Last Call: "She - Deconstructing Female Identity" at the Arts Exchange in White Plains, closing June 25

Nancy Davidson, Netella, 1998 (right) and Maebe, 1994 (center)

at She in the Arts Exchange

She: Deconstructing Female Identity will close Saturday, June 25th with an exciting "finissage" of artists' talks and craft beer tasting.  If you have not seen this truly excellent show - hurry! Open today from 12-5 pm and tomorrow 12 - 8 pm.  The festivities start at 5 pm.

Laurel Garcia Colvin, Beyond a Room of Our Own, 2016, installation

The real heart and soul of the show seems to emanate from Laurel Garcia Colvin's Beyond a Room of Our Own, invoking Virginia Woolf's long essay beseeching society to support women writers.  Here the room celebrates great contributors to the arts with 18th-century Rococo-esque blue and white motifs that grace chairs, wallpaper and framed group portraits  On the floor you can nestle into a comfy pouf to read several books on feminist subjects scattered at your feet.  Colvin said that the books will be donated to White Plains Public Library after the exhibition closes.  

 Laurel Garcia Colvin, Sampler in Beyond a Room of Our Own, 2016

Works are by Nicole Awai, Valerie Piraino, Laurel Garcia Colvin, Mari Ogihara, Nancy Davidson, Kathy Ruttenberg, Marcy B. Freedman, Barbara Segal, Debbie Han, Tricia Wright, and Rebecca Mushtare.

Don't miss this last opportunity to see this insightful and fun visual essay on the feminine mystique in our time.

The Arts Exchange - Bank Room Gallery is located on street level in the ArtsWestchester Building, 31 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains, New York.


Best wishes for the weekend,
Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.
Director
New York Arts Exchange
www.nyarts-exchange.com 

ARTISTS:

Last Call: Cardiff and Miller, Cindy Sherman, Carmen Herrera closing on Saturday, June 11 - plus Asya Reznikov extended to July 1; Serra through July 29

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, The Marionette Maker, 2014

 Luhring Augustine, 531 West 24th Street

Spent a fabulous day in Chelsea yesterday, after a long period of not being able to get down there. A few shows will close this weekend - so please try to see them today or tomorrow.

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, "The Marionette Maker," at Luhring Augustine.  So much fun -  camper filled with fantastic creatures playing as a woman sleeps and sound effects in the gallery make you feel as though you are somewhere else.  Listen for the plane overhead (I forgot that I wasn't up on Purchase College campus, where hearing planes overhead is normal).  

Their work gets better and better - this show is outstanding!

And while you are on West 24th, look for Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures.

Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures, 519 West 24th Street

Once again Sherman disguises herself as older women.  This time she inhabits the well-to-do in different circumstances during the 1920s.  Now that a 68 year old grandmother is running for president, this show may have more resonance, but sadly it is not going to be around for the general election. Cindy Sherman is 62.

Carmen Herrera at Lisson Gallery, 504 West 24th Street

And speaking of age, no one inspires me more than Carmen Herrera. Born in 1915 in Cuba, she developed her hard-edge style in 1950, well in advance of Frank Stella, Kenneth Nolan, and Elsworth Kelly of the 1960s.  The current show at Lisson Gallery's new New York venue (just opened in May) is thrilling! Herrera currently lives in NYC. On May 31, she turned 101. She sold her first painting in 2004, at age 89.

Asya Reznikov, Wet Bar, 2016

Nancy Hoffman Gallery, 520 West 27th Street

Also -  Asya Rezikov at Nancy Hoffman Gallery has been extended to the end of June.  The artist is 43.  Her exhibition is about her pregnancy at 39-40.

Richard Serra's massive sculptures are at Gagosian on West 21 and West 24th - open through July 29: Astounding!   He may be the greatest artist of our time. And only 76.  I wonder what he will produce at 101?

