Ric Blackshaw: First off, could you tell me a bit about your background, and what inspired you to begin making street art and street interventions?
Roadsworth: I’m actually a musician by training, but growing up I was exposed to visual art in different forms partly because my mother was an artist, and many of her friends were artists as well. One of my first babysitters for example, would take us to art galleries and get us to draw and make stuff out of clay. Throughout most of my life, my primary focus has been music, but I always took a side interest in visual art.

Roadsworth, interviewed by Ric Blackshaw

Ric Blackshaw: First off, could you tell me a bit about your background, and what inspired you to begin making street art and street interventions?

Roadsworth: I’m actually a musician by training, but growing up I was exposed to visual art in different forms partly because my mother was an artist, and many of her friends were artists as well. One of my first babysitters for example, would take us to art galleries and get us to draw and make stuff out of clay. Throughout most of my life, my primary focus has been music, but I always took a side interest in visual art. That interest has been growing more and more since I first started painting the streets about six years ago. My initial motivations for doing street art were both activist and artistic in nature. The first stencil I ever made was that of a bicycle symbol because I’ve always been a proponent of cycling in the city particularly as an alternative to what I consider to be an absurd and generally unsound reliance on cars. Some of my earlier work in particular, was also inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy, to whom the name Roadsworth is partly a homage, but also by graffiti or “post-graffiti” culture, cartoons, comics, and the notion of language in general. Roadsworth is also a tongue-in-cheek reference to the poet Wordsworth as I feel that my work functions, at least formally speaking, in a similar way to poetry.

RB: Where did the idea for the street markings come from?

Roadsworth: Street markings, like the asphalt on which they are found, are ubiquitous and universal. They represent a language to me that is very functional, dry, and almost authoritarian in tone, but simultaneously pristine and nondescript, thereby providing an irresistible opportunity for subversion and satire. I’ve always found it interesting that in most cities the walls are often saturated with graffiti, but the asphalt, which probably covers more surface area than anything else invariably remains untouched as if it were sacred in some way, untouchable. I’ve heard it said that the mall is the modern-day equivalent of the cathedral, but I would argue that the road has an equally religious aura. If capitalism is the religion of our time, then the automobile is one of its most potent relics, and the road its medium. This may seem like an exaggeration, but consider the type of language and emotion that is evoked in car commercials, for example, the promise of freedom, of near spiritual liberation that the car can provide. Or the way a president will refer to “protecting a way of life” when trying to justify war, which is another way of saying “keeping the gas pumps flowing.” Although most wouldn’t admit to it on an individual basis, there is a quasi-religious devotion to consumerism on a societal level of which car culture is the epitome. It has become so interwoven into the fabric of everyday life as to become ritualistic and therefore, unconscious to a certain extent. Consumer habits are so widespread, consistent, and well promoted that they are rarely questioned in any way that would compromise economic and/or political expedience despite the undeniably dire consequences that current levels of consumption seem to indicate.

The road is therefore, representative of many things on a symbolic, psychological, and practical level. It exists in a symbiotic relationship to the automobile for example, which is in turn related to the oil industry, which has a relationship to the military industrial complex and so on. The more roads there are, the more cars there are. The more cars there are, the more need for oil there is. The more need there is for oil, the more weapons are needed. The more weapons there are… This chain could equally be read in reverse, each link the catalyst for another chain reaction, and it is hard to say, at least for someone like myself who is not well versed in history, which came first: the chicken or the egg? The car or the cruise missile? This is inevitably a simplistic assessment of the situation but the point is, the road and its particular language (i.e. street markings) is for me, loaded with significance and therefore, ripe for re-interpretation. And because the road seems to take itself so seriously it is also a tempting target for satire. Road markings are for me, a metaphor for a certain state of mind and relationship to the outside world that is endemic of our time, and is engendered by driving.

