June 2021 Happenings - Studio visits and a request to respond to the Met Museum's Documentary

 

Lord Frederic Leighton, Flaming June, 1895

Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce, Puerto Rico

Dear Friends,

June 2021 - how can that be?  Time seems to be speeding up since New York started to relax its Covid-19 restrictions and now, it's full speed ahead into summer. Yes, the weather hasn't been quite so summery this past week, but just wait: "flaming June" is on the way this weekend.

How will you stay cool?  Why not spend time with art?  Studio visits with social distancing and a Zoom lecture are listed below.  Plus - write to me about your memories of the Met.

Studio Visits:

Here are two opportunities coming up this Saturday and next Saturday:

Saturday, June 5, from 10 am - 3 pm:

Clay Art Center Spring Fest!

Clay Art Center, 40 Beech Street,  Port Chester, NY.

(914)937-2047

Pottery for sale, outdoors.  

Raindate: June 12

100% of the revenues will support the Clay Art Center.  

Also on view: raku firings and pottery wheel demonstrations.

Saturday, June 12, 1 - 5 PM

Wilhelmina Obatola Grant-Cooper

Sistaah Open Studio 

part of the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance Annual Uptown Arts Stroll

Masks and reservations required for social distancing.

Click on this link here to reserve your time slot

Award-winning artist and director of SISTAAH Wilhelmina Obatola Grant-Cooper invites you to her studio for a rare opportunity to see her artworks and meet the artist at the same time. (New York Arts Exchange members may remember Wilhelmina's work in the exhibitions Art Above the Sofa and Bosom Bodies)

Reservations are free and open to the public.

* * *

Zoom Lecture on Art:

Gerard Sekoto, The Proud Father, Manakedi Naky on Bernard Sekoto’s Knee, 1947

Thursday, June 17, 7 PM

"Fathers in Art," a slide lecture on Zoom

hosted by Byram Shubert Library, Greenwich, CT

Please register here

Beth Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D., lectures on the images of fathers in art history from Ancient Egypt to contemporary times.  One hour.  Free and open to the public, anywhere.

Memories of the Met:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1889, seen from

the Weston Wing

Metropolitan Museum of Art today

A bird's-eye view of the sculpture galleries

If you had been interviewed for this Met documentary, what would you say? 

PBS produced a three-part series "Inside the Met," which aired on May 21 and May 28. You can watch the documentary at this website address: Inside the Met

I would love to know what you thought of this series. 

Please share your reviews and your favorite memories of the Met through my email address: nyarts.exchange@verizon.net

Or post comments on our Facebook page (look for this blog post)

https://www.facebook.com/NYArts.Exchange/

Or respond directly to this email newsletter.

Thank you so much for any thoughts and memories you would like to share.

I'll be back soon with more info about artists and art, near and far.

Happy June!

Hugs,

Beth

Beth Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director and owner

New York Arts Exchange

Happy Mothering Day - Celebrating the Nurturing Spirit in Us All

Ebo People, Queen Mother Mask Pendant: Iyoba, 16th century, Benin

Metropolitan Museum of Art (to honor the mother of King/Oba Esigie, Idia)

Ancient Egyptian, Queen Hatshepsut, 1479-1459 BC, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty

Metropolitan Museum of Art  (First female pharaoh, stepmother of Thutmose III) 

Happy Mothering Day - 

Honoring our mothers, aunts, cousins, and friends;

the nurturing spirit within ourselves;

and our Mother Earth

Celebrate royally!

Love and hugs,

Beth and the New York Arts Exchange

A May Day 2021 Wish for You . . . .

Happy May Day!

"I bring  happiness"

In France, May Day brings gifts of lilies-of-the-valley called muguets to wish friends and family happiness in the year ahead.   

This year I found a new variation online:

"Happiness is not to have all you desire, 

but that all you desire is what you have"

Whichever sentiment you choose, may you spend this day ruminating on the goodness that life brings to you and may goodness embrace you forever.

Bonne Fête - Happy May 1st and International Labor Day -

With love and warm wishes on this brisk spring day -

Beth and the New York Arts Exchange

 

Michael Richards' Exhibition Curators' Virtual Tour on Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at 7 pm

 

Michael Richards, Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian, from the Tuskegee Airmen series, 1999

Please join us for the curators' virtual tour of

Michael Richards: Are You Down?

an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami

at 7 pm, Wednesday, April 28, 2021

with curators Melissa Levin and Alex Fialho

To register, click on this link

I hope you will be able to attend,

Beth and the New York Arts Exchange

Spring 2021 Greetings - Happy Holidays

Charles Ethan Porter, Peonies in a Bowl, 1885

Happy Passover

and

Happy Easter

Sending you best wishes for the Spring - 

May you enjoy good health and holiday pleasures

Love and hugs,

Beth and the New York Arts Exchange

 

Studio Visit on Zoom with artist Wilhelmina Obatola Grant-Cooper hosted by Greenwich Arts Council - Free!

