ANN SHELTON by Wendy Vogel If you google “herbal abortion,” sisterzeus.com might be one of your top online search results. The throwback GeoCities-era website, which describes itself as “a women’s guide to synergistic fertility management,” offers information—after clicking through several disclaimers—about plants that could induce menstruation (emmenagogues) and abortion (abortifacients). In 2015, the New Zealand–based photographer Ann Shelton began researching and taking pictures of herbs that have historically been used to control female fertility. In her ongoing series “jane says,”…Read More
Amir H. Fallah: Better A Cruel Truth Than a Comfortable Delusion by Paul Laster Best known for his unique approach to portraiture, Amir H. Fallah has made a name for himself not by painting incredible likenesses of people but by revealing who they are through the objects that they possess. Exploring issues of family, identity, and representation, the Tehran-born, Los Angeles-based artist has made several series of colorful, collage-like paintings in which the sitters are shrouded in patterned fabrics amid…Read More
Future Retrieval: Close Parallel opens at the Cincinnati Art Museum on February 26 and features contemporary reimaginings of works from the Museum’s extensive permanent collection. Future Retrieval is the name of the studio collaboration of artists Katie Parker and Guy Michael Davis, who are both former University of Cincinnati DAAP faculty members. While they primarily work in porcelain, in Close Parallel, they have also incorporated other media, like intricately designed cut-paper pieces, fabric, wood, and metal. The works pulse with energy…Read More
Erin O’Keefe at Seventeen by Emily LaBarge The wrongness of images, or our apperceptions of them: What appears to be a painting is actually a photograph. What appear to be two-dimensional painted lines, curves, rectangles, arabesques, planes of color, or abstract geometries with trompe l’oeil shadows are in fact three-dimensional objects carefully arranged, brightly illuminated, and flattened into a beguiling single plane by the lens of a camera. “I’m interested in finding/discovering/choreographing moments of uncertainty that exist in the…Read More
Future Retrieval’s “Close Parallel” Exhibition Launches This Month at Cincinnati Art Museum Mackenzie Manley Katie Parker and Guy Michael Davis – aka art duo (and married couple) Future Retrieval – spent most of 2020 creating art for their solo exhibition Close Parallel for the Cincinnati Art Museum, which opens Feb. 26. It’s the biggest show of their lives, they say — one that has been years in the making. After years in Cincinnati, the pair moved to Arizona in late June of…Read More
Art Mamas: Amir H. Fallah Paints a Roadmap for His Son Katy Donoghue Amir H. Fallah’s show, “Better a Cruel Truth Than a Comfortable Delusion,” is currently on view at Denny Dimin Gallery in New York. The new paintings imagined as a how-to manual for Fallah’s son, featuring icons, imagery, and references to the culture that forms us—from advertising and pop culture to the books we read as children. Each work started from a text, whether a lyric from a…Read More
Women Artists of New England: Sheida Soleimani Hall Rockefeller As a photographer who captures images of elaborate stage-like sets, Sheida Soleimani is engaged with contradictory modes. Photography is a medium whose authenticity we still trust, even after the wide proliferation (and increasing sophistication) of Photoshop. Theater is somewhat of its opposite, allowing an audience to believe in something temporarily, though the delusion is only participated in partly. We are not surprised when we go backstage to see that the set…Read More
The artists’ latest exhibition, “Airlok or Gazing Into The Void” at D.C.’s Von Ammon Co., was inspired by Google Image Search. For artists Julia Wachtel and Wendy White, inspiration doesn’t need to come from much further than a Google Image Search. In a new show at Washington D.C.’s Von Ammon Co., titled Airlok or Gazing Into The Void, both artists culled generic depictions of familiar emotional states for those who are living, ahem, in these trying times. For Wachtel, that image was of a man with his head…Read More
Art Heals: After a Sexual Assault, an Artist Paints Women Who Can’t Be Knocked Down It took me years to find the language to tell this story. by Clarity Haynes February 4, 2021 We never laughed about the attack. I wanted to laugh, but everyone was so serious. As soon as I told them he used the word “rape” and pulled down my pants, they were convinced it wasn’t a mugging but an attempted rape. It might sound crazy…Read More
Three exhibitions to see in New York this weekend From Albers and Morandi at David Zwirner to Amir H. Fallah at Denny Dimin Gabriella Angeleti and Wallace Ludel 22nd January 2021 Our editors and writers scour the city each week for the most thoughtful, relevant and exciting new exhibitions and artworks on view at galleries, museums and public venues across all five boroughs of New York. This week we recommend: Amir H. Fallah: Better a Cruel Truth Than a Comfortable…Read More
Editors’ Picks: 18 Events for Your Art Calendar This Week, From a Chat With the Guerrilla Girls to the Music That Inspired Basquiat It’s another busy week of virtual programming—plus some in-person gallery shows you won’t want to miss. Artnet News, January 26, 2021 Each week, we search for the most exciting and thought-provoking shows, screenings, and events. In light of the global health crisis, we are currently highlighting events and digitally, as well as in-person exhibitions open in the…Read More
Amir H. Fallah, Painting For An Audience Of One With Lessons For A Lifetime Chadd Scott Amir H. Fallah, ‘Dying for Invisible Lines,’ 2020. Acrylic on panel. 36h x 48w in 91.44h x 121.92w AMIR H. FALLAH AND DENNY DIMIN GALLERY NEW YORK Can a self-portrait reveal nothing of the artist’s appearance? Amir H. Fallah thinks so. In past work, Fallah has explored the traditional conventions of portraiture while masking his subjects’ physical characteristics. All of his work begins with…Read More