Protected in a bubble of steel and glass and immunized against the harshness of the exterior world in a comfort zone of plush interior and climate-controlled environment, the driver looks out at the outside world to the beat of his favorite driving music, experiencing space as one would experience cable television while channel surfing, detachedly registering the news and other images that register on the windshield only to disappear and be replaced by others. Effortlessly, distance is spanned, and the world becomes a virtual reality. That is the long answer, and I could go on even longer but I won’t. A shorter answer is that road markings provide a good starting point, a parameter to work within that provides opportunity for an almost subliminal type of communication that has a particular impact, and that generates a dialogue that is less likely with more blatant forms of communication like advertising.

RB: Do you identify with the label “graffiti”?

Roadsworth: Personally, I don’t feel that what I do can, in the strict sense of the word, be called “graffiti” although I haven’t checked the definition in a dictionary lately. For me the word “graffiti” conjures up a certain tradition, a style that is about lettering hence the term “graffiti writer,” but I could be wrong about that. I do identify with graffiti writers in the sense that they seem to be the main proponents of free visual expression in the public space and therefore, are concerned with some of the same things that I am concerned about, like not getting arrested for example. I don’t have a problem with people calling what I do “graffiti,” and it doesn’t surprise me that they do, but “street art” or “urban art” is probably more accurate even though these seem like pretty vague definitions themselves. I guess people will come up with better labels as time progresses, but for now “street art” (and what I do is probably a more literal interpretation of the term than most) is probably the best description.

RB: Are the road markings your sole output as an artist or just one of many projects?

Roadsworth: The stuff I’ve done on the ground whether directly on the road, in parking lots, or in other public places like parks and squares, represents the bulk of what I’ve done, but I’ve also painted a few walls, and have some canvases, collages, silk-screens, and other odds and ends to my name as well. I think when you become known for something, there’s a tendency to become typecast to a certain extent, and in my case, I’ve become the “asphalt specialist” or the “ground specialist,” and so I seem to get hired to do stuff of that nature. It doesn’t bother me that much since for me it is really just another surface, although I do like the idea of people having to walk over my work to experience it, and because there is so much asphalt in the world, there is also a lot of potential and opportunity for doing things on a large scale. I’m also aware that one of the reasons I do get hired is precisely because of this particular “specialty” of mine. I do want to try more things on different surfaces and in different mediums, and I intend to whether I’m paid to do so or not.

The post Until the End of the Road appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

Gaia, interviewed by Masha Sumtsova

Masha Sumtsova: Who are you and what do you do?

Gaia: My name is Gaia. I am a street artist currently enrolled in art school in Baltimore. The work that I am most known for is based in block printing utilizing animal motifs generally as an emotive, or signaling tool. My work is very much founded in a tradition of narrative, amongst other things. I am generally concerned with methods and situations of domination. I mean I guess my work is informed by the Christian, Western approach to animals, which in turn is a reflection of our approach to the other. I can’t quite position a good term for where I think a certain branch of new artists is located, but there is an obvious resurgence in painting and printmaking.

MS: I guess gender has no objective in your world.

Gaia: Gender as an objective? I think gender absolutely has an objective. The application and presentation of gender engender specific responses. Being someone who can make work with an unclear gender within the art world provides me with a new experience. It is an opportunity to shape and decide which path I intend to go down. It is a problem of representation, or a dilemma of representation, or I guess, misrepresentation.

MS: So are you unlimited in societal or cultural identity?

Gaia: Of course I am [limited]. We all are. We are constantly imbricated in matters that control and are beyond us. I mean there is definitely a struggle with agency. I mean specifically a lot of street artists are now trying to transition into the art world disrobing their former pseudonyms and assuming their birthed identities. The first name-last name structure holds more legitimate weight in the art world. I wouldn’t consider myself a writer.

MS: Do you shape your public identity to what they perceive, perhaps as you shape their imagined perception of you as female?

