A graduate of Yale, terracotta sculptor Judy Fox now lives in Rhinebeck in the Hudson Valley. But she also teaches in New York City at the New York Academy of Art. Her clay sculptures, treated with casein paint, include such oddities as a pair of small broccoli heads, connected by a thick stalk traveling down the middle. The smaller connections between stalk and head create something very like a lung system in dark green. Then there is the pepper taken over by swathes of subtle color, or the parsnip, parted into two segments and painted an off-white—all are examples of Fox’s expertise.
Read MoreIn Alan Alda’s movie The Four Seasons (1981), which is about three couples who’ve vacationed together for years, one of the wives is a photographer who’s made a specialty of shooting vegetables. It’s meant to express her ennui, the vegetative state of her marriage, but the idea, à la Irving Penn, has legs. I thought of this in light of “Judy Fox: Harvest,” an exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery. Here are more vegetables, but they are made of terra-cotta and casein paint, and they speak to our current moment, when humanity is finally feeling the backlash generated by two centuries of Earth abuse. Lungs that look like old broccoli (but also the forests that give us oxygen, if only we would stop cutting them down). A hand that could be a squash, but either way it’s blighted. A human head that’s as blind as a potato. Fox’s work is botanical, surreal, and prophetic—a disorienting harvest. —Laura Jacobs
Read MoreClosing Sept. 30 is “Hung Liu and Rene Yung, The Vanishing: Re-presenting the Chinese in the American West,” an exhibition that melds two touring shows and offers multiple perspectives on a nearly forgotten aspect of Western history.
While most people probably have some vague knowledge that Chinese immigrants played a role in this country’s Western expansion, the depth of their involvement will likely surprise most viewers.
Read MoreAs Don Eddy said in 1972, ‘The idea of being photographic or true to life doesn’t really interest me. It’s the references between what we know, what we see, what we think we see and what’s there, between the surface of the canvas and the illusion in the canvas.’
Read MoreArt Fairs
Three Generations of Feminist Artists Convened in Miami to Launch a Participatory NFT Project and a Reproductive Rights Protest
Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova teamed up with Judy Chicago and Michele Pred on a pair of empowering Miami Art Week events.
Read MoreOakland-based Swedish-American artist Michele Pred achieved notoriety in the early 2000s for her conceptual sculptural installations of items like Swiss Army knives and manicure scissors confiscated by airport security. Pred’s witty and dramatic work, with a strong Pop-inflected emphasis on bright colors and geometry, clearly hit a nerve.
Read MorePainter Frank Owen, now eighty-three, is still making dramatic and complex works charged with spontaneous gestures, bold geometric forms, and surprising juxtapositions of luminous color. One is supposedly less active and able in old age, but not Owen, as the paintings in “Retrospection,” his solo presentation at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, clearly affirm.
Read MoreEquality of Rights
At Nancy Hoffman Gallery
Closing reception at Nancy Hoffman gallery: October 28th, 5-7 pm
“Abortion is Healthcare” performance 10.28, 1 pm at the Brooklyn Musuem
In the wake of the mid-term election, California-based conceptual artist and feminist activist Michele Pred organized a complexe art scenario comprising of a solo exhibition, performances and billboards around the country to question the suppression of women’s rights and inspire people to vote for legal abortion.
Read MoreArtists Support the Ongoing Need for Abortion Access in a New Benefit Auction
In the months since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, people across the country have seen their access to abortion healthcare disappear as states continue to enact strict restrictions and complete bans on the procedure. While shockwaves reverberated through the country, activists swiftly assembled to aid and protect people who might seek abortions, as well as the clinics working to provide the necessary care and services. Supporting these causes, the curatorial collective Grandma has organized a benefit auction to fundraise for Vote Save America’s Immediate Abortion Access Fund. The auction, Impact: Immediate Abortion Access Fund, subtitled “We Deliver Our Bodies,” is now live on Artsy and runs through October 13th.
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