Category Archives: Artists

Michelle Weinberg: Shuffling Liminal Episodes

Michelle Weinberg, A Personal Situation, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 20 3/4” x 16″

April 6 – June 17, 2022

Michelle Weinberg and Leslie Kerby

Project: ARTspace
99 Madison Avenue, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10016
212.271.0664

Monday – Friday 11 am – 5 pm

Weinberg and Kerby say that the exchange of ideas and the discovery of commonalities has charged their practices and led to this exhibition. For instance, they have collaborated on an installation in which smaller framed works are mounted within larger backdrop drawings that de-construct aspects of their works. Loosely drawn pattern, geometric elements, fragments of plant life and texts form the backdrop for their individual works. “Is an image a centerpiece, a fixed icon? Or is it a rest stop on the way to the next place, beyond the border of the frame?” they ask.

Kerby and Weinberg say that they both enjoy the fluidity, swapping figure and ground, “shuffling images like cards in a deck, like tunes in a playlist.” Here, Kerby who usually tends to explore in her work social networks and systems, turns inward, to look at the interior spaces of her community. She says the paintings are an outreach to her friends during lockdown, when she asked them to contribute by sending photographs of relaxing places in their homes from which she painted detailed, personal observations of their surroundings. Outside, Kerby says she observed how traces of community re-arranged and interrupted by social distancing, “aware that this too is transient and will slip away.”

Leslie Kerby, Gowanus I, 2022, watercolor, acrylic & graphite on vellum, 10 x 10 inches

Weinberg compares her experience drawing to flypaper—a sticky surface, catching all manner of schemes, objects, the world on her table. Drawing for her engages a literary feel, filled with flitting thoughts, including scribbled titles on the margins, text and image coalesce into one space. Architectural schemes invite the viewer to project their own experience into—re-arrange the objects on a table, open a door. The “hand” of the artist is visible through the graphite smudges on the white of the paper. Likewise, the process of drawing as a physical act —the paper is acted upon, animated, scarred, absorbed with thumbprints and dust. In her drawings, unserious volumes, wayward playthings obey a useless formalism, and in these conditions, she finds freedom.
Michelle Weinberg is a painter who works in varied mediums in her studio and in the creation of art for interiors, architecture and public spaces. She is the recipient of awards, fellowships and residencies from Pollock-Krasner Foundation, SouthArts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Joseph Robert Foundation, South Florida Cultural Consortium, National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony, Studios at MASS MoCA,100West Corsicana in TX, Fine Arts WorkCenter in Provincetown, homesession and Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain and Altos de Chavon in Dominican Republic. Exhibitions include Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, Artport Kingston, Marymount Manhattan College, Charles Moffett Gallery, ARENA in NYC, Frost Art Museum, Florida Atlantic University, Dot FiftyOne Gallery and Emerson Dorsch in Miami. She has created commissioned works for ArtBridge in NYC, Miami International Airport, The Wolfsonian Museum-FIU, Facebook offices, Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places, City of Tampa and more. michelleweinberg.com @mwpinkblue

Leslie Kerby is an interdisciplinary artist working with painting, drawing, sculpture and video to create thematically interlinked bodies of work focusing on issues related to how we lead our lives personally, as individuals. Kerby has been awarded fellowships and residencies at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, American Academy in Rome, Virginia Center for Creative Arts (Virginia and France) and School of Visual Arts. Permanent collections includ Columbia University, Arkansas State University, Copelouzos Art Museum, Athens Greece. Kerby has received commissions from Norte Maar, BRIC Arts | Media and Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. Recent exhibitions includeJason McCoy Gallery, Community Folk Art Center Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY; Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Garvey | Simon, Pierogi, Frosch and Co., Kleinert James Art Center, Woodstock; Norte Maar, Museum Blue, St. Louis, MO; Zurcher Gallery, Van Der Plas Gallery, The Painting Center. lesliekerby.com @lesliekerby

Diana Jensen: World Traveler / Shelter At Home – Paintings

World Traveler / Shelter at Home Painting Project at the Susquehanna Art Museum in Harrisburg, PA from April 15th to June 19th.