Gaia: Don’t we remain true to our artistic vision regardless of what the public thinks? Do we? That is what I try to do with my blogs. My gaiathought.wordpress.com is probably the most effective, and my Flickr. Yeah, I mean the Gaia Thought blog establishes my intellect, establishes my credibility, but my Flickr keeps people informed. I’m always thinking of new ways to direct people to the various Web sites that I participate in or run, because then I keep everyone informed and share. Through the generous process of sharing I am also occupying people’s time. I am hopefully shaping their perception of me, establishing my pertinence. If I can get up around the city as much as possible, then I am in their personal and public space. I am constantly reminding them of me, building a network of spots, developing a new approach to envisioning the urban space, how we navigate and investigate the public space. How do you reconcile promoting one’s self while remaining anonymous? That is why I like to retain the pseudonym. The name takes all the heat and it doesn’t trickle down to my personal life as much. Talk about Allen Watts, separation of ego and self! It’s like Gaia is the ego and my personal self is my mind. It’s that strange binary of my inner self and the outside, but in a more physical and more tangible manifestation.

MS: What do you want to tell your readers?

Gaia: I don’t ascribe myself to being someone who fights advertisement. I readily admit that I am advertising, that my work on the street earns me reputation amongst my peers and sustains me financially. But it is so much more beyond the advertisement. The intention is not to sell but to convey. It doesn’t end at the sale, nor is it initiated by the sale. It is totally interactable like I stated in my semi-utopian vision; yes, anonymous interaction.

That is afforded by our illegality; that is what is so intriguing. That open-endedness is the uncontrollable that has been relegated to the realm of the criminal. You know in that illegal space we can do anything until we are punished. Street art becoming legal would change it entirely. It would have different ends and of course means. I mean I think it would make for a beautiful environment, and maybe a totally wack environment if any Joe Schmo could put shit up, but it’s not possible currently. That is far too open-source, far too horizontal, far too multiplicitious.

MS: How would you like to conclude?

Gaia: I think we are slowly struggling toward acceptability. I think once street art has reached its pinnacle of art institutional acceptance, then maybe we will transition toward an urban environment that is more open.

It is in a very precarious state. It is constantly on the verge of disappearing. We are all cooperating in a very horizontal manner. We are all moving toward an object that is still unclear and amorphous. I cannot express any more deeply how strange I think it is that we all work together so cohesively, and yet so divergently in a place that is without any institutional structure. It is in fact underneath the institutional structure. It is delicate. Once we move into more acceptance, it will become a form of organization. We have to change how we employ organization as an oppressive force. We have to scale back our structures of organization, bureaucracy, and hierarchy if we want to see an open street art that is simultaneously broadly accepted, widely practiced. It is a very culture industry concept. If it becomes legally acceptable, there will be immense cultural and organizational structures dictating, bending, regulating its application: who is accepted, who is denied access.

Currently its state is so extremely democratic because we have developed a small community that works mysteriously, that depends on the cooperation and interaction of its various parts to remain alive. We are hanging onto this culture that is literally existing by the skin of our teeth. I don’t see it being legal any time soon. Nor do I hope it to be honestly. I love its ephemeral unregulated existence.

The post Thought in the Street appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

Niles Masters

While artist David Kastner’s paintings, photographic prints, light installations, and wall sculptures have the swirling energy of many abstract works, they also suggest something quite different: the murmuring of numerous voices beneath each layer. The artist’s work has changed greatly over the years, and is seldom truly abstract. He courageously goes beyond the given and familiar, pioneering new techniques and materials in order to expand his own vision. The works on display at his recent solo exhibition at the Broadway Gallery in New York were no exception.

A minimalist whose economic use of geometric shapes elicits a vocabulary of the nuance, Kastner is a brilliant colorist with a penchant for vibrant shades of crimson and violet. An abstract artist whose subject matter is anything but abstract. Kastner is an artist who inhabits the discreet space of the in-between, a logic of the a-logic, where essential orders or arrangements speak to the viewer. A horizontal line of several smaller works on one wall of the gallery reflects Kastner’s interest in working serially; each of these works repeats a set of compositions that allude to an enigmatic universe where science and aesthetic collide. While the serial nature of these works implies repetition of the same, imperfect lines and shapes, overlapping edges, and variations in shade, emphasize the unique. Space contracts and expands as an arrangement; random juxtaposition, anomalies, and irregular shapes introduce patterns and relationships that are unpredictable. Each work, each line and form becomes an inscription of the temporal moment of creation.

