by Julia John
Paintings of mothers cradling their babies in a Mother Mary-type fashion. Doll heads covered, decorated in gold. At ‘The 2013 NYC Mom Show’ there are several pieces that seek to intrigue mothers and general viewers alike.
Curated by John C. Kuchera, the exhibition features a wide array of artists contributing their own insights into the interpretation of what it means to be a mother. Kuchera started the Mom Show as a traveling exhibition and it is expected to grow over time as artists are added. Kuchera hopes it will eventually evolve into a global exhibition with a grand closing reception on Mother’s Day in Washington, D.C., at the National Archives.
Luis Alves was one of the participating artists present to discuss his work. Alves describes one of his pieces being clearly influenced by pop culture. The piece showcases a magazine cover image of Britney Spears carrying one of her toddler sons on her hip with a headline screaming, “Pregnant again!”
This is a perfect opportunity for a pre-Mother’s Day exploration. View the various interpretations, visions, and experiences of mothers (maybe even with your own mother!). The Mom Show runs through May 12, concluding with a sketch circle that’s open to the public.
Location: chashama 461 Gallery
461 West 126th Street, Harlem, NY
http://www.chashama.org/event/the_2013_nyc_mom_show
by Julia John
The opening of Vanishing Anatomies by Alicia DeBrincat and Johnny Thornton was well attended in chashama’s Harlem gallery space located at 461 West 126th Street.
The artists have known each other from the Parson’s School of Design and noticed they use similar concepts and style, and thought they should make use of it.
The works displayed in the gallery are purposely untitled, as DeBrincat explains, “We wanted the works to flow, as well as conversations about them.” Both DeBrincat and Thornton use repeating characters in their works. “In my work it’s me and in Alicia’s it’s this sort of Everyman character,” Thornton said.
Their use of highly expressive lines and curiosity to explore how 3D can be represented differently in painting is a defining feature of their joined exhibition.
Vanishing Anatomies can be enjoyed through April 27, 2013. http://www.chashama.org/event/vanishing_anatomies
Hello from SCOPE New York!
As you can see we are in the process of setting up our booth and installing artwork.
We’ll be exhibiting 2 featured artists, along with a curated selection of work from artists who have participated in the chashama Studio Program.
Anyone and everyone should check out SCOPE this year if they have the chance. Great people, radical art, and an amazing space!
This year, SCOPE New York is being held at the James Farley Post Office (Moynihan Station) across from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. The building itself is quite impressive. A massive 8-acres, occupying two full city blocks.
Once inside, the maze-like hallways of the building create a fantastical charm. It’s hard to put into words, so you’ll just have to come experience it for yourself!
That’s all we’ll say for now. Hope to see you this weekend! (Booth C23!)
by Julia John-Scheder, contributing writer
The chashama gallery space at 303 Tenth Avenue was packed on the night of the New York Foundation of the Arts’s closing reception of After Affects.
23 artists whose workspace was affected by Hurricane Sandy had been supported by NYFA’s Emergency Relief Fund to show their work, with a portion of sales benefiting the artists.
The artists expressed their ambivalent feelings of the effects of the storm. Despite the destruction of (sometimes) a whole lifetime’s worth of work, something good came out of it.
Brandon Emerick, a participating artist and Red Hook resident, spoke about his experience during Hurricane Sandy and the art work resulting from it. The photograph titled Election Day captured how people came together during a tough time in the city, where empathy is usually hard to find, according to Emerick. “I walked through the neighborhood during the days after Sandy and took pictures on my iPhone,” Emerick said when asked about how the picture came to be. Now, the artist seems to rethink what possessions mean to him, especially after losing everything, but his chocolate labrador, Oberon. “I’m not even sure if I want any stuff anymore. It’s not worth the heartbreak of losing it.”
Deborah Luken, a Long Beach, Long Island resident, lost power for two weeks after the storm hit. When she came back to her studio she saw the damage of over hundreds of her paintings. Luken said she used part of the NYFA grant for restoration of her paintings at the Cultural Recovery Center in Brooklyn. Her painting at After Affects had been a project she had started before the storm. She found it in her studio, standing on an easel, almost unaffected by the storm. The image of a spiral galaxy she had had in mind was reformed into resembling the eye of the superstorm. “Patterns in nature repeat themselves,” Luken said.
The Emergency Relief Fund was administered by NYFA to assist artists with damages and losses as a result of Hurricane Sandy. chashama generously donated the gallery space to make this exhibition possible and support the NYFA Emergency Relief Fund.
by Julia John-Scheder
February 1, 2013, 6-8pm
Last Friday, Ryan Haselman’s impressive sculpture at chashama 266 received several intrigued gazes during its closing reception. A group of four circled Haselman to ask about his inspiration and whether the sirens he used would still be able to produce sounds. “They do,” says Haselman, while further explaining that the federal 2t22 sirens are originally from a disassembled pole in a rural part of Illinois.
The decision to let the sculpture stand by itself, titled only with “The Reformer” and no additional text to explain Haselman’s creation, was a conscious one. “I wanted people to come up with their own stories,” says Haselman.
The pictures in the background were also carefully chosen to reflect “what New York really is,” and all photographs were taken of statues only within NYC. Haselman asked himself what the statue could mean to the collective consciousness of the respective neighborhood it was in. As it reads in Haselman’s statement: “With my work I have sought to interrogate the aesthetic and spatial choices within the politics of memory through tracing the boundaries of the objects themselves as a way to uncover the politics of representation and display. At the center of my project is the question of how these objects represent and tell a particular narrative about our own national history. “
Since the inception of Haselman’s project last winter, he has discovered that there are only 5 female statues across the city.
