Tags archives: visual art

  • Art for Progress Summer Arts Program Thanks to a generous grant from the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, we are pleased to announce the summer arts program is funded for the next 3 years! We are looking forward to an exciting, enriching program for 2022. We are very pleased to announce, the program will be in person in 2022 (unless NYC changes the current pandemic protocol)! The location is yet to be determined, but it will be a location that is accessible from all 5 NYC boroughs. Also, the program will expand this year to offer workshops for younger students ages 10-13. Plus, the program which has been for a 4 week period in previous years, will now run 6 weeks. To coincide with NYC's summer school program, the dates are July 5th - August 12th with afternoon sessions beginning at 1:00PM weekdays and some weekend dates as well. Workshops will be offered in visual arts, music and other art disciplines with special guest teaching artists and weekly speakers. You can sign up here: https://forms.gle/7cW1i8ak7dt7Qs8X8 Any questions, please email admin@artforprogress.org. Stay tuned for many more details.
  • Art for Progress is pleased to announce The Carlos Reid Gallery will be pledging 3% of gallery sales to Art for Progress for the next two years. The Carlos Reid Gallery is quickly becoming the ultimate destination for original, international, contemporary and modern art online. The gallery is based in the United States and is dedicated to representing emerging and established international contemporary artists. Unlike physical galleries, we have over 100 million potential online clients worldwide and are able to sell in over 150 countries. Clients include private, corporate collectors, galleries, and museums worldwide. Please visit The Carlos Reid Gallery often to view our ever-evolving collection of original contemporary and modern art. After a visit to The Carlos Reid Gallery, you will soon discover a unique array of styles and mediums, at prices designed to meet the needs of any collector. "The Carlos Reid Gallery's mission is to provide the highest quality art by the most talented new, emerging, and established artists- worldwide. To engage a wide array of audiences, against the backdrop of an online-based platform that elevates artists and their work." The Carlos Reid Gallery  www.thecarlosreidgallery.com
  • Art for Progress Summer Arts Program 2018 Art for Progress (AFP) is pleased to announce The Pierre & Tana Matisse Foundation has awarded the organization a three year grant in support of its Summer Arts Program. After a highly successful launch of the program in 2018, the foundation requested a multi year proposal to support the program which was recently granted in May. Art for Progress will receive $52,500 to fund the program through 2021. The program was developed with the purpose of providing instruction in both music and visual arts over the summer months for students and young adults who are interested in careers in art and music. Although the focus is to provide instruction, knowledge and insight for career oriented students, the program is open to anyone interested (ages 13-24). Some of the key objectives of the program include: providing a challenging curriculum while giving students the opportunity to choose and learn skills they desirepresenting professional, engaging artists to speak to attendees about the challenges of choosing a career in artssharing information and knowledge that's typically not offered in formal school programs such as "Key Tenets for the Professional Artist."providing teaching opportunities for students who are interested in education careers The workshops will take place on four consecutive Sundays beginning July 14th (July 21st, July 28th, August 4th) from 10:30am-4:30pm. There is no cost for students and lunch wil[...]
  • Tina La Porta opens her first solo exhibition, Side Effects in South Florida on September 29th in the FAR Gallery at FATVillage Projects. The presentation is a candid oeuvre on La Porta's encounter with mental illness and her skilled approach to creating a pharmaceutical, candy-like frenzy to the viewer's eye and psyche. Far Gallery is a long corridor of two walls facing North and South to the main entrance, making the task for any curator or artist challenging to organize works within the space without it becoming predictable. Nonetheless, La Porta and curators Vee Carallo and Leah Brown strategized the area by assembling the wall sculptures in a non-linear format, concentrating on colors, geometric designs within the works and by the story of each prescription pill. Although La Porta is open about her way of life and how her functionality depends on the suppression her pills provide, she also comments in Indian Summer (2003) on the comfortable accessibility people have to order any prescription online. With its deceiving romantic shades of pink and old rose, Indian Summer 2003 exudes an ill feeling to a morning-after pill, direct from India without any proper instructions or what damaging side effects one is to expect from it. From La Porta's grueling process to crush each pill, comes the construction of a larger disk or shape resembling a small tablet filled with an array of smaller capsules sprinkled in vibrant colors and delicious enough to want to bite. The scu[...]