Discreet, colorful geometric forms—constellations of egg-shaped forms, thick lines, and rectangular pillars in shades of orange, red, and blue or fleshy pinks, eggplant, and gray—emerge like organic accidents from saturated monochromatic grids. Deep ebony, midnight blues, and shades of green offer parallels between art and nature, or art and nature as a work of art, while elements such as the grid, possess a metaphoric power capable of linking, for example, fields, terrains, and empty sheets of lined paper. Kastner’s cosmological conceptions marry the context and knowledge of years of work with explosions of lush color that creates sensual atmosphere. Their illusionism is tempered by viscous light and color, applied in subtle, rapid strokes and lustrous pools.

In the case of Consummate Embodiment of Skill, it is a shock of spatial swirls, aquamarine blue and antique white with flecks of chartreuse that dominate the painting’s left side. The composition suggests an avenging presence hurtling toward slates of midnight blue and black, which culminates in an apocalyptic void at the painting’s center. The arrangement suggests an artist who has always blended a proclivity for visual drama with a keen interest in the physicality of paint. Recent works, specifically A Solution to Self and Origins of Cohesion, reference the cosmological phenomenon of dark energy—a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the expansion of the universe. These layered universescapes express a creative force within—and beyond—the physical constraints of the canvas, where each ripple and crack acts as an internal explosion.

Kastner’s works spell out a classical theme, time, and place of observation and creation. The results often suggest nature and humanity—from sunlight flickering amid the surface of a deep and threatening ocean to an epic cosmos. The use of vibrant and spatial colors suggests a positive sense of humanity, an effect that is uncompromising and thought-provoking. In order to achieve the kind of density he wants, the works undergo several molecular transformations, where it is necessary to build the surface in a traditional way by superimposing layers, exploiting the transparency and opacity. This working process also acts as a metaphor. The repeated building up and breaking down of form and color is similar to a dig, making his artistic process an archeological excavation—as though the image was unearthed, soon brought to light. Kastner employs an open composition, frequently building around a free-abstract central image, while also stressing the picture edge. These motifs float within the image edge, suggesting a threshold or portal at the center of the painting that opens up a defined depth of gesture and color. Building form from within, he contrasts the saturation and density to create a rising and swelling motion that relates to his own unique aesthetic. Each of these reductive compositions suggests an infinite space illuminated by hazy light. This risk has proved to be the decisive catalyst to the development of his style.

Although recent works appear to have evolved toward a whole new territory for the artist, they actually represent a distillation of themes and ideas that were already evident in his earlier work. Key to these works is the tension created between description and the desire to suggest or evoke generalized, symbolic forms. Overall, these works represent a new confidence and maturity in the artist’s handling and evocation of his subjects. Kastner’s ambition for painting as a carrier of meanings that are accessible to all is evidence of his own immersion in the culture of painting, print, and its potential for transformation.

The post Spatial Seduction appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

Lady Aiko

I first experienced New York City without being able to speak. Coming from Japan, I felt the language and culture were barriers, and it was as though I had a communication disability. Street art broke that wall for me. In the media studies, I agreed with Marshall McLuhan’s idea that media is an extension of the body: street art is my media and the extension of my body that enables me to communicate with the city; it is my language.

I remember my first unauthorized act involving public space was in Tokyo in the early 90s. With a friend’s help to figure out the transmission, I broadcasted a TV channel that people within a few miles of my college could see. It showed my short films and other flicks that I liked. The bootleg broadcasts got local media’s coverage, and shortly after the article I received a letter from the Japanese government stating that I had to stop; it was illegal.

The fantasy of reaching random people to communicate my ideas took a new form in New York. My first street art experience was wheat-pasting my self-portrait naked all around Lower Manhattan. Even though I was arrested and spent the night in jail, the dialogue continued as I went back to each wall, to add to the pieces, to see other people’s responses and the way the art had been weathered in layers. I felt comfortable through this conversation; I found my passion, and New York City became my best friend.

Physical activity is an important part of my work. To project strong art with a positive message in public, I realized that I need to maintain a strong core in body and spirit. I stopped thinking about negative things when I started to focus on my own self and sexuality. My paintings started to speak more vividly, sexily, about love and life, eros, as well as everyday emotions and memories.

