Galerie Richard – 121 Orchard Street – New York November 8th – December 10th 2017 A retrospective view of Joseph Nechvatal’s sensual works is at Jean-Luc Richard’s gallery on Orchard Street, located just above Kenmare in the LES. These soft richly textured surfaces and images are not hand made but conceived visually in digital territory. Three works from 2017 are …
Three Pulses: Ventiko, Fischer Cherry and Kennedy Yanko.
n the lead up to Art Basel Miami this year and every year for that matter, freelance art writers accumulate a plethora of urgent press materials advocating for why certain fairs cannot be missed, why their party will be the party, their activation, intervention, booth or installation the most memorable, salacious or avant-garde, and so on and so forth. Some …
The Ascent. | Thomas Yang.
The Ascent You pedal, you push, you pant, you press on, you never stop until you are at the peak. You ride higher, live louder, laugh harder, dream bigger. Your life takes you from one adventure to another. ust in time for the holiday shopping season, Thomas Yang (of 100 Copies) just released his latest print, The Ascent. Yang explains …
NSFW. | TRANS-Ville. | Catinca Tabacaru Gallery.
ast weekend, Catinca Tabacaru Gallery presented the second iteration of TRANS-ville. Curated by Milk & Night’s Coco Dolle, the event exhibited six performance art works involving installation art, sound pieces, body language and video projections. With an inter-sectional and inter-generational approach, Dolle mixed in conversations on gender politics, mythos, cross-cultural identity, inter-racial dynamics and transitional states of beings. Displayed in …
Insidious Beauty. | Valli Art Gallery.
If you are heading down to Miami for the upcoming Art Basel Miami Beach, or even just to escape the winter, be sure to head to Wynwood’s Valli Art Gallery to immerse yourself in the new exhibition from internationally regarded Italian multi-media artist, Chiara Dynys. Curated by famed Italian art critic Giorgio Verzotti, the show, titled ‘Insidious Beauty’ will be …
The Long Wet Grass. | Seamus Scanlon.
The resonance of tires against the wet road is a mantra, strong and steady. The wipers slough rain away in slow rhythmic arcs into the surrounding blackness. The rain falls slow and steady, then gusting, reminding me of Galway when I was a child where Atlantic winds flung broken fronds of seaweed onto the Prom during high tide. Before the …
Rashaad Newsome. | Running. | Park Avenue Armory.
n Tuesday night, November 7th, multi-media artist Rashaad Newsome unveiled the fruits of his Artists Studio residency at The Park Avenue Armory in back to back presentations of his stripped down and yet most emotionally evocative performance series yet: Running. Taking place inside the newly restored Veterans Room, “a monument of late 19th-century decorative arts” that combines multi-ethnic architectural influences …
Artists We Know: “The Water Carrier” | Profile Lucia Love.
elcome back to our fall edition of Artists We Know. For our second series of articles for Quiet Lunch, we will be serving both new and lesser-known artists as well as artists well into their respective careers. So without further ado: Our second article of this season profiles Lucia Love, a visual artist whose use of evolving story arcs beckons …
Like Lesser Gods. | Bruce McEver at the National Arts Club.
Quiet Lunch attended the historic National Arts Club in Gramercy Park on Friday evening, October 27th, to hear poet Bruce McEver read from his latest collection of work, Like Lesser Gods. Its not often we leave a poetry reading looking back over our shoulder hoping the poet might read one more poem for good measure, but Bruce McEver packs his works with …
Edo Ball x Season 2. | Andrew Archer.
With the NBA season starting this past week, Andrew Archer returns with season 2 of Edo Ball artworks. Andrew put in some big work over the off-season to create a new series of 10 artworks. Each artwork has a fresh new story and has been finished off in the iconic Edo—Ball style. This season features The Wolfpack, The Durantula and my personal …
A Matter of Dust.
Mike Weiss, the art dealer and former Chelsea gallery owner, liked to give out assigned seats at his more formal gallery opening-after-parties. I can’t remember which artist he was showing that evening roughly two years ago, or what restaurant it was, but I do remember being deliberately plunked down next to a charming young stranger with an infectious, liberally-used laugh, …
Ron Agam. | An Ode to Black and White.
“Color weakens”, Pablo Picasso. New York’s own Ron Agam strongly agrees. The internationally renowned artist, is widely acclaimed for his “furiously chromatic” geometric artworks. His artistic output successfully attempts to replace sensual pleasure with intellectual design, primarily through mesmerizing black and white acrylics atop low relief wood panels. His optical creations fit perfectly within the resurgence of Op and Kinetic …
Andy Cahill. | Home at SAFE Gallery.
stern figure sits at a dinner table which appears to be morphing into a face; a house grows ears; a smoker blows puffs out of a shirt sleeve; and a figure crawling on the ground, partially clothed with woolen socks and shirt, reaches toward a distant house. Pictorially grotesque, kaleidoscopic, psychedelic and dreamlike, Andy Cahill’s new show ‘Home’ at Brooklyn’s Safe Gallery will …
Titia Ex. | Light Art for the Common Good.
