The United States Artists Biennial

At the Broadway Gallery NYC
September 16‐30, with an opening reception: Saturday, September 25, 2010, 3 ‐ 6pm

The United States Artists Biennial is a group exhibition project that reunites the U.S participants from the Florence Biennial. The United States Biennial gathers together 50 artists whose work has been shown nationally, and internationally. Creating new global perspectives with their art, each artist will spotlight their work in the epicenter of the art world: New York City.

The salon-style exhibition will features 50 artists from all over the world, now based in the United States in a unique and dynamic visual dialogue.

Featuring Cecilia Del Toro, Bronwyn M. Towle, Flavia D’ Ascoli, Jake Beckman, Jane Ellen Murray, Paloma Bernaldo De Quiros, Rosalyn Engelman, Corinne Whitaker, Jackie Brenner, Shawn Man Roland, Emilia Garcia, Debra Vantuinen, Donna Butnik, Teri Starkweather, Ann Gores, Kimiko Fujimura, Yelena Aronson, Robert May, Kimberly Howland, Daniele Marin, Adrienne Yorinks, Richard Bailey, Lyubov Muravyeva, Nicholas Hernandez, Gulay Berryman, Irene Neal, Pavel Tayber, Kimberly Berg, Al Wildey, Seda Baghdasari, Ana Bikic, Elisha Ben Yitzhak, Roman Janeczko, Ronna S. Harris, Sheryl Westegreen, Gazala Chinwalla, Nancy Gray, Alicia Torres, Rachel Simmons, C. Drummond, K-Soul, Marilynn Gottlieb, Angela Hague, Patricia Secco, Amanda Petrash, Eduardo Chirino Said, Lesley Bursten, and Benjamin Boland.

From September 16‐30 The United States Artists Biennial will be on display at Broadway Gallery, in conjunction with several Internet projects, and a print catalog. The exhibit will offer writers and viewers the chance to submit essays and comments on the nature and significance of biennials, fairs and public exposure for new and emerging artists. Featuring over 50 artists with new and old works, of all mediums, The United States Artists Biennial offers a platform for artists, curators, gallerists as well as writers to voice their ideas on the contemporary art world.

Gulay Alpay’s Gold Thought at Art Expo

March 25-28, 2010 | PIER 94 on the Hudson River

This March Turkish artist Gulay Alpay will construct of her signature environmental installations, at the Art Expo show New York. The Two Hands Art Store Alpay’s most recent happening, is a collaborative effort between herself and the audience which she creates using florescent paints and a variety of other media. In such environments, Alpay recreates her studio, a free-for-all, anything-goes space where anyone and everyone can draw, paint, talk, move, and interact and make marks on any surface he or she sees fit. Curator of The Two Hands Art Store is Turkish artist Emre Erturk, who has collaborated with Alpay on previous works. Erturk will also create a performance featuring his own geometric box design. The “box” has an opening where Erturk and Alpay invite art lovers to look within. Initially the viewer is shocked and surprised by the vision of a real naked person within, however upon closer inspection the viewer realizes there is actually real condoms in the hole light with bulbs and startiling message of ’ use condom unless you want to produce useful kids to this planet!” Participants become a part of the visual field, interacting not only with the artist, but also with the imagery around them, effectively capturing the energy and vitality of human communication. Through her unique vision, Alpay evokes a range of theoretical positions from the phenomenological to the psychoanalytic in her surprising and exciting performative extravaganzas.

Following from the long list of previous artists engaging with relational or participatory practices, from Allan Kaprow’s happenings, to Fluxus’ performances, as well as the contemporary practices of artists associated with “relational” practices, such as Rikrit Tiravanija, Thomas Hirschorn, and Liam Gillick, Alpay carries these artists’ legacies infusing her work with her own unique voice. Such artists all have one thing in common – activating the spectator. This is exactly the track that Alpay takes up. However, much like Jacques Rancière who argues in the “Emancipated Spectator” that the spectator is already intrinsically activated by the very fact that she is an active, thinking subject, Alpay does not underestimate her audiences. She treats her viewers as equals in an endeavor aimed at producing a group artwork, for whom authorship is shared equally among all.

Much like her compatriots, the Turkish collective, Oda Projesi, Alpay