Looking at beauty is better than looking at sadness. There is so much sadness in the world already. My paintings are abstract stories based on found images and photographs I’ve taken. My art conveys universal themes and emotions that people can share and respond to with their own fantasies, flashbacks, or experiences.

The human body is something I’m really interested in because it’s the only thing that I own and I have control of—it’s the one thing that stays with us through our lives—and for me, the female body is the most beautiful form. I enjoy femininity, and I feel there is so much positive energy in discovering the beauty every woman has.

Nowadays, to communicate by using female bodies as sculpture, I use actual women and make them perform as if the beautiful butterfly girls came alive from my paintings. For me these are the ultimate pieces of art that cannot be bought or sold. 
Each of us is a unique individual, like a beautiful butterfly. My butterfly ladies are a symbol of the idea that we are part of nature. I think we need to recognize that on this planet we are part of the same family, with all its different shades. I celebrate life and sexuality in my art, and I feel that in my exploration these past ten years I’ve made a big circle: I put images of myself on walls, and now I want to bring the images that I’ve 
created back into reality, in my own body.

The post Spread Your Wings appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

Poster Boy

I have a problem with public advertisements. Unlike TV, radio, the Internet, or magazine ads, people are forced to look at public advertisements. It’s naive to think these campaigns are harmless. These ad campaigns are aggressive. Aggressive because the public’s voice is marginalized. Aggressive because only those who can afford the space are allowed the use of these very public outlets. Aggressive because these campaigns represent a system that has been relentless in its attack on the environment and the poor. A system that puts monetary gains over all else. You can’t tell me that’s not invasive, offensive, and aggressive. When I see advertisements I can’t help but think of everything wrong with the prevailing system. I think of the one-party political system that advertises two parties. I think of the current puppet in the White House, an ad campaign himself, who is paraded around as progressive, or even more laughable, a socialist. I think of the campaign of preemptive attacks on poor countries in the name of security and democracy. I think of the bailouts given to institutions responsible for the financial crisis, which they use for ad campaigns and bonuses instead of their victims. I don’t have the patience to finish this list, but it goes on. It may be a reach for some people to make these connections to public advertisements, but when your back’s against the wall you’re forced to make a decision: be crushed or fight back. I decided to fight back, but not without knowing who I’m fighting and what I’m fighting for. I may not be the most eloquent when it comes to explaining why people should be upset, but I don’t let that keep me from expressing myself. Thank goodness for people like Hans Hermann and Noam Chomsky. Look them up if you want to understand why I do what I do. This isn’t about Poster Boy. It isn’t about ads. It isn’t about street art. It’s about coexisting with your fellow woman and man.

The post Public Enemy appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

Nika Sarabi

The number 3 is a magic number.

From religion to the arts and even the sciences, systems of belief are what categorize people into various communities. Depending on the “god” of our focus, whether it includes worship of an art object, a deity, or what lies inside a petri dish, we are, or we choose what we become, according to what we believe. Thus, we congregate with those who share our passions, our views, and we are often aloof, and sometimes worse, to those with dissimilar views, systems, and rituals.

The common bind is this undeniable force in human nature to understand ourselves, each other, and our environment—a variation of the holy trinity if you will. First, we learn the nature of that which we did not create, then, we make that which lies deep in our inspiration. First came geometry, then, came architecture, and finally the great pyramids. Likewise, I seek to understand the laws of nature in order to perfect my own will and gain enough control over the uncontrollable to make my personal imagination a new reality. So I’ve been on this path. And then I met someone who changed my life.

Resa Hux was a child nurtured by rich experience born into a world at the end of its age. Where some embraced change as an opportunity for positive progress, and the opposition wanted to remain in power. The royal elite refused to give into the equality brought by the masses. The distrust was almost intolerable. Brothers and sisters feared one another’s selfish tendencies, which only fueled the excuse to become more selfish themselves. The people of that time saw each other as steps to a keystone. Which was the case in the age before them, but the cycle of time had kept it moving, and changed the logic of some things with it. Mountains moved, and people moved faster. Suddenly everyone knew everyone else. The people finally started to share everything, which frightened the ones that had the most. And so things started to shift, people started to climb down, making a social system that connected the masses with more opportunity. There was chaos in the midst of this change.

