HOSFELT - ALTER SPACE - 2ND FLOOR PROJECTS

60SIX - HASHIMOTO - SPOKE

02.07.15 Part II

(with assistance from RWM)



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Hosfelt Gallery: Eternal Return - Jutta Haeckel; Vantage - Nicole Phungrasamee Fein; Surabhi Saraf - Fold.

Comment by AB: Jutta Haeckel's paintings look like cross-sections of rock or crystalline forms, all exceptionally well-done. Also in the excellent category are Nicole Phungrasamee Fein's incredibly adept black and white watercolors, clearly requiring extreme discipline, control and steadiness of hand-- so precise they look like computer prints. Surabhi Saraf's video is divided into 96 mini-screens and focused on the act of folding, perhaps a nod to domesticity. At times all 96 show identical footage while at other times they divide into patterns, progressions and sequences of images-- continually showing acts of folding. It's all good here.

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Alter Space: William Emmert and Joey Enos - Practice in Paradise; Ma Li - Seeing, Peeping, and Scrying.

Review by RWM: Pop Art takes on new form with objects that are not just large, but also obviously created, and not the real thing. They do succeed as metaphors. Easy to get caught up in these rambunctious sculptures. Nice fun to be had with art providing entertainment and sometimes humor.

Comment by AB: Joey Enos concocts an incongruous landscape of florescent bricks and scrapyard sculptures while William Emmert seasons it up his ersatz everyday items, good enough to fool the casual viewer into believing they're the real deal, including a ladder, storage shelves filled with art, a cardboard box, a paintbrush and a Mountain Dew Big Gulp. They're actually sculpted painted paper! In the rear of the gallery, Ma Li's delicate sculptures rotate and sparkle like jewels in the darkness while bathed in changing light. The artist herself is engaged in a pre-scheduled series of private dances with show attendees in the decorated bathroom.

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[2nd Floor Projects]: Nancy White, Courtney Johnson, Gregory Kaplowitz; Rob Halpern - House-scrub, or After Porn (limited edition chapbook).

Comment by AB: New directions in painting would be the order of the day with Nancy White's well-defined forms harking back to the American Abstract Artists group of the 1930s and 40s, sumptuous cascades of fabric and a graphical burst of color by Courtney Johnson, and mesh/textile/paint combinations by Gregory Kaplowitz.

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Gallery 60SIX: Jenny Bloomfield - Any Given Time.

Comment by AB: Jenny Bloomfield's spare linear compositions look a bit like tracks of subatomic particles.

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Hashimoto Contemporary: Limbus - 1010.

Review by RWM: Beautiful work explores the dimensions and depths of painting. Easy to get drawn into these colorful works that root themselves in the beyond of the walls where they hang.

Comment by AB: German street artist 1010 has mastered the magic of transforming two dimensions into three with his bottomless paint and collage illusions. The amorphous looking shapes are actually outlines of those countries with the most liberal tax and banking laws, sort of like black holes for stashing cash.

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Addendum:

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