Wilhelmina Obatola Grant-Cooper 

Please join us for a Studio Visit with

artist Wilhelmina Obatola Grant-Cooper

hosted by Greenwich Arts Council

on 

Wednesday, March 10th at 7 pm

Registration is Free

Register here

Artist and art instructor Wilhelmina Obatola Grant-Cooper will welcome us to her studio via Zoom to share her artworks, process and story.  She is a cancer survivor, who discovered her artistic calling through healing.  We will have a powerpoint presentation followed by a Q and A. Beth Gersh-Nešić, director of the New York Arts Exchange, will conduct the interview

.

Wilhelmina Obatola Grant-Cooper in her studio

Ms. Grant-Cooper founded SISTAAH, Inc. (Survivors Inspiring Sisters Through Art and Advocacy for Health), an arts-based non-profit organization which seeks to inform, encourage and facilitate access to early detection of breast cancer by connecting the medically underserved to free screening services. Through SISTAAH, Inc.,  she also launched two successful grant-funded community art projects: Saving Our Sisters in the African American Community, and the Harlem Hand Fan Initiative.

Ms. Grant-Cooper creates assemblages using mixed-media and found objects which she repurposes into visual art.  Among her collectors are  Alice Walker, President Bill Clinton, Vy Higginson, Hoda Kotb, Hamilton Landmark Galleries, Heath Gallery and Universal Studios. 

Her memoir A Feeling of Fullness: Insights of a Divinely Guided Journey Beyond Breast Cancer (2016) is available on her website:  https://sistaah.org/

I look forward to seeing you on Zoom this Wednesday evening.

Happy International Women's Day,

Beth

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director and owner

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com

 

 

Celebrating Women's History Month: Our Art Salon on March 3rd, Zoom at 7 pm: A Feminist Monument in Central Park

Vinnie Bagwell, Victory Beyond Sims, model 2020

Come join us for tonight's 

Art Salon

Wednesday, March 3rd

7 pm

Hosted by Greenwich Arts Council

(write to nyarts.exchange@verizon.net for the Zoom link)

Sculptor Vinnie Bagwell unveiled her model for a new monument in Central Park at the Hudson River Museum in September 2020, as part of the exhibition Women at the Fore, September 18, 2020 through January 3, 2021.  Although the in-person experience has closed, the virtual experience remains available online on the Hudson River Museum's website. 

Our Art Salons, hosted by the Greenwich Arts Council on Zoom, have focused on the entire exhibition of one subject (Félix Fénéon at MoMA, closed on January 2, 2021) and one artist's singular series of paintings (Jacob Lawrence: American Struggle at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 29 through November 1, 2020).

Tonight's Art Salon takes its content from Women at the Fore, a group exhibition of 40 women artists from the 19th through 21st centuries.  However, the sheer vastness of the show, which happily introduced numerous lesser-known women artists in addition to the famous Mary Cassatt, Georgia O'Keeffe and Miriam Shapiro, felt overwhelming as I tried to figure out a way to pull a thread through this one topic: women artists.  The subject matter seems fairly female, but not compelling enough to generate a coherent discussion among us all.

Vinnie Bagwell interview on Youtube

To that end, I decided to focus on one topic introduced into the narrative of this feminist exhibition: 

Vinnie Bagwell's Victory Beyond Sims, which will replace the J. Marion Sims statue in Central Park. Sims was a 19th century gynecologist who experimented on enslaved Black women. Born in South Carolina, he remained loyal to the Confederacy, even while he lived in New York, where he died in 1880.  The statue by German sculptor Ferdinand Freiherr von Miller was installed in Bryant Park in 1894 and then moved to Central Park in 1934. It was taken down from its place in Central Park on April 17, 2018, following the protests motivated by the publication of exposés on Sims' abusive medical practices in  2017.

Our discussion will focus on Vinnie Bagwell's sculptures, the iconography of Victory Beyond Sims, and the feelings we have toward public monuments in the 2021 century.  

Videos on the sculptures by Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley will be viewed and discussed as well.

Please join us at 7 pm this evening.  I look forward to sharing a lively conversation with you on this timely topic.

Best wishes,

Beth

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com