Art Interview Online Magazine began in 2004.  The Editor, Brendan Davis, realized there was a keen interest among emerging artists to hear artists such as Alex Katz, Eric Fischl, El Anatsui, and Tom Otterness talk about how they began their career, who helped them along the way, what advise they might give to younger artists.   The current issue of Art Interview features interviews of Richard Deacon, Claire Morgan, Andreas Kocks, James Grashow and Jonathan Delachaux.  The magazine is based in Berlin, Germany and an annual subscription costs €5.

Davis describes the genesis of the magazine:

“When I was an art student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I spent most of my time focusing on my creative process.  But I realized that I was learning very little about real world practices or how to build an art career. I also was frustrated by SAIC’s lack of art history from the 1980s onward. So, I began reaching out to established artists and asking them questions that were pertinent to building a career in the arts.”

“Several years later, when I was working on a commission in my studio, one of my assistants began asking me questions about how to build a career as an artist.  It rang a bell in my head. I realized that this information was still needed, so I decided to commit part of my time to fill this gap and give something back. I began reaching out to my contemporaries in the art world, and rather than keeping the information to myself, I packaged it in the form of Art Interview Online Magazine and began sharing it with the entire world.”

The next competition deadline is September 30, 2010.  A third biennial exhibition of past competition winners is in the works, and will include around 75 participants.  A suitable location is being sought in Berlin for the exhibition and dates are still to be finalized.

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The Stedelijk, Amsterdam’s world-renowned museum for  modern and contemporary art, is hosting two exhibitions while in the process of a major renovation to the building, which is scheduled to be complete in the later part of 2011.

The Temporary Stedelijk, a short-term program of exhibitions of international artists from August 28, 2010 through January 9, 2011. Stedelijk director Ann Goldstein did not want  to waste the singular opportunity of utilizing the unfinished historic building in the period prior to the reopening.

Taking Place is a group exhibition of international artists who address the museum’s history, the spatial and temporal conditions of the unfinished building and how artists use, occupy and animate museum spaces.  Commissioned site-specific works, pieces from the collection, historical reconstructions, video projections, audio work, architectural interventions, performances and graphic design will address the distinctive conditions of the building at this moment in time.

Monumentalism—History and National Identity in Contemporary Art Proposal for Municipal Art Acquisitions 2010 will occupy half of the ground floor galleries and feature the works of artists living and working in the Netherlands.  The Municipal Art Acquisitions jury selected 20 artists whose work addresses the subject of national identity and history beyond nostalgia for a mythical past.  The works selected offer various insights and perspectives on cultural artifacts, language, politics, labor and capitalism through the artists’ individual explorations in a variety of media.  Participating artists include Americans Zachary Formwalt and Melissa Gordon; Swiss artist Marianne Flotron; Job Koelewijn from Germany and many native Dutch artists: Iris Kensmill, Lonnie van Brummelen, Kieke Van de Vroot, Rachel Koolen and others.

In addition to these two temporary exhibitions, American conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner has been commissioned by the Friends of the Stedelijk Museum to create a work that will be on display during the renovation of the museum and will remain after its completion.  Weiner‘s text-based work consists of language plus the materials referred to, wherein language is also considered a sculptural material.   The piece joins some 70 other works by Weiner in the Museum’s collection.

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Lush Life is an exhibition curated by Franklin Evans and Omar Lopez-Chahoud which takes place at nine Lower East Side (LES) galleries: Collette Blanchard Gallery, Eleven Rivington, Invisible-Exports, Lehmann Maupin, On Stellar Rays, Salon 94, Scaramouche, Sue Scott Gallery, and Y Gallery.  Lush Life adopts Richard Price’s 2008 novel to title and organize the exhibition.  The novel is set in the contemporary LES and through a murder investigation exposes the dynamically changing community of the neighborhood, which despite its evolution retains a ghostly and vital link to its layered past.  The deep and varied history of the LES now includes the LES galleries as new community members, and the premise of community is reflected in the cooperative nature of the galleries’ and artists’ participation in the exhibition which uses Price’s novel to critically consider concepts of neighborhood and change.  Each gallery will be a sub-exhibition reflecting the idea of one of the nine chapters in the book.