October 2017, Amsterdam- NL elebrated Dutch artist Titia Ex’s work is altruistic in its essence. Her dynamic, whimsical, site-specific light sculptures are carefully planned and created for public enjoyment. Her work affirms that art should be a common good, gratis and available to be experienced by all, regardless of one’s class or level of affluence. Public art is a leveler, …
From the Swiss Alps to New York & Back Again. | Quiet Lunch hits The Road with Billy the Artist.
God must live here. The magnificent mountains and valley of Valais, Switzerland.Valais, Switzerland– It is here where the highest ski slopes in the Swiss Alps, the iconic Matterhorn peak, beckon world-class snowboarders and skiers alike and where the historic River Rhône begins its portentous, serpentine descent from atop the Rhône Glacier in the northernmost part of the region, winding its …
Secret Dungeon. | Stamina.
t is entirely fitting that the current show exhibiting in the Bushwick space called Secret Dungeon is titled STAMINA. This two-woman show, curated by Alexandra Fanning, brings together two female artists from differing backgrounds exploring the universal psychological, social, and cultural ways of viewing and valuing the labor of women’s work. Thai-Australian performance artist Kawita Vatanajyankur, presents candy-colored films featuring …
Artists We Know Season 2: Who is David Byrd?
elcome back to our later summer/fall edition of Artists We Know. For our second series of articles for Quiet Lunch will be serving both new and lesser known artists as well as artists well into their respective careers. So without further ado: Our first article of this season profiles David Byrd, an artist since deceased whose oeuvre leaves an impression. …
Taxonomy of Transcendence. | The Subtle Triumph of Michael Carini.
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 …
Look At God. | Ty Odu.
I was digging around the interwebs and came across a dope visual piece called Black Goddess by Ty Odu. Check out his work on DeviantArt. Bim StarThis New York City native breathes the concrete jungle. From be a stylist and clothing designer who’s pieces has graced the silhouettes of fashionistas and socialites alike, to running the streets to get the …
Cabinets de Curiosités. | Peter Opheim at ROODGALLERY.
Red Hook’s newest gallery space, ROODGALLERY, has recently transformed into a fantastical shop-like space for strange figurines and looming paintings of unearthly creatures. Wunderkammer, a solo presentation of abstract-turned figurative painter Peter Opheim, utilizes the gallery’s unconventional space to transform into a fictional cabinets de curiosités incorporating Opheim’s monumental oil paintings with corresponding figurative sculptures. Quirkily presented within custom, handmade wooden vitrines, the space …
Summer Cool. | Group Show at Anna Zorina.
nna Zorina’s show is as jubilant as it is varied. Though two clusters of graphite angels might disagree, color and collage are the stars of Summer Cool. Here, a cardboard collage of a drunken-sailor type feels at home with a rendition of Magritte’s Son of Man done entirely in paint injected bubble wrap. More subtle work can be found in the …
Exploring Nature with Castor Gallery.
f you haven’t been wandering the Lower East Side Galleries, you may have missed something special at Castor Gallery on Broome Street. Nature, an exhibition of new work from Jeanette Hayes, Michael Manning, Austin Lee, Patrick Jacobs, Robert Lazzarini and Jonas Lund, explores art practice rooted in mathematics, algorithms, code and modern technology which continue to push the barrier on …
ISIS Bullet Hole Paintings. | Piers Secunda.
Artists are motivated to produce their work for myriad reasons. Few would take the risk of travelling to one of the world’s most dangerous places to do it. But for British artist-cum-sculptor Piers Secunda, a trip to the frontline of the fight against Isis was essential to his work. Secunda travelled to Iraq’s frontlines with Isis to take highly accurate …
NSFW | Scar. | An Le Studio.
Brooklyn based creative An Le‘s series, Scar, is a pleasantly painful body of work. Quiet LunchQuiet Lunch is a grassroot online publication that seeks to promote various aspects of life and culture with a loving, but brute, educational tinge. When we say, “Creative Sustenance Daily,” we mean it. quietlunch.com
Distorted Happiness. | Johan Wahlstrom at Georges Bergès Gallery.
t Georges Bergès Gallery, a work called Punch Them Hard, sequestered in the back room, is a left over from a recent era of the featured artist’s previous work. It combines a sea of faces representing the masses that provides a solid background pattern for foreground imagery that, unfortunately, seems all too fresh and vivid. In silhouette, anonymous thugs are …
ENDLESS: ‘Ordinary-Life Looping Machines’. | Moli Studio.
owadays it seems we are continually searching for an explanation to our issues, quests, challenges, or problems… only to find more clues, leads, or new information but without any closure. A Buenos Aires based visual studio called Moli Studio, released a video project called ENDLESS: ‘Ordinary-Life looping machines’, a 3D motion graphic story about the constant searching each of us are …
The Kids Are Alright. | Torrance Hall.
Today we’re having a look at the work of conceptual photographer Torrance Hall. Only 17 years-old, the young Richmond based shutterbug is producing some striking self portraits that has landed him on our radar. What intrigues us the most about Hall’s work is the vivid commentary on masculinity. Hall, with a soft but determined gaze, challenges the constructs of “manliness”—disputing …
NSFW | In the High Grass. | Jimmy Marble.