“Artist Diana Jensen took inspiration from an anonymous assortment of vernacular photos for the paintings found in World Traveler / Shelter at Home. After contracting COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, a friend gave the artist a boxes of vintage travel slides found at an Asbury Park thrift store. Jensen used this feverish time of social isolation to immerse herself into the travels of a stranger.”
Director of Exhibitions, Lauren Nye

Currently based in NYC, Diana Jensen creates paintings and installations that reference found vernacular photographs from the 1960s to the present day. Her art-making documents both the emotional connection and cultural impact of photo collecting.
Jensen’s recent solo exhibition, A Decade in Dumbo: 4 Installations, was featured at ChaShaMa, 1 Brooklyn Bridge Park. Her work has been exhibited nationally at venues including The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Safe-T-Gallery in Brooklyn, White Columns in NYC, Bucheon Gallery in San Francisco, Artemisia Gallery in Chicago, The Newark Museum, and The Islip Art Museum.

More about the show Susquehanna Art Museum

Penny Jones & Company Puppets: Three Little Pigs

Sunday April 24, 2022 at 1PM

Westbeth Community Room
155 Bank Street (enter through courtyard)
b/w Washington and West Sts.
New York, NY

BUY TICKETS HERE

Limited Capacity. Buy tickets online. Masks must be worn by all. Adults must be vaccinated.

Classic Tales and Fables. Lots of fun for the very young. The Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and more. This is a simple and intimate introduction to the theatre for children. With lots of participation, fun, and games, and Mother Goose Rhymes. A hit for generations. With Jack, the Pied Piper and that silly little dog Toby. After the show, everyone makes a puppet to take home.
“Charming.” -New York Times
“Very simple, and perfect as an introduction to theatre.” -New York Magazine
“Warm, funny, direct and charming.” -Gannet Newspapers
“A relief from all that commercialism” – A parent after the show

Tickets are $10 for all ages
Show Time: 1 PM
All Ages – Great for 2 to 8
Stroller Parking
Shows Run about 45 Minutes workshop follows
Information: (212) 924-0525

MORE INFO: http://www.pennypuppets.org

BUS AND SUBWAY: M14A, M11, M20, (2 blocks)
A, C, E, L, 1, 2, 3 (5 or 6 blocks)

Claire Rosenfeld: The Changing Earth

Monotypes by Claire Rosenfeld

Opening: Tuesday, April 5, 6-8PM

Revelation Gallery
224 Waverly Place
April 5-28, 2022
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 11AM-3PM (and by appointment, contact the artist)
(Closed April 14 and 18)

The Changing Earth focuses on phenomena dramatically shifting our physical reality: forest fires, melting glaciers, and erupting volcanos. These changes to the planet are real, symbolic, and visually profound.

As a longtime painter of dramatic natural images, Claire Rosenfeld’s work draws attention to the rhythmic movement of nature, evoking specific moments of time and place.
The exhibit’s monotypes (unique painted prints) utilize both ink and encaustic (wax and pigment). Many are painted into or collaged, with the subject being suggested rather than stated.
Claire Rosenfeld is a New York City-based visual artist working in painting and experimental printmaking. Her figurative expressionist work utilizes imagery that moves between figuration and abstraction. Additional work can be viewed on her website: www.clairerosenfeld.net

“Claire Rosenfeld’s paintings and drawings have the brilliance of Fauve colors and glare with the stark emotion of German Expressionism, but most of all, they distinguish themselves with a complexity and evolution of mood that are strictly individual… Her way to apply paint—bright over dark over bright—in some instances—shows how she reaches into the darkness to pull out the light. And just as the colors come at the viewer in flashes, the figures gesture with poignancy. The climate of anxiety and the anticipation resolve themselves in the bright/dark stillness where time is congealed: the dynamics are becoming more important than knowing what will take place. Medievalists felt this way—anticipating the place being not mine, but becoming its own.”
Laura Sue Schwartz, Arts Magazine

Claire Rosenfeld, a New York City-based painter, holds an MFA from Queens College, a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and studied at the New York Studio School. Her paintings, drawings and prints have been exhibited in museums and galleries, nationally and abroad in numerous solo and group shows. Rosenfeld has been awarded artist residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Millay Colony for the Arts, Ossabaw Island Project, and others, in the United States, and Karolyi Foundation, France; Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain; and Fundacion Centro Cultural, Dominican Republic. She has taught at the Cooper Union, School of Visual Arts, New York University, and Silvermine School of Art, amongst others.