Will keep you posted on great exhibitions this summer.
Enjoy!
Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic Ph.D.
Director
New York Arts Exchange
www.nyarts-exchange.com

Chizuru Morii Kaplan - Studio Visit

Dreamy cityscapes and landscapes abound in Chizuru Morii Kaplan's studio on the Upper, Upper Eastside, often known as Spanish Harlem.  It's a bustling building full of exciting art - and lovely artists.  Today I am highlighting one and will post others in the near future.

Here are details from buildings not far from the Musée d'Orsay, which I'll look for during my week in Paris.  Wondrous in their evocative interpretation, the face of the woman seems to come from the recesses of our memory.  This appeal to our collective reserves of past experiences is the great force that keeps us looking, studying Kaplan's work.  Always a pleasure to pour over, searching for clues that connect these places to our own lives.

Chiruru Morii Kaplan is a Japanese architect and interior designer, who has free-lanced in Toyko, Chicago and New York, working for several major firms such as I. M. Pei, Edward Larrabee Barnes and Junzo Sakakura.  She transitioned into producing art full time less than ten years ago, having studied at the Arts Students League with the celebrated watercolorist Paul Ching-Bor since 2007.

Recently, I posted news of her last exhibition at Hubert Gallery. I will send out information about her exhibition in June within the next few weeks.

Best wishes for the week,

Beth New York

Please follow me on Twitter and Instagram as Beth New York

On Facebook please follow the New York Arts Exchange

Beth S.Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D

Director

New York Arts Exchange

Mother's Day 2016

Grant Wood, Hattie Weaver Grant, 1929

Happy Mother's Day to you and yours.  This blog post is dedicated to my mother, Mildred Gersh, who gave me a love for art through our many visits to museums.  Thank you, Mom.

Please make visits to museums a frequent and pleasant experience for your family.  Take your children and grandchildren to a museum for a short time - an hour or so.  Not too long.  Just enough time to whet the appetite for more, another day. 

Also, have the children select a reproduction in the bookstore as a souvenir of the trip to the museum. The purchase not only supports the museum, it also extends the experience past the doors of the museum and into one's personal space, one's comfort zone.

I urge you to frame these museum reproductions so that they hang in the child's bedroom, creating a personal connection that will last a lifetime.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuytgbrouch. van Rijn, 1629

Rembrandt's mother's face is familiar to us through other works wherein she served as his model.

Vincent van Gogh, Anna Cornelia Carbentus van Gogh, 1888

Almost smiling, Anna van Gogh seems to listen intently.  She provided solace for her son when he was at odds with his father. An artist in her own right, she too studied art and drew plants and flowers in notebooks. 

Andy Warhol, Julia Justine Zavacka Warhola, 1974

Julia Warhola is truly the Mother of Pop Art.  Her charming European script graces most of Andy Warhol's early works, such as the greeting cards and clever books. Examples of her work are currently on view at the Morgan Library in the exhibition Warhol by the Book, closing on May 15th. 

For other artists' mothers place click on this link.  

And please check out our Mother's Day Special: private tours for $250 per group, if you book by June 1st. Tours will be conducted this summer.  Reservations at nyarts.exchange@verizon.net

Happy Mother's Day to you and yours - 

Beth New York

Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director

New York Arts Exchange.

Last Call: Miriam Schapiro, A Visionary, at the National Academy through May 8th.

Miriam Shapiro and Sherry Brody, Dollhouse, 1972

Miriam Schapiro (1923 - 2015) was one of the founding member of the Feminist Art Program at California Institute of the Arts (CalState), in Los Angeles, in 1971, based on the Women's Art Program at Fresno State College, founded in the previous year.  Schapiro and Judy Chicago (b. 1939) led the team of artists who created Womanhouse (1972) with Faith Wilding, Mira Schor, among dozens of others. Miriam Schapiro was a major influence on the feminist art movement, earning this activist artist a permanent place in art history as a trailblazer and visionary (hence the title of the show).

Miriam Schapiro, Lady Gengi's Maze, 1979

The current retrospect at the National Academy Museum and School summarizes her characteristic contributions. Beginning with her early Abstract Expressionist work that transitioned into her hard-edge Shrine series, this modest selection of her works serves as a fitting memorial for this a highly gifted artist who also ushered in the Pattern and Decoration Movement.   