One thing Resa Hux came to understand quickly was that there needed to be a resolution. One that made the people understand the beauty in harmony. Where discordant differences were replaced with unified truths. Resa Hux understood that people were all of the same origin, and as such, their goal should be to return to that place. And so the day came forth for Resa Hux to make this truth come to light; in turn I showed up and agreed to help.

The post A Journey to the Truth appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

Michael Fink

Above the mahogany Colonial night-table in the Pendleton House of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum), a small painting by Alonzo Chappel depicts Roger Williams stepping from his boat to greet and smoke a peace pipe with the Narragansett sachems. This idealized image of the hopes for “what cheer, netop” (hello, friend) goodwill among settlers and natives seems, for me, to capture the tone and mood of the entire collection throughout the galleries, buildings, nooks, and crannies.

Over the half century and more that I have taught within the liberal arts here at RISD, I have become closely attached pedagogically, philosophically, and personally, to a few of my favorite things. The Buddha, which came to Providence from a garage in Japan the same year I did, as a newborn: 1933. The Spanish Jesus, which has a strangely Zen-esthetic quality as it seems almost like a driftwood figure that might merely have floated to our shoreline. The painting of The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem done by an expatriate African-American artist Edward Ossawa Tanner, who was studying and working in Paris. Caught up in the fashion for the “exotic,” the son of a preacher traveled to the romantic Holy Land and saw, perhaps, in the wall, a metaphor for the race barrier in his homeland, and in his rendering of the orthodox visitors to the Western Wall expressed a sympathetic respect for the other. There is no propaganda, no subconscious insult in the image, only a recognition of the common human link touching traditions, diminished but ever powerful.

Before the dedication of the new Chace Center, designed by Rafael Moneo and housing new displays of the 20th-century genres and forms of art and the 21st-century pieces reflecting the concerns and materials of the college and the community, a small exhibit was presented in 2005 of objects done by and about Jewish artists. The show included photographs by Aaron Siskind, abstract paintings by Mark Rothko, and, of special interest to me, sculptures by Elie Nadelman. Polish, French, and American, Nadelman produced a group of deer, elegant, occupied with their wilderness family unit, in another dimension of existence. Like the author Felix Salten, he made symbolic use of deer to stand in for the Jewish condition. Hunted down, mild-mannered. Of course, the age of Bambi has passed. Although the book itself was clearly a commentary on pogroms, the suburbanization of “nature” has sadly and poignantly reduced the deer to the status of vermin and pest. That was not always the case, and the delicate craftsmanship of the group of deer by Nadelman brings poetry and compassion to the diverse designs that can be classified as of special concern to a Jewish browser.

At the time of this brief encounter with the Jewish contribution to modern art, that is, art without church connections, lectures and discussions were held at the museum. Norman Kleeblatt of the Jewish Museum delivered a prelude to his recent book. He spoke of Clement Greenberg and Harole Rosenberg, the Partisan Review, and the American Existential movement. A quite limited small magazine exerted enormous influence by interpreting, articulating, and celebrating the concepts of postwar paintings in New York, the rejection both of propaganda and of religious evangelism, the liberation of all design. A RISD graduate and local watercolorist, Ida Schmulovitz, addressed the audience, “I paint the same scene, the same skyline, at different times of day an d year. Perhaps my work is not religious, but it resembles Hebrew prayers at dawn and dusk, by new moonlight and acknowledging the seasons of the sacred soil.” This may be a good way to close my short essay on Judaism and art at the School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, where the separation of church and state, the industrial revolution, and the creation of the arts of textile, jewelry, and fashion were established.

The post The Orthodox Art appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

L. Brandon Krall

I feel that a real living form is the natural result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown—where it has experienced something—felt something—it has not understood—and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown—known.