  • The art-making process is many different things to each individual. With this in mind, the goal of The Summer Music and Art Program was to facilitate an environment where art can happen as naturally as possible. We wanted participants to bring all their creative expressions to the environment so that they could use them as tools in their arsenal when creating art. Each week in the visual arts component, the main activity was based on reflection on the work of a visiting master artist. We had visits from musicians, illustrators, graphic artists, and fashion designers, all of whom presented and discussed their work with the students. In order to create an environment of an open community of artists where everyone learns from one another, we made the studios open to all. Visual artists would visit the music studio and musicians would go to the visual arts studio where sometimes they were the model for the day. Participants were introduced to new materials that became the catalysts for new problem solving experiences. Students artists were provided the instruction needed to refine their artistic and technical skills. Week One We worked from 3-D to 2-D and vice versa while developing a strong visual language that articulates perceived space.  We built sculptures and made charcoal drawings of them with tonal values. We also used layering techniques in drawings by creating shapes with different values. Students artists were impressed with what they were able to[...]
  • Ballet Rotoscope is an experimental short film made in 2011 that connects ballet with technology. By empowering the natural beauty of ballet and utilizing physical computing, the concept adds value to the real-time action and performance. The artists and researchers involved in the project, have created a relationship between geometric shapes with an animation technique known as rotoscope which was invented in 1905 by Max Fleischer. The object’s contours are traced and controlled by an algorithm that brings a mathematical layer to the natural movements of a ballerina. The awesome result is the ballerina dances while she draws perfect geometry.  The joints on her body are traced with a computer –generated rotoscope animation technique created by mathematical methods. In the process, each of the steps of the ballerina were tracked with accuracy to translate and synthesize it with a vectorial animation. Rotoscope technique is normally used in motion pictures to make realistic cartoons, but artists use it to generate an abstract animation of shapes that follow the movements of a ballerina. Therefore, this project makes sense in how to bridge the gap between arts and technology and create new concepts of beauty. This great artwork was created in Keio University of Japan, and the proposal intends to be an interaction between live performance and animation and new ways of expression. This was developed by the EUPHRATES Group, founded by the students of[...]
  • "NYC based arts organization Art for Progress (AFP) teams up with local Miami artists to celebrate the link between Cuban and South Florida culture for Art Basel 2016." NYC based arts organization Art for Progress (AFP) teams up with local Miami artists to celebrate the link between Cuban and South Florida culture for Art Basel 2016.  The events will take place in South Beach with an art exhibit opening on Friday evening and a rooftop- fashion, music and performance art event titled, Cosa Rica is set for Saturday night. The art exhibition, “P.U.E.N.T.E.” which opens Friday evening (6:00pm – 9:00pm) December 2nd, will feature eleven artists (Nestor Arenas, Willie Avedano, Orestes De La Paz, Michael Gray, Catalina Jaramillo, Brandy Lynn, Guido Mena, Cristina Victor, Sterling Rock, Belaxis Buil)working in various mediums (paintings, sculpture, installation, textile and drawings). After many decades of frosty relations between the U.S. and Cuba, the recent positive developments have brought a feeling of excitement and hope to the Cuban people of both South Florida and Cuba. The exhibition observes the relationship of the artist to their environment- changing landscapes and ability to adapt-retreat, refuge  and escape. The show which will run through Sunday, December 5th and is curated by Belaxis Buil whose work has been exhibited in “Intersectionality” and “Taz” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Art Shanghai, China, Tacheles Museum, Germany and Art Basel Miam[...]
  • I came across Katy Grannan's photographs at Salon 94 after visiting the New Museum next door. While individually they remain striking portraits, albeit not vastly unique in the photographic spectrum, what makes her work important lies in her documentary approach to the sleepiness, strangeness, and pathos of Modesto, California. Also the setting of her upcoming documentary, The Nine, the pieces ranged from large-scale individual portraits, to landscapes, and video clips. The portraits are blazing in their preciseness and their size allows for the individuals to tower over the viewers, commanding the most space and attention in the room they are in. The men are shirtless, and the women sport outfits that look like they're from the 80's. A look of disillusionment permeates through their faces, however, and in the case of the women, it betrays the vibrancy of their clothing. What's really at the heart of Grannan's work is a commentary on the American class system - ripe in the media these days thanks to shows like Making a Murderer - and "the other side of the American Dream." Modesto was the location in The Grapes of Wrath and Dorothea Lange's photograph Migrant Mother, both gripping portrayals of The Great Depression's physical and emotional effects on the psyche and physicality. And essentially, Grannan's work from Modesto serves as the setting of our contemporary depression. And the photographs speak for themselves in this regard - the subjects are present but not f[...]