David Greenspan in The Patsy

Transport Group and I are reviving my 2011 solo rendition of Barry Conner’s 1925 romantic comedy The Patsy – a Cinderella story concerning a lovelorn girl smitten with her sister’s fiancé. A conventional comedy unconventionally interpreted. My collaboration with Transport Group went like gangbusters during its initial run. It’s a fleet and funny 80 minutes.

We run from March 31 – May 1 in the beautiful Playhouse at Abrons Arts Center… on the good-ole Lower East Side. If you didn’t catch it in 2011 I think you’ll have a heck of a good time. And if you did see it a decade ago, you might enjoy it even more now given all we’ve been through the last few years.

– David Greenspan

For tickets: Transport Group

Veronica Ryan
2022 Whitney Biennial
OBE at Queens Birthday Honors

Portrait of Veronica Ryan with her exhibition, Along a Spectrum, Spike Island, Bristol (2021) Photograph by Max McClure. Copyright Veronica Ryan, Courtesy Spike Island Bristol, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

Veronica Ryan has been chosen to participate in the forthcoming Whitney Biennial 2022.

Titled “Quiet as It’s Kept,” after a colloquialism inspired by novelist Toni Morrison, jazz drummer Max Roach, and artist David Hammons, all of whom have invoked it in their works, the event will feature the work of a diverse array of sixty-three artists and collectives in various stages of their careers. The Biennial will run from April 6 through September 5, with select programs continuing through October 23; it is being co-organized by Whitney curators David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards.

Ryan’s inclusion follows ‘Along a Spectrum’, a major exhibition at Spike Island, Bristol (2021), and the recent unveiling of Custard Apple (Annonaceae), Breadfruit (Moraceae) and Soursop (Annonaceae) (2021) in Hackney, London, the UK’s first permanent public sculptures to celebrate and honour the Windrush Generations.

– Whitney Museum of American Art

Veronica Ryan OBE – made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire

Montserrat-born British sculptor Veronica Ryan was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty for her service to the arts.

Veronica Ryan

Born in 1956 in Plymouth, Montserrat and raised in England, Veronica Ryan creates meticulously handcrafted work using a wide range of materials, including bronze, plaster, marble, textile and found objects.
Her sculptures and installations examine environmental concerns, personal narratives and memories, as well as the wider psychological implications of history, trauma and recovery.
Her meticulously handcrafted works – while quiet and elusive – also contain a capacity for provoking an eruptive and disquieting internal dialogue. Composed of materials that reference her Afro-Caribbean heritage, the pieces examine the psychology and semantics of perception, as well as allude to notions of home, memory and loss.

– Text courtesy of Paula Cooper Gallery, NYC

Susan L. Berger, Visual Artist

Resident at Westbeth since 1970

Other Remembrances

One of the most beloved tenants was Hugh Hurd, who would always greet everyone in his pathway. He was the voice and identity of the Westbeth community and was referred to as the “Mayor of Bethune Street.” To this day, I see and hear Hugh. The community was smaller then; we knew and said hello to everyone. How can we ever forget the origins of the Halloween parade, starting in Westbeth’s courtyard—all lined up and going along the streets as long as it would take us. We were Westbeth proud. I later had a child, and he enjoyed and was forever dedicated to his upbringing at Westbeth and his school, P.S. 3. He has been shaped by growing pains and joys of life in and around Westbeth.