—Georgia O’Keeffe, 1976

Abstraction and the bravery it took to embrace and intently explore it, when she began in 1915, sets Georgia O’Keeffe at the front of American modernist artists and artists around the world. It was the beginning of many revolutions of the 20th century; in 1912 Kandinsky had painted the first completely abstract oil painting and Malevich in 1915 painted Black Square.

Like many educated women of her time, O’Keeffe wore little or no make-up, and as an artist she strove to be herself, clear and unique. A champion of individuality, she was a pioneer in art by the fact of being a woman artist. She undertook and sustained the tremendous effort it takes to achieve a vision and a self. Distinctively feminine and honest, she expressed purposefully to the public that her work was that of a woman, and the ineffable in nature and the universe.

One of the gifts Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction, the exhibition at the Whitney Museum, offers in assembling 125 oil paintings and series of works on paper from key periods of her oeuvre, is to give access to those marvelous painterly surfaces. No reproductions, which have diluted the importance of her contribution to modern art, could ever have the force and impact of these luminously smooth oil paintings when they are actually observed in person. The only sculpture in the exhibition is a sublime matte white-painted bronze that invites the hand to feel it. O’Keeffe’s intelligent and sensuous simplification, and her development in serial works, range from rendered places or objects, plants or natural in origin (which through referential are never realistic), to deeply felt abstractions. A purifying mastery of vision, experience, color, shape, and volume are rendered in her impenetrable space.

There is no substitute to get the subtle and profound experience of O’Keeffe’s vision; you have to see the original works. The aura of her paintings has not dissipated at all in over 80 years; they are still alive, as when she painted them.

The post Abstraction Adventures appeared first on NY Arts Magazine.

Horace Brockington

Architecture informs us about what is happening in our lived environment at a historical moment. In our understanding of architecture we are led by three fundamentals: permanence, distinction, and recognition. Architecture can help reshape our very existence. Buildings symbolically represent an attitude about what is taking place inside. They have certain qualities that can evoke a strong image in an observer; they can be inviting or repelling; they really talk but using a different type of language and a different type of grammar. They have the capacity to unleash feelings, trigger emotional reactions, feed the memory, and stimulate the imagination of the public. While the aesthetic qualities of a building are artistically acclaimed for a complete appreciation, one must go beyond the visual appearance, and examine meaning and content. The inherent meaning of architecture can stand for the representation of place and/or the representation of the people occupying it. Buildings have physical variables that carry symbolic meanings that can impart information, and enhance national and political legibility in a sense that is easy to read.

Nowhere does the role of architecture have such a critical importance as it does in the changing social and cultural transitions now going on in the Middle East. It informs us of the inner life, activities, and social conceptions of those who live and use the environment, as well as how that culture is perceived and understood from within or outside that society. These structures carry with them different meanings to the public, both local and foreign.

The early phase of Modernism promised a sense of political engagement with its call for broad societal change as a fundamental part of architectural practices. Modernist architects aimed to create “universal spaces that would provide opportunity and freedom for everyone.” However, mainstream Modernism as represented by the International Style was eventually viewed as disconnected from the everyday social world. Modernist architecture re-emerged in the 1960s as urban renewal only to be rejected because of contradictions between the goal of social change and those of the market capitalism. The end of Modernism brought with it the end of the “political project” in architecture. Postmodernism introduced a series of variants to replace the Modernist agenda, opening up a place within which to question and debate its inherent intentions. A new utopianism began to emerge that questioned the construction and representation of self and the other. Both Modernity and Postmodernity failed to deliver on their respective promises. By the start of the 21st century it is apparent that we are again on the verge of something new, which is evident in the contrasts of new architecture models in the present-day Middle East.

Recent Middle Eastern architecture addresses complex interactions of past and present, critical geography discourse, and regionalist politics. Postcolonialism, multiculturalism, and globalism have fostered new dialects in the architectural process with much of the concern centered on “Technism vs. Traditionalism” creating a conflict between Traditionalism and the postcritical in the Muslim world. In the Middle East, culture has long been socially and aesthetically informed by constructs that serve political ends that bring into question issues related to identity. Thus, the unique political, cultural geographical position of the Middle East provides for a unique basis for architectural and urban development experimentation where various “isms” are reflective of the compounded meaning and identity in a changing Middle East.