Sue Scott Gallery – Chapter One: Whistle.  June 19 to July 31
On Stellar Rays – Chapter Two: Liar. June 23 to August 3
Invisible-Exports – Chapter Three: First Bird (A Few Butterflies). June 25 to July 31
Lehmann Maupin – Chapter Four: Let It Die. July 8 to August 13
Y Gallery – Chapter Five: Want Cards. July 8 to July 25
Collette Blanchard Gallery – Chapter Six: The Devil You Know
Salon 94 – Chapter Seven: Wolf Tickets. June 29 to July 30
Scaramouche – Chapter Eight: 17 Plus 25 Is 32. July 8 to August 7
Eleven Rivington – Chapter Nine: She’ll Be Apples

Artists: Christopher Drager, Claudia Weber, Coco Fusco, Dana Frankfort, Dana Levy, Dani Leventhal, David Shapiro, Derrick Adams, Elisabeth Subrin, Erik Benson, Ezra Johnson, Ishmael Randall Weeks, Jackie Gendel, Jackie Saccoccio, Jayson Keeling, Jessica Dickinson, Joanne Greenbaum, Jose Lerma, Judi Werthein, Justen Ladda, Kai Schiemenz/ Iris Fluegel, Karina Skvirsky, La Toya Fraizer, Leslie Hewitt, Manuel Acevedo, Mario Ybarra Jr, Matthew Weinstein, Melissa Gordon, Nana Debois Buhl, Nicolas Di Genova, Nina Lola Bachhuber, Oliver Babin, Patrick Lee, Paul Gabrielli, Paul Pagk, Robert Beck, Robert Melee, Rudy Shepherd, Scott Hug, Tim Davis, Tommy Hartung, Xaviera Simmons, among others.

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Nature Rules!, the 28th Annual Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition on Governors Island, organized by the Brooklyn Artists Waterfront Coalition (BWAC), opened  June 5 and runs through October 10.  Fifteen sculptures created by 16 artists (Go-Hein is a collaborative duo) from around the country are situated along the car-free biking and walking paths around the southern side of the island.

The works were chosen selected from an open call of originally 50 submissions by Ursula Clark, Richard Brachman, Ty and management of Governors Island.  Clark and Brachman are also participating artists.  The Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition usually takes place in NYC’s only state park—the area between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge.  This year, that area is under construction. This is their first year on Governors Island.

Two participating artists, Nathanial Hein and Jennifer Gonzales (aka Go Hein) both teach art at the University of Memphis, in Tennessee.   They installed their work, titled Post Consumer Suffocation:  Greenhouse in an area near the barracks.  The work consists of a PVC greenhouse building with small bags of dirt in lieu of walls.  Each bag, printed with a child-suffocation warning label, is filled with soil and seedlings.  During the four-month exhibition, the seeds sprout, use up their resources and die, a metaphor for our dwindling natural resources.  Hein and Gonzales have recycled this piece by installing it in several outdoor sculpture festivals, notably Sculpture Key West 2009.

Installing on the island was challenging, as all materials had to be brought over by ferry and access to the island during the week is limited to staff and personnel.  Go Hein learned the hard way not to miss the last ferry…. during the installation, they were stranded for several hours before a tugboat came to the rescue.

Additional participating artists include Richard Brachman, Coral Lambert, Jackson Martin, Miggy Buck, Bernard Klevickas and others.  This exhibition is part of a larger program of art exhibitions, concerts, tours, picnics, festivals and performances that take place all summer on Governor’s Island.  Governor’s Island is open Saturday and Sunday and accessible via a free ferry that leaves from Manhattan or Brooklyn.

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Brooklyn-based artist Molly Dilworth was chosen as the winner of the reNEWable Times Square Design Competition to cover seven block of paved ground along Broadway from 47^th to 42^nd Streets.

Her submission, Cool Water, Hot Island, will be installed in June and remain for 18 months.  The winning design’s color palette of cool swirling blues suggests a river or topographical maps.  It relates to the geography of the area and the Great Kill stream that once flowed there.  The colors reflect less light, making it cooler and more comfortable for pedestrians, and contrast with the reds and yellows of the neon billboards.

Cool Water, Hot Island was selected from 150 applications and Dilworth will receive $15,000 for her idea.  Representatives from the DOT, Times Square Alliance, the Mayor’s Office, the Design Commission and an outside artist advisor chose the winning proposal.

This project is part of a larger renovation of Times Square, which began in May 2009 when Bloomberg rerouted traffic away from the Square to make it a car-free pedestrian zone designed to increase safety in Midtown.  The number of pedestrian and motorist injuries is already down significantly (35% and 63% respectively) compared to this time last year.  Although drivers claimed that rerouting traffic would cause problems, DOT studies have shown that travel time has generally increased.

Dilworth recent work includes large rooftop paintings that can be viewed from space via Google Earth or similar satellite image providers.  One such painting is installed on the roof of the Hendershot Gallery at 547 West 27^th Street in Chelsea.  Dilworth earned her MFA from NYU in 2003.

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The estate of Robert Rauschenberg, represented for the past 15 years by the Pace Gallery (formerly PaceWildenstein), will now be represented by Gagosian Gallery.  Gagosian offers an artist or an artist’s estate international representation with three galleries in New York, one in Beverly Hills and spaces in London, Rome, Athens, Hong Kong and, soon, Paris.

Rauschenberg, who died of heart failure in May 2008, was a prolific and influential American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s, and remained an influential figure until his death.  He is well known for his “Combines” from the 50s, which combined painting and sculpture with non-traditional art materials like a stuffed goat or trash that he found in the streets of New York City.  He also worked in photography, printmaking, papermaking and performance.

Rauschenberg’s works continue to bring good prices, at a Christie’s auction in March, a Rauschenberg Combine painting sold above estimate for more than $10 million.

Gagosian exhibits the work of Jasper Johns, an artist Rauschenberg is often associated with.  A Rauschenberg exhibition is planned in New York in the fall of 2010

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The 2010 Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk is the largest and most ambitious event in this annual series to date.  It features over 200 artists in an interactive and interdisciplinary celebration of live music and culture along Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue on Saturday and Sunday, June 5^th and 6^th from 1 to 6 pm each day.  Highlights include open studios, public art projects and demonstrations, open house events at galleries, art exhibitions in non-traditional venues, food and drink specials at local restaurants, live music all weekend and more.  The cultural corridor of Atlantic Avenue spans the neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill and Downtown Brooklyn and includes the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Mac Premo opens the doors to his studio at 132-134 Nevins Street.  Self-described collagist, animator, commercial director, illustrator, painter and stuffmaker; Premo has made animated commercials for the History Channel and Reebok, witty sculptural collages and assemblages that are composed of a staggering array of materials.  Premo is a veteran of ArtWalk; he designed an Emmy-winning PSA animation for the event in 2007.

Several outdoor, public art events are on view.  Molly Dilworth’s Paintings for Satellites are just that: painted on rooftops, they are large enough to be seen on Google Earth.  Artwalk visitors can view the work in person at 388 Atlantic Ave.   Christina Mendoza will be “live painting” on Nevins Street between Atlantic and Pacific Street as part of the ArtWalk Block Party.

Axelle Fine Art, at 312 Atlantic, is having a Print Studio Open House event, showcasing a range of print techniques presented by their master printer in this Art Deco building that is rarely open to the public.  Dozens of other galleries will be open as well, like the de Castellane Gallery, at 525 Atlantic, who is hosting an opening reception for Ted Diamond and Michael Tharp.  Even non-traditional businesses are getting in on the art action.  Rico Furniture is showcasing the work of Kamilla Talbot and Maggie Tobin at 384 Atlantic.

Restaurants and bars are offering ArtWalkers a special selection of day and evening events. Two adjacent businesses: Nunu Chocolates and the Linger Café and Lounge are teaming up to make the Atlantic ‘Beer’ Garden at 527-535 Atlantic on Saturday night from 6-9.  The Beer Garden event features special prices on refreshments, popular frozen hot chocolate and hors d’oeuvres from Nunu, free sample bites (while supplies last—get there early!) from Linger Café and Lounge Music of Andy Laird and DJ Snoozee.

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To celebrate the Guggenheim’s 50^th year anniversary, the museum invites artists to submit works online to reimagine the interior of the Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic building.  The competition, Re:Contemplating the Void, relates to the recent exhibition Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum, which presented the works of selected artists who re-imagined the rotunda.

The submissions were loaded up onto a Flickr page and ranged from impossible, hilarious and interesting.  Most artists who submitted used Photoshop to realize their vision, although some used other, more traditional means: computer rendering, photo collage, painting or drawing.  Participants were invited to be truly creative and capture the full potential of the Guggenheim’s interior.

“Vasbro” submitted multiple entries, including a giant (fake) hanging bee-hive with suspended giant bees flying up through the space and a medieval castle tower that could be climbed, offering view through arrow slits.  A submission by “trinadv” titled Erv’s Afternoon fills the void with translucent arcs of cool blues and greens, with a boat and fishing pole on the top layer and various sea life suspended in the lower layers, contemplating the hook.  Alexander Nikanpour imagines visitors traveling in floating bubble ships.  Honoring Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water, “Margaret Sharrow artist” imagines a water fall pouring down the outside of the building.

Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, and David van der Leer, Assistant Curator for Architecture and Design, will select five winners who will be announced on June 1, 2010 on the museum’s website.  Each winner receives a Guggenheim Store gift package including a Fisheye camera, a tote bag printed with the skylight, a copy of The Guggenheim: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Making of the Modern Museum, and two admission tickets.

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Spring is in the air, and in New York that means MFA exhibitions. Institutions like Columbia University, the New York Studio School, SVA (School of the Visual Arts,) The New York Academy, Queens College, Brooklyn College, Rutgers, The New School, SUNY Purchase, Pratt, and NYU all present shows of eager new talents.  Hunter College is an exception as they held their exhibition in December and January.

Dale Klein, who is receiving her MFA in painting from Rutgers in New Jersey, is not the traditional eager young beaver: she decided to pursue her BFA and MFA after a career in social work.  “Following a life-long passion, one class just led to another, and then I thought I might want to teach,” she said. Klein plans to continue her studio practice in Boston while her husband gets his graduate degree, but then hopes to move back to New York.  In addition to the thesis show for its graduating class at the campus gallery at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutger’s partnered with White Box Gallery on the Lower East Side of New York for a show called “Off the Map.” Klein is thrilled about the opportunity for New York exposure in a well-respected venue.

Here is a list of MFA shows this season.

March 24 – April 4
Queens College Department of Art MFA Exhibition at Dorsky Gallery
11-03 45th Ave, Long Island City, 718 937 6317. www.dorsky.org
April 1 – May 2
Off the Map: Rutgers MFA Graduates
White Box Gallery
329 Broome Street. 212 714 2347. www.whiteboxny.org

April 5 – April 30
MFA Graduation Exhibition Series
SUNY Purchase College School of the Arts
Richard & Dolly Maass Gallery in the Visual Arts Building
735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase NY, 914 251 6753. www.purchase.edu

April 6 – May 17
MFA Thesis Exhibition 2010
New York University Steinhardt School Department of Art and Art Professions
80 Washington Square East, 212 998 5747. www.steinhardt.nyu.edu

April 29 – May 2
MFA Design + Technology
Parsons The New School for Design
Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery
66 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street. www.newschool.edu

April 30 – May 15
Selections from Thesis Projects in the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department
School of the Visual Arts
601 West 26 Street, 15th Floor. 212 592 2145. www.schoolofvisualarts.edu

May 2 – May 23
Columbia University School of the Arts MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Fisher Landau Center
38-37 30th Street. 718 937 0727. www.flcart.org

May 11 – May 23
2010 MFA Diploma Exhibition
New York Academy of Art
111 Franklin Street. 212 966 0300. www.nyaa.com

May 12 – May 26
MFA Thesis Exhibition
New York Studio School
8 West 8th Street. 212 673 6466. www.nyss.org

May 14 – 24
MFA Fine Arts at The Kitchen
Parsons The New School for Design
512 West 19th Street. 212 255 5793. www.thekitchen.org

May 14 – June 5
Pratt M.F.A. 2010
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
144 West 14th Street, 2nd floor. 212 647 7778

May 7 – June 7
Brooklyn College MFA Thesis Exhibition at Williamsburg Art and Historical Center
135 Broadway at Bedford. 718 486 7372. www.wahcenter.net

August 21 – September 11
MFA Photography
Parsons The New School for Design
Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries
66 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street. www.newschool.edu

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