Miriam Schapiro, My History, 1987

Sadly, the National Academy has announced that it will close permanently on June 1st, explained by the director Maura Reilly on its Museum. Therefore, please make a special effort to visit this marvelous Miriam Schapiro show accompanied by three other fine exhibitions:

An American Collection, through May 8th

Method Order Metrics, through May 8th

Tony Rosenthal, Alamo, 1967 (model for the Astor Place "cube")

And Contemporary Highlights from the Collection, through May 8th

The National Academy was founded in 1825 by American Academy artists Asher B. Durand, Samuel F. B. Morse, Thomas Cole, Rembrandt Peale and Ithiel Town.  At first homeless, its original home was on Fourth Avenue and 23rd Street in late 1800s.  Then it sold the building to Met Life in 1899, was homeless again and then moved into the Archer Milton and Ann Hyatt Huntington mansion on Fifth Avenue between 89th and 90th Streets in 1942. Time to move on again . . . . .

Happy May Day -  and please follow us on Intagram  and Facebook :)

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director, New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com

Last Call: Masako Inkyo and Chizuru Morii Kaplan, through April 30

Masako Inkyo, Momiji (Maples Leaves), 2015

Nothing lasts forever. We know this all too well, particularly now with the devastating effects of two recent earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador, and the sudden death of rock-star icon Prince.

Utsuroi in Japanese means transitions.  Loss forces us into transition - as shock and mourning process the irreversible.  Utsuroi Transitions is the title of Masako Inkyo's current exhibition at Anderson Chase Gallery in Goldens Bridge, NY.   Originally dedicated to seasonal change (autumn, winter, spring and,summer), today the exhibition addresses so much more.

Chizuru Morii Kaplan, Beach Lane, East Hampton III, 2016

Chizuru Morii Kaplan too invokes a sense of utsuori in her exhibition of landscapes at Hubert Gallery in Manhattan.  Here she reflects on the transience of time, nature, and perception. Breathtaking in size and scope, these paintings capture atmospheric instability, The Emergent Image (which is the title of this group show with Elizabeth Allison and Kathryn Keller Larkins). While these images seem to "emerge," the artists provide us with an opportunity to contemplate  transitional, ephemeral phenomena, such as light, clouds and weather.  We savor the fleeing in an ocular embrace.

Masako Inkyo: Utsuroi Transitions, Anderson Chase Gallery, 65 Old Bedford Road, Golden's Bridge, NY

Chiruzu Kaplan's participation in The Emergent Image: Land, Sea and City, Hubert Gallery, 1046 Madison Avenue, New York, NY. ,

Both close on Saturday, April 30th.   Please check the galleries' websites for details. 

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director, New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com

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

Passover and Orthodox Easter Greetings!

The Golden Haggadah, c. 1320

Greetings for Passover and Eastern Orthodox Easter (May 1, 2016).  

Please click on the title"The Golden Haggadah" below the image in order to learn more about Passover and this beautiful Gothic illuminated manuscript.

As for the perennial question: Was the Last Supper a seder?  Most scholars agree that indeed it was a meal taken during the week of Passover, described in the Gospel of  Mark (14:12): "the first day of the unleavened bread."

Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, c. 1495-8

However, it was probably not a seder (the order), as we know it today, set down in the Haggadah developed during the Middles Ages.  (The oldest fragments of a Haggadah date to 200 CE/AD and many medieval haggadot survive from the 13th through 15th centuries.)

Leonardo animates Jesus' question "Who among you will betray me?"  And the disciples answer through their gestures:  "Are you talking about me?"  "Or him?" The lively gestures remind us of our modern seders, which invariably entertain questions about procedures, customs, tradition and new additions.    

A Ziessen Pesach - Happy Passover.
And best wishes for Orthodox Easter,

Beth New York and the New York Arts Exchange

Sources:

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/was-jesus-last-supper-a-seder/  

http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/passover/passover-seder-meal.html
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-last-supper-a-Passover-seder-348420
http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/2013/coo378022.shtml