April Art Guide - New York

Recommendations of what to see in the New York art scene this month by our local guide, Maya Yadid. Discover more on a private art tour!

I.

Exhibition: Like Life: Sculpture, Color and the Body (1300 - Now)
Artists: Various Artists
Venue: The Met Breuer
Dates: Until July 22nd, 2018

'Like Life' displays a variety of human sculptures from varying periods, from modern times and dating all the way back to the 1300s. The exhibition's driving point is to show how people have depicted the human body in sculpture, specifically the level of realism and attention to detail. Rather than this being a single artist’s project, this is a group effort organized and hosted by The Met, including pieces on loan from the classic period of European-origin.

II.

Exhibition: Objects as Friends
Artists: Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys
Venue: Gavin Brown Enterprise
Dates: Until April 22nd, 2018

This art exhibition takes on a more traditional approach in its display media, hitting close to home with its subject matter. With over 300 color photographs, the artists follow the trail of discarded and broken objects, capturing every imperfection from their useless state. Gruyter and Thys have adapted the idea from the late Johannes, an old German painter from the later 1940s. 

III.

Exhibition: Spring Performance Festival
Artists: Various Artists
Venue: The MoMA PS1, Long Island
Dates: April 15th, 2018, 12 pm - 6 pm

With MoMA PS1 acting as an entertainment venue, the Spring Performance Festival hosts various artists work and performances such as plays, music, video productions and solo pieces. It’s backed by Secret Project Robot, an alternative artist community based in Brooklyn. Aside from the featured performances, there will be “pop-up” artists and performances as well. The entire venue hopes to encourage people to interact with their current world through a display of art. 

Take a private art tour in NYC to discover more!
 

February Art Guide - New York

Recommendations of what to see in the New York art scene this month by our local guide, Maya Yadid. Discover even more on a private tour.

I.

Exhibition: Ebecho Muslimova
Artist: Ebecho Muslimova
Venue: Magenta Plains
Dates: Through February 11th, 2018

Ebecho Muslimova is a New York-based artist who’s making strikingly graphic paintings and drawings spotlighting an alter ego named “Fatebe”, Muslimova’s a grinning, portly figure minimally rendered in sweeping black lines. Fatebe finds herself in various impossible situations like a genie inside a jar of coins and gagged by a stack of quarters, or poised as Narcissus over a pool of still water while folded into the angles of a laundry drying rack. Using minimalist, black and white graphic lines, Muslimova uses the female body as a malleable, expressive form to do with roasting shame and anxiety on a spit, every curve glistening. 

II.

Exhibition: Layota Rubi Frazier
Artist: Layota Rubi Frazier
Venue: Gavin Brown Enterprise
Dates: Through February 24th, 2018

Gavin Brown Enterprise in Harlem is showing a solo exhibition of artist and photographer, LaToya Ruby Frazier. Through photography, video, and performance Frazier explores social justice and cultural changes in America. In Frazier's own words: "Through photographs, videos, and text I use my artwork as a platform to advocate for others, the oppressed, the disenfranchised. When I encounter an individual or family facing inequality I create visibility through images and story-telling to expose the violation of their human rights." 3 bodies of work are presented in this show, Including Frazier's best-known body of work, The Notion of Family (2001-2014), which is an exploration into her family, her hometown, and her own experiences through landscape and portraiture in the deindustrialized steel town of Braddock, PA. 

III.

Exhibition: William Eggleston
Artist: William Eggleston
Venue: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Dates: February 14th until May 28th, 2018 

“Los Alamos,” the most famous body of work by William Eggleston will be on view at the Met. “Los Alamos,” which was created over a nine-year period, documents Eggleston’s journeys through the American South and West using color film for the first time in the history of fine art. 

The exhibition includes color studies made during numerous road trips with his friends Walter Hopps and Dennis Hopper—to New Mexico, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and elsewhere, as well as photographs of the social and physical landscape of the Mississippi delta region, which remains the artist’s home.

Take a tour in New York to discover more!

New York Art Guide - December

I.

Exhibition: David Hockney
Artist: David Hockney
Venue: The Met
Dates: Until February 26th, 2018

A retrospective of David Hockney at the Metropolitan Museum that explores 60 years of massive and diverse work by the great English-American painter. The show includes works from the early 60’s when Hockney was as a student at the Royal College of Art in London, His most famous paintings of L.A. leisure and good life scenes painted flat and geometrical. Collages from the 70’s and 80’s influenced by cubism are also included in this show and last but not least- his recent painting large, vibrant scenes of the Yorkshire countryside and his California garden that nod to the works of Van Gogh, Munch and Matisse.

II.

Exhibition: Whiteout
Artist: Erwin Redl
Venue: Madison Square Park
Dates: Until March 2018

This immersive art installation is made up of hundreds of transparent globes illuminated by white LED lights that are suspended two feet off the ground. The lights  are programmed to flutter in an odd way. Erwin Redl is an artist that uses LEDs as the main medium of his work. Redi was born in Australia and is currently living in the United States. His work includes installations, videos, graphics, computer art and electronic music.

III.

Exhibition: The Holiday Train Show
Venue: Bronx Botanical Garden
Dates: Until January 15th, 2018

The Holiday Train show at the Botanical Garden is truly something you won't forget. Every year, the garden celebrates its collection of crafted trains that chug along a nearly half-mile track followed by 150 miniature of NYC landmarks. Established in 1891, The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a National Historic Landmark that's 250-acre (100 ha) site's verdant landscape supports over one million living plants in extensive collections.

