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Flexing on Commercialism: “Re-Engineering Humanity” Featuring Marjan Moghaddam

In The Menu by Audra LambertLeave a Comment

“On the other hand, the rampant privatization of intellectual content, along with online marketing and commodification, also enable piracy and appropriation; it gives rise to the circulation of poor images.” – Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image In Re-Engineering Humanity curated by Lady PheOnix (sic) and organized by yesuniverse, at 836M gallery in San Francisco, art on view …

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“May You Live In Interesting Times” Venice Biennale National Pavilions: On Empathy

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra LambertLeave a Comment

The human body with its presence, absence, and agility define the most visceral and accessible national pavilion presentations at the 58th Venice Biennale. Titled “May You Live in Interesting Times” and curated by Ralph Rugoff, this biennale was split between Rugoff’s curatorial conceit and the various country’s presentations at both the Giardini and Arsenale sites of the Biennale. This year’s iteration met with several own challenges: for example, despite committing to the biennale both Algeria and Venezuela failed to open …

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Worlds Without Rooms: Otherworldly Vignettes by Alannah Farrell

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Perspectives and dimensions dissolve, disappearing into the shadows before re-emerging into the picture plane in Alannah Farrell’s highly stylized, emotive “Worlds Without Rooms.” This exhibition, on view at The Painting Center in New York City’s iconic Chelsea neighborhood through April 20, features Farrell’s recent works which shift from allusion to representation and back again. Portraits of creative juggernauts fill the …

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For The People: Akumal Arts Festival Takes Off in Mexico.

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra LambertLeave a Comment

A dusty town on the Yucatan peninsula is probably not the first place the average art lover would visit for a world-renowned urban art experience. Yet from November 9th through 11th, 2018 the Akumal Arts Festival (Festival de Arte de Akumal) brought renowned international street artists from as far away as the UK and Japan to Akumal, Mexico: creating a giant open-air museum on …

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Desire, Androgyny, and the Works of Andrea Rugarli

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A stolen, wayward glance captivates those who gaze at Rugarli’s figures. Open lips evoke a languid expression, catching the viewer’s eye. These careful body language cues form the conduit of desire in the soft-focus, figurative paintings of Andrea Rugarli. Outlining his forms with the soft haze of obsession, and a soupçon of forbidden desire, figures in Rugarli’s works claim the …

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Limitless Potential: Liminality at THE BORDER

In Visual Arts by Audra LambertLeave a Comment

An alchemy of sorts permeates works on view in Liminality, currently on view at the groundbreaking new project space, THE BORDER, at the 56 Bogart building in Bushwick. Charting the uncertain precipice between being and transforming, Liminality features artists John Drue Scott Worrell, Frank Wang Yefeng, and Jamie Martinez working in mixed media to evoke an uncanny and genre-bending surrealism. …

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Taxonomy of Transcendence. | The Subtle Triumph of Michael Carini.

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra Lambert

ncountering the works of artist Michael Carini, visionary is the most apt adjective that comes to mind. The evocative transcendence of Carini’s potent style, a blend of abstract expressionism and an urban art aesthetic, is immediately apparent. Few artists working today embody the distilled purity of emotional expression in their work that Carini effortlessly exudes through his paintings. What sets the …

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Breaking Free. | National Institute of Urban Art Presents “Uncontainable.”

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra Lambert

n Friday, June 9th the revolutionary new National Institute of Urban Art will open its first exhibit featuring artworks by Swoon, Logan Hicks, Revok, Invader, Brian Adam Douglas (/ELBOW- TOE), Shepard Fairey, RETNA, and more. This exhibition, “Uncontainable: Urban Art from Vandalism to Movement”, opens from 5 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. in partnership with the Thomas Center Galleries, 302 NE …

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Manifesting the Meditative: In Conversation with Frodo Mikkelsen.

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra Lambert

ew artists encapsulate the saying “there’s more than meets the eye” than artist Frodo Mikkelsen, whose subtle explorations of nature and the human psyche captivate endlessly. With an interdisciplinary practice spanning painting, sculpture, graffiti and mixed-media, Mikkelsen’s works propose a world simultaneously visceral and logic-defying. Themes of mortality contrast with the eternal, recalling a poignant sense of the fleeting transience …

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Venice Biennale 2017. | Viva Arte Viva: Profound Silence and Shiny Things.

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra Lambert

n a rapidly expanding world facing the residual effects of post-truth and social media oversaturation, 57th Venice Biennale curator Christine Macel (from the Centre Pompidou in Paris) had her work cut out for her. For Viva Arte Viva, Macel’s curated portion at the Arsenale and Giardini for the 2017 Biennale, the curator adopted an esoteric worldview. Her curatorial hand revealed …

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Trending Now. | Frieze New York 2017.

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra Lambert

hokers, The Met Ball, Frieze New York 2017… Sorry, you distracted me while I was making my list of things all the cool kids are doing lately. Frieze NY this year is so cool (but not trying too hard to be, obv) and topical this year that it is… impossible to ignore. Not quite Pepsi commercial-level topical (although almost—looking at …

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Painting the Absurd: the Engrossing, Grotesque Art of Aaron Johnson.

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra Lambert

eeking a detailed, unsettling antidote to minimal art? You can’t do much better than the exciting expressionist art of Aaron Johnson. Gone Fishin’, the current exhibition of Johnson’s work, is on view through May 20th at Joshua Liner gallery in Chelsea (Manhattan). Works in the show take painting as a common medium, covering themes as mundane and elevated as cheeseburgers …

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Rise of a Realist Painter. | Works by Agnieszka Zak-Bielowa.

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra Lambert

ssiduously painted patterns decorate scarves hearkening to vibrant symbols of identity. Colors and intricate detail permeate the paintings of fabric in motion. These incredible realist paintings are by Agnieszka Żak-Bielowa, the renowned Polish artist whose distinct painting style has earned her accolades throughout Europe. Incorporating realist and pop stylings, Żak-Bielowa will be showing in NYC during a rare exhibit period …

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Aesthetics of Contemporary Feminism at Milk and Nigh​t’s Black Mirror: 13 Artists ​Spring/Break Art Show 2017.

In The Menu, Visual Arts by Audra Lambert

ysmorphic self-portraits jostle for attention with segmented body parts, limbs immersed in nature, and partially obscured studio portraits in sumptuous settings. Yet at no point in the visit to Milk and Night’s Black Mirror: 13 Artists are visitors overwhelmed. Delicately encircling the (at times) amorphous platform that is contemporary feminism, ranging from the highly conceptual to the macabre, Black Mirror: …