Check out this latest photo from Los Angeles based photog Jimmy Marble. Follow Jimmy Marble on Instagram Quiet LunchQuiet Lunch is a grassroot online publication that seeks to promote various aspects of life and culture with a loving, but brute, educational tinge. When we say, “Creative Sustenance Daily,” we mean it. quietlunch.com
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. | The Story of Bad Boy Records.
an’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story, a documentary putting a long awaited spotlight on the famed Bad Boy Records, was recently released on Apple Music. Now, if you are a fan of 90s hip hop, you know what the Bad Boy movement meant to that era and Black culture —hell, culture in general. Centered around a 2016 reunion …
Institute of Arab and Islamic Art in New York. | Inaugural Opening.
uring our coverage of Frieze Week this year, Quiet Lunch had the honor of attending the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art‘s Inaugural Opening in New York City. Qatar’s Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Al-Thani opened the IAIA in the Chinatown area of New York to raise awareness and challenge stereotypes of the Arab and Islamic worlds. Its first show features the …
Unnatural Selection. | Tara de la Garza at The Lodge Gallery.
ara de la Garza recently debuted her newest solo exhibition, Unnatural Selection, at The Lodge Gallery. Inspired by Nature’s potential, the west coast artist uses her exhibition to help us envision what it would be like if that very potential went unchecked—undisturbed by human interference. The result is a whimsical world of hybrid organisms, a library of awe-inspiring holistic hodgepodges pieced …
5 Black Superhero Movies That Came Before Black Panther.
Marvel’s Black Panther is set to make history upon its release next February. With the success of the Netflix series, Luke Cage, comic fans and moviegoers have been foaming at the mouth for a Marvel major motion picture in which the lead superhero is black. Well, Marvel did one better with Black Panther, by hiring a black director, Ryan Coogler (known …
Controversy & Politics (as Well as Some Art) at Documenta 14.
he two most famous things from Kassel Germany are the Brothers Grimm and the quinquennial art exhibition Documenta. This year these two cultural institutions have something in common, they both aim to frighten. At the opening press conference for Documenta 14 “Learning from Athens” the curatorial staff made it clear that this year’s event was going to be very political …
Breaking Free. | National Institute of Urban Art Presents “Uncontainable.”
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 …
Electoral Collages: An Interview with Isabella Huffington.
sabella Huffington’s self-titled art show at Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side could have been called Just Me or Nevertheless… or, in a decidedly more straightforward approach, Women in Politics and Power. It’s an overtly political show from someone who, as you may have already surmised, carries a weighty surname that has become synonymous with hard line, left-leaning political …
Watching TV at Fondazione Prada.
pening on May 8th, the launch of Francesco Vezzoli’s TV 70 at Fondazione Prada was, to a large extent, overshadowed by the Venice Biennale. With Prada’s presence in Venice this year, it is easy to miss what they are doing on their home turf in Milan. To do so, however, would be a pity. In collaboration with TV Channel La …
Manifesting the Meditative: In Conversation with Frodo Mikkelsen.
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 …
Just Sew You Know. | Mana Morimoto.
ana Morimoto is a Tokyo-based artist we discovered on tumblr back in 2013. In this series, Mana employed her textile embroidery technique over photographs to create modishly luring pieces using iconic black and white photography of rap icons Tupac and Biggie Smalls as well as the New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge. Hope you love it as much as we do. …
Venice Biennale 2017. | Viva Arte Viva: Profound Silence and Shiny Things.
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 …
Trending Now. | Frieze New York 2017.
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 …
Deep Frieze. | Quiet Lunch Guest.
eide Hatry’s stand was slapbang in front of the entrance to the Frieze tent. The German artist had a number of copies of her book, Icons in Ash, on a table, alongside an example of the work, portraiture of the departed, rendered in their ash. A few possible future clients were looking the work over. So into the fair. If Frieze …
50 Reasons To Voyage To Frieze New York.
Paul LasterPaul Laster is a writer, editor, independent curator, artist, and lecturer. He is a New York desk editor at ArtAsiaPacific and a contributing editor at artBahrain. He is a contributor writer to Time Out New York, New York Observer, Modern Painters, Cultured Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Galerie Magazine, ArtPulse, Glasstire and ConceptualFineArts.com → Click here for more. ← www.ConceptualFineArts.com
Painting the Absurd: the Engrossing, Grotesque Art of Aaron Johnson.
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 …
Spring is in the air: Ron Agam and Marco Casentini at GR gallery
winter’s snow fades from memory and flowers now blossom all over town, come celebrate spring in New York City with works by Ron Agam and Marco Casentini at GR gallery. GR gallery’s current exhibition, Incandescent Chromophilia, by Ron Agam and Marco Casentini perfectly encapsulates the spirit of spring. Vibrant, exhilarating hues seem to explode from reassuringly geometric shapes—a visual sampling …
Rise of a Realist Painter. | Works by Agnieszka Zak-Bielowa.
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 …