  • I once read that people who see faces in inanimate, non-portrait objects, are neurotic, and the article did not mean that endearingly. If that's true, then children who make animal and human shapes out of clouds (so many) are neurotic. And truthfully, most artists are too. So with that, I will use this post to talk about an artists who plays with this idea in a rather beautiful way, and to tip my hat to those individuals who choose to and are able to view the world in a more fascinating way. Jane Lafarge Hamill's paintings combine traditional portraiture with modern abstraction. Her works first appear as a slather of saturated, vibrant colors, enhanced by her thick application of paint. However, though appearing haphazard, the way she has manipulated the paint allows for a vague, albeit familiar, image of a human's face to come through. Depending on how she has arranged the lines sometimes the face is in profile, sometimes face front. What really allows for the portraits to be visualized is not in the revelation of facial features, as they are pretty blurry, but in the way the lines make up the shape of the head - the forehead, jawline, and neck specifically. While this alone makes her painting style unique, what makes her work beautiful is her use of color. Her pieces are not exceptionally large, rather they are on the smaller side, yet they instantly pop out due to the layers of applied color and the vibrancy of the palette. What is especially contemporary [...]
  • NURTUREArt's group show Sextant looks to our sense of reality and place as constructed from memory, history, and objects. While a serious subject, some works are able to retain playfulness, an example being Igor Ruf's video work The Cave (2015). The artist as actor recites the same lines over and over as he moves and dances around a cave space. Subtitles indicate that he is saying he has bananas and a guitar, among other basic necessities, and he doesn't need much else. We see Ruf repeating names and asserting his identity, and it's unbelievable in its goofiness. He touches on the ability objects have in shaping our memories and how those moments cumulatively form the perception we wish to have for ourselves, and for others to have of us, and he maintains a lightheartedness throughout.   Calum Craik has two pieces in the show that also examine, as he writes in an artist's statement, "a hazy memory, actual events, and experience." He is more interested in pop culture, however, as he feels that "everyday objects act as vehicles to question and imagine...documents, photographs, and raw materials act as a mechanism to reconsider truths, events, or invent new possibilities." This certainly rings true in Lesiure (2013). A space blanket, shiny and geological-looking, is situated across a small image of a California pool that lays flat on the floor. Above this image hangs a small bowling ball resembling the earth. This creates a shadow on the lower left corner of the p[...]
  • Katya Grokhovsky has been climbing up the ladder of success within the art world for the past five years. Most recently the School of the Art Institute of Chicago MFA graduate's work was featured in the Huffington Post in an article entitled “Ten Badass Emerging Female Artists You Should Know.” This coincides with Katya's work in the show Immediate Female is on display through March 8th at Judith Charles Gallery. It is Katya's tremendous work effort and the bold subjet matter of her art that is helping her to make waves. Currently Katya is the artist in residence and teaching assistant at the New York Studio Residency Program in DUMBO. She is also working with the Philadelphia based gallery and performance space Vox Populi as their curatorial fellow in addition to with her own online platform. I recently spoke with Grokhovsky about her work, feminism and where she thinks the role of interdisciplinary artists fits into today's ever evolving world. Anni Irish: What do you think it means to be an interdisciplinary artist in today's art world? Katya Grokhovsky: I am still grappling with the various labels attached to being an artist today. I see the term interdisciplinary even though I use it as a band aid--an explanatory metaphorical bridge for all the various mediums an artist utilizes in their practice. I am more inclined to think of disciplines as fluid, mediums as transitory, ideas as central and genres as limitless. AI: So do you think that means that labeling [...]
  • “Science, Fiction” is the latest show of video artist Diana Thater on view at David Zwirner's 533 West 19th street space. Thater who is one of the most influential artists working in film, video and installation today, has transformed the Zwirner gallery into a multimedia experience. Drawing on Thater's larger body of work which explores the interplay between mediated experiences and the natural world, “Science, Fiction” offers a fresh take on this subject matter. Thater who is no stranger to the art world, earned her BFA in Art History from New York University. She would go onto pursue an M.F.A at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. This is her eighth solo exhibition at Zwirner and her work as also been shown internationally. In the fall of 2015, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will be hosting a mid career survey of Thater's work. The show consists of two video pieces and an installation which take over the second half of the Zwirner gallery space. As you enter the space, The Starry Messenger and Sidereus Nuncius are shown on two large flat screen video pieces facing one another against opposite walls and give way to Thater's installation in the larger gallery space. The video work as well as the installation explore tension between the natural and constructed world. Thater's installation conjures up elements of sculptor Dan Flavin's work through her use of light boxes in various colors ranging from blue to green in the installation. The[...]