Lastly, we have had our shares of unpleasant memories—the World Trade Center was thoroughly destroyed, removed from the landscape by a terror attack, and on October 29, 2012, the rising of the Hudson River destroyed my studio, submerging it in ten feet of water. We were stronger for surviving these events—and that’s what makes Westbeth stronger as a community.

Norman Thomas Marshall, Actor/Director/Writer

Resident at Westbeth in the 1970s

R.P. Sullivan

Most artists realize at some point that creating or performing in their chosen field is not going to bring wealth and fame. Further it is highly unlikely that they will be able to eke out the barest of livings from their work as artists. Even further, it is unlikely that an artist will continue doing their art throughout their lives, even with a day job to see that the landlord gets paid, even though the rent is too damn high.

On a scale of talent/material success, Patrick Sullivan had the worst rating of any artist I have ever known. Patrick was an exquisite human being, an awesomely talented sculptor, a wonderful scenic designer, and a fine actor. He had almost every gift that the gods could bestow. As handsome as a Disney prince, a voice so pleasing that a Metropolitan Opera baritone might envy it, and a funny, thoughtful, loyal friend and colleague.

His tragic flaw: he couldn’t make a quarter riding or walking. He was on the Westbeth management perpetual shit list with an evict-or-shoot-on-sight poster featuring his picture. (The Westbeth management of that benighted era had no truck with an artistic genius who could not pay the rent.)

Once Patrick and I were chatting about jury duty, which then paid about eight dollars a day–a paltry sum, even for the seventies. He was called to serve at a much greater than normal frequency. He seemed to be complaining, so I suggested a coupla strategies to evade excessive callings to civic duty. He shook his head. “But I need the money.”

Adam Ross Kalesperis, Singer/Pianist/Composer

Resident at Westbeth since 2019

WESTBETH: Where the Legends Live

 

To describe this sacred place

     is not a simple task.

We are complex and opinionated

     and bold, and, sometimes …

          burnt

 

For we, each one of us,

     have lived lives of deepest sorrow,

          but also—elevated, unequivocal, indescribable

          … joy!

     (Such is the birthright of the artist.)

 

In my short time here

     (though I’ve waited all my life)

     the legends I’ve met

          are lovely,

               laughing,

                    languishing and

               limericking!

 

How delightful it is

     to have arrived here

          at last …

     I have dreamt and daydreamed

          of a place like this,

               a place on this precarious planet

     that I could call my home—

          here.

          Now …

     Westbeth!

          (perhaps it means West Bethlehem,

               some could say)

 

There’s Suzen snapping photos,

     beautiful black and white

     (the kind that inspire murals, mountainous,

         moments and memories in time)

 

 And Toni capturing cityscapes and skyscrapers,

     always with a lonely Luna, lulling gently

          in the wispy whirling clouds above …

 

Meanwhile, Penny—puppeteering,

     playing parables in her palm

     for people, young, but also old.

 

Across the way—illustrious Ilsa,

     whose poetry pours in elixirs, enchanting

          every reader of her words,

               her wisdom …

               unforgotten

 

And who could forget Eve? Oh, how effervescent!

     (Well, I can’t forget, for Madam, I’m Adam.)

She blesses this beautiful building

     with the gift of song— yes, singing!

     All are welcome, everyone,

          and if they come,

               they come again

                    for more …

 

Everyone here is a legend,

     both those who are still living,

     and those, too, who have gone on …

          as we all will go—

          on and on

     and on and on …

 

Dearest Bob, whom I never knew

     though somehow, yet, I do

          through his unplayed possession—

          my welcoming gift from this beloved place.

He gave to me—a muse!

     his piano (now mine, now ours …

          for what is mine is never mine alone,

               but a gift I give you, too—

                    all of you!)

 

For we, as “legends of Westbeth” understand

     that to be an artist,

          is to share our work, our gifts, our

          talents with the world …

 

That, my friends, is the reason we are here,

     the reason we are legends …

Here in wonderful Westbeth,

     in the West Village of Manhattan

          where the legends live

 

               forever.