Middle East architecture after many years of being defined by a singular identity is posed to become one of the most active regions for new architecture at the start of the 21st century. In cities such as Cairo, Dubai, and Kuwait, new structures continue changing the skyscape. Dubai is filled with project fostered by the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC), including Qasr Al Sarab, Desert resort constructed with pioneering engineering methods on the sand dunes of Abu Dhabi’s Liwa Desert, Saadiyat Island, the Louvre Abu St Regis Hotel and residences, Guggenheim Dubai Saadiyat Beach Golf Club, Al batten Wharf, Adbu Dhabi Golf Club, Eastern Mangroves, and Angsana Resort and Spa. Unique complex of residential retail, marina, resort and conference facilities has been designed to reflect the unique natural mangrove setting which will transform Dubai into a new metropolis. Such efforts are countered by a group of younger architects living in the Middle East such as the Atkins group, based in Bahrain. They have transferred the terrain of the Middle East and India with projects such Bombey Dyeing in India, Nomas Towers in Bahrain, Al Sharq and Mahboula Towers in Kuwait.

There is now a more pragmatic approach to architecture. The political remains a subtext to the design concepts. In this new architecture in both varied and codified forms there is a type of multiculturalism that embraces global cultural integration. In this new architecture layers of politics, culture, and economics are intertwined that speak to the traditional methods and design norms, but equally acknowledge and respect how people interact in their environment, as well as the potential of new computer-assisted practices and new materials. Lacking a unifying agenda, new Middle Eastern architecture is posed for the possibility of change and innovation.

There has been a surge in the construction of tourist and cultural facilities along the shaping the skyline and waterfront of the Middle East. In contrast, there has been a rise on the number of projects that are informed by local traditions, many of which are grounded in Islamic culture. Recent Middle Eastern architecture is thus a collective of postmodernism, historical-revivalism, and regionalism. The impact of many of the planned and ongoing construction projects in the region affords a dynamic moment to consider the ongoing confrontations of deep traditions with rapid modernization. This discourse centers on the dialectic relationships between tradition and modernity, the contemporary and the historic, which extend beyond designing the high-tech and the environmentally friendly, the very nature of Islamic cultural identity. While some understand the need to retain a certain ethnic/local tone to the region, other stress the need for the Middle Eastern culture to embrace globalism, many of who question the very need to refer to cultural or religious symbolism in architecture, which is a prime element of traditional Middle Eastern architecture. The very nature of global architecture designs finds itself up against community design and public-interest architecture.

Today, connecting potentials of globalization and regionalism embraces the geographical contexts that were once defined as the “other.” Yet, this has led to new tensions between difference and identity, West and “other,” center and periphery. In order to get hold of a more subtle understanding of globalization, we need to look closer to “other” geographies, to develop new epistemological categories and critical strategies to designed space. Despite the impact of globalized architecture on the Middle East, the cultural politics of the region will continue to have influence on the economy, local development, architecture, urbanism of the region, and the architectural discipline for the next decade.

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Aakash Nihalani

My street work consists mostly of isometric rectangles and squares. I selectively place these graphics around New York to highlight the unexpected contours and elegant geometry of the city itself. All execution of a piece is done on site with little to no planning.

For however briefly, I am trying to offer people a chance to step into a different New York than what they are used to seeing, and in turn, momentarily escape from routine schedules and lives. We all need the opportunity to see the city more playfully, as a world dominated by the interplay of very basic color and shape. I try to create a new space within the existing space of our everyday world for people to enter freely, and unexpectedly “disconnect” from their reality.

I’m not trying to push a certain highbrow logic or philosophy, or purposefully communicate through the esoteric medium of art. I work instinctively, trying to follow my gut about the sensation of color and space, and have fun doing it.

People need to understand that how it is isn’t how it has to be. My work is created in reaction to what we readily encounter in our lives, sidewalks and doorways, buildings and bricks. I’m just connecting the dots differently to make my own picture. Others need to see that they can create too, connecting their own dots, in their own places.

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