Take a tour in New York to discover more!

New York Art Guide - November

I.

Artist: Various Artists
Exhibition: Performa 17
Venue: various locations around New York City
Dates: Until November 19th, 2017

Performa is a performance Biennial held in NYC. Every other November, Performa Biennial is spread all over the city, featuring performances by acclaimed artist from around the world. This year, Performa will be focused on the use of live performance as central to artistic practice in African art and culture, the intersection of architecture and performance, and the hundred-year legacy of Dada. During Performa we reccomend seeing the Berlin based artist Kris Lemsalu in collaboration with NY based musician Kyp Malone and shows by Bryony Roberts, Mabel O. Wilson, and The Marching Cobras of New York.

II.

Artist: Jimmie Durham
Exhibition: Jimmie Durham: At The Center of the World
Venue: Whitney Museum
Dates: Until January 28th, 2017

Jimmie Durham, born in texas in 1940, has long claimed to be Cherokee but that claim has been denied by tribal representatives. Durham was active in different African American and Native American civil rights movements in the the 60’s and 70’s. In the late 70’s he turned back to art, moved to Mexico and then to Europe, where he lives and works to this day. He is described as having "made a career of being Cherokee with no known ties to any Cherokee community", although he was raised with Cherokee as a first language.  

Durham often combines organic materials, found objects, and text to reveal Western-centric views and prejudices hidden in language, objects, and institutions. At the Center of the World, will Trace 120 works in sculpture, drawing, collage, photography, video, and performance.

III.

Venue: Jane Hotel
113 Jane St, New York, NY 10014

A great match to your Whitney visit is this beautiful gem a the heart of Greenwich Village. The Jane Hotel is the inspiration of the the beloved Was Anderson’s Movie- Grand Budapest Hotel. Rumour has it that Anderson rented a room there for a whole year to study this magical place. It was originally established in 1908 as a hotel for sailors. The hotel boasts a colorful history, having once served as lodging for the fortunate survivors of the tragic demise of the Titanic! The Jane Hotel has a “secret” ballroom bar and a rooftop bar, serving high-end cocktails. This is a great spot to chill after an exhausting museum visit and enjoy the luxurious design of the place.

Take a tour with Maya in New York to discover more!

The 'Perpetual Becoming' of Yaacov Agam

“My aim is to show the visible as possibility in a state of perpetual becoming”

— Yaacov Agam

This month marks the official opening of the much anticipated Agam Museum in Rishon LeZion, Israel. David Nofar's 3200 square meter spacious building dedicated to the work of Yaacov Agam is well worth the wait.

The Pillars of Clilla

From the moment visitors step onto the grounds of the museum they are engulfed into the rainbow world of Agam. 'The Pillars of Clilla,' named for his late wife, includes 29 monumental columns (20 at the entrance and 9 inside the building) which make the distinction between indoors and outdoors inconspicuous. Meeting visitors in the courtyard, these columns transport them into the mind of Agam and lead them into the museum’s central space, which boasts his ‘panorAgam’ work, originally displayed on the bow at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 1981.

Agam is widely considered the father of kinetic art because of his early preoccupation with time and movement. Kinetic art is defined as art that relies on motion to create its desired effects. Agam’s work is concerned with the what he refers to as ‘the fourth dimension,’ which is the idea that time is visible within the artwork and the piece is not static. This element is broadly explored and thoroughly explained through the myriad of works in various mediums in the museum. 

In fact, without the active role of visitors the kinetic elements of Agam’s works would not be possible. Viewers cannot remain passive if they are to truly experience Agam’s art as he intended. His work requires you to be active physically, cognitively, and emotionally. This concept is better experienced than explained as the ‘perpetual becoming’ of Agam’s oeuvre reveals itself to viewers within the museum.

Agam’s signature style is well known to the Israeli public who would recognize his major works in Tel Aviv: the ‘Water and Fire’ fountain at Tzina Dizengoff Square and the facade of the Dan Hotel on the Tel Aviv Promenade. Yet, his work resonates on an international scale with non-Jewish communities. However, it would be negligent to discuss Agam without acknowledging his connections to Judaism. Born in Rishon LeZion in 1928, in what was then mandate Palestine, to a Kabbalist Rabbi father, spirituality and Torah teachings permeated his youth and stay with him to this day. Judaism forbids figurative artworks and since Agam is restricted in this way he uses abstract figures in his work to express the feelings of life. 

At 89 years old, Agam is embracing technology and is increasingly interested in applying his artistic principles to new medias. Through computers and applications he has created interactive works that activate the participants senses of touch, sight, and sound. This convergence of the senses breaths a new life into Agam’s work and keeps it relevant in the 21st century.

Abundant with Agam classics such as his signature ‘Agamographs,’ the museum provides a comprehensive look at his oeuvre that both longtime followers of his career and novice art fans will appreciate. As the director of the Agam Museum, Gilad Meltzer, explained, “In the spirit of the artist, a visit to the museum will encourage a multiplicity of views and points of view, emphasizing the universal language of art and the unique and groundbreaking qualities of his work.”

Agam Art Museum
1, Meishar St, Rishon LeTsiyon, Israel