reviews – Page 24 – dArt International Magazine

April 23, 2018February 24, 2020

Deep in the Shallows

Michael Zansky at Herron School of Art+Design, Indiana University, Indiana

by Dominque Nahas

At the Herron School of Art + Design Galleries students and faculty at Indiana University were lucky enough to become immersed and enmeshed in the exhibition Deep in the Shallows curated by the galleries’ new director Max Weintraub who has an eye for installation. This remarkable show brings together a series of 2016-17 art works on burnt paper and carved plywood and acrylic produced by the New York based artist Michael Zansky who draws and carves using both hands equally. Eleven of Zansky’s works belonging to his Saturn Series, plywood paintings measuring 16 feet by 12 feet, are showcased at Herron. Continue reading “Deep in the Shallows”

April 23, 2018February 24, 2020

A 21st Century Symbolism: Susan Schwalb’s Metalpoint Art

Susan Schwalb, Orchid Transformation #2, 1978, silver and copperpoint on clay coated paper, 24” x 18”

by Siba Kumar Das

Susan Schwalb is at once an artist of this world and a transcendent artist. Her drawings and paintings are abstract, decidedly manifestations of the world’s geometry; they echo the belief of Latin American modernist Joaquin Torres-Garcia that geometry provides the artistic and spiritual scaffolding for all true art, in all ages and cultures. Deploying minimalism in lyrical mode, Schwalb’s art is also allusive and suggestive – a contemporary reinvention of the Symbolism of the late 19^th century. It extends with great virtuosity the potential of metalpoint to evoke a numinous effect through delicacy, fineness, and a shimmering luminousness. Take an attentive look at a work of hers and you will be transported. Continue reading “A 21st Century Symbolism: Susan Schwalb’s Metalpoint Art”

April 22, 2018February 24, 2020

Ways of Marking – Mohammed Kazem at Aicon Gallery in New York City

by Siba Kumar Das

Located on a quiet street slowly stirring into economic life after years in the doldrums, Aicon Gallery has taken on a task that surely would have pleased Andre Malraux. Novelist, art theorist, Minister of Culture under Charles de Gaulle, Malraux said half a century ago, “In our imaginary museum [that is, the world of art] the great art of Europe is but one great art among others …” Continue reading “Ways of Marking – Mohammed Kazem at Aicon Gallery in New York City”

April 21, 2018February 24, 2020

Spirit Faces: Anna-Wili Highfield at Olsen Gruin in New York City

by Christopher Hart Chambers

Up front by the gallery’s storefront window on the Orchard Street strip on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which is now perhaps the premier location for current fine art, stands a construction of sheet brass shards, with straight, thin brass rods projecting outwards in all directions, extending like rays of light or exclamation points. Each has a pearl at the end. Two life sized cut outs of female hands gloved in black spray paint are scratched with squiggly linear designs revealing the underlying brass color. Continue reading “Spirit Faces: Anna-Wili Highfield at Olsen Gruin in New York City”

April 8, 2018February 24, 2020

Journey of the Spirit: Jizi at WhiteBox in New York City

Jizi, art, china — Jizi, Ark from Heaven, 2013, ink on paper, 124 x 249 cm / 48.75” x 98”

by Dominque Nahas

JIZI: Journey of the Spirit is an eye-opening exhibition of exhilarating contemporary shanshui style works made of ink on paper by one of the originators of China’s “New Ink Painting” school of artists, Wang Yunchan (1941- 2015), otherwise known as Jizi. Jizi was not academically trained but was an erudite self-educated individual steeped in Eastern and Western traditions of literature and painting. Continue reading “Journey of the Spirit: Jizi at WhiteBox in New York City”