Tracing Networks of Political Corruption in Sheida Soleimani’s Slick, Hyper-Stylized Tableaux “Hotbed” zeroes in on the places where these power relations and abuses between the US and Iran make themselves most visible. by Cassie Packard December 18, 2020 Installation view of Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed, Denny Dimin, 2020 (all images courtesy Denny Dimin) The compressed, hyper-stylized images in Sheida Soleimani’s first New York City solo show bring a critical eye to the tense relationship between the US and Iran, as well as the corruption that…Read More
5 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now by JILLIAN STEINHAUER Sheida Soleimani’s “Iran Heavy” (2018), archival pigment print Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed Through Dec. 23. Denny Dimin Gallery, 39 Lispenard Street, Manhattan. 212-226-6537, dennygallery.com. You would be forgiven for thinking that Sheida Soleimani made the photographs in her exhibition “Hotbed” digitally. Collapsing space and subject matter into densely layered images of body parts, food, electronics and more, they’re informed by a certain internet aesthetic. But Ms. Soleimani’s artworks are analogue,…Read More
5 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now Thornton Dial’s “Flying Tiger,” Thomas Eggerer’s protest painting, Harriet Korman’s brilliant canvases, Sheida Soleimani’s portraits of Iranian-U.S. relations, and Etel Adnan’s tapestries. Dec. 9, 2020 Sheida Soleimani Through Dec. 23. Denny Dimin Gallery, 39 Lispenard Street, Manhattan. 212-226-6537, dennygallery.com. Sheida Soleimani’s “Iran Heavy” (2018), archival pigment print.Credit…Sheida Soleimani and Denny Dimin Gallery You would be forgiven for thinking that Sheida Soleimani made the photographs in her exhibition “Hotbed” digitally. Collapsing space…Read More
Multiple Exposures: Sean Fader’s #Wishingpelt And Humor In Social Media Performance by David J. Getsy Sean Fader, #wishingpelt Instagram image #907 (2014). Digital photograph posted on Instagram from PULSE Art Fair, New York. Read full Essay PDF. Read more on ASAP Journal.
The way we live now “The Zoom Paintings” are dispatches from a strange year In lockdown Michael Mandiberg started capturing the offices, bedrooms and kitchens of others while on video calls by S.H. Dec 3rd 2020 IT IS THE corner of someone’s empty kitchen. Cabinets have been left open haphazardly; an oven hood and a slice of the ceiling is visible. The scene has a slightly dizzying quality, as when a laptop camera is tilted upwards, but this is an…Read More
by Clarity Haynes I first saw multidisciplinary artist Pamela Council’s work at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2015. Council’s sculpture “Flo Jo World Record Nails,” constructed of fake nails, formed an arc that evoked the sensation of taking flight, and paid homage to late track and field athlete Florence Griffith Joyner. I’ve since followed their work, which explores Black joy, grieving, grooming, and memorials in extraordinary ways. I was happy to have the opportunity recently to discuss Council’s work…Read More
Your Concise New York Art Guide for December 2020 by Dessane Lopez Cassell Bye 2020. You’ve been a whole lot. For this final month of a wild year, we’ve pulled together a list of shows and film series that provides both ample distraction and some opportunities for reflection. Scroll below for our top 10, the majority of which are available online or by appointment. Installation view of Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed, Denny Dimin, 2020 (image courtesy Denny Dimin) Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed…Read More
Artists At Home: Between Familiar Environments And New Perspectives By Adam Hencz November 2020 “I was yearning for colors… Vibrant colors! I started doing self-portraits and was watching myself manifested in a fictitious milieu, in interiors that were colorful and peaceful. Colors made me feel safe.” Maria Kassab A variety of circumstances have led to artists being isolated from society. Depending on the situation, a time of solitude can be welcome or uninvited, deliberate or involuntary. Many artists have thrived…Read More
‘It’s Memorializing How Unmemorable It Is’: Artist Michael Mandiberg on Painting Melancholy Portraits on Zoom Mandiberg’s “Zoom Paintings” are going on view this week in a virtual exhibition. By: Taylor Dafoe, November 10, 2020 Michael Mandiberg, PSC-CUNY Action I, 3:00 — 4:00 PM, June 23, 2020 (#13) (2020). Courtesy of the artist. Quarantining has no doubt had a dissociative effect on us. Think about the strange ways in which time passes, or the moments during video chats when you have…Read More
Matt Mignanelli: Between Nature & Structure ~ a Public Art Installation at Five Bryant Park November 2, 2020 afinelyne Denny Dimin Gallery announced the solo public art installation, Between Nature & Structure by artist Matt Mignanelli at Five Bryant Park. Located at the intersection of West 40th Street and Sixth Avenue, across from the southwest corner of Bryant Park, Between Nature & Structure bridges the natural world of Bryant Park ~ a lush, green oasis in the heart of Manhattan…Read More
Read on The New York Times 2 Art Gallery Shows to See Right Now Justine Hill makes more with less in her multipart abstract paintings; Kevin Beasley mixes the political with the personal in “Reunion.” By Roberta Smith and Martha Schwendener Published Oct. 14, 2020Updated Oct. 16, 2020, 12:12 a.m. ET Justine Hill Through Oct. 31, Denny Dimin Gallery, 39 Lispenard Street, Manhattan; (212) 226-6537, dennygallery.com. Justine Hill’s bright, multipart paintings are good and good fun, but it has taken…Read More
Inside a $17 Million Residence in Starchitect Renzo Piano’s First NYC Residential Tower The interior design features some of Poltrona Frau’s greatest hits. BY HELENA MADDEN ON SEPTEMBER 24, 2020 Want to live in a building designed by a high-profile architect? The options have never been better in New York City—from Zaha Hadid and Álvaro Siza to Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick. Not one to be lost in the “starchitect” shuffle, Renzo Piano’s 565 Broome has just unveiled its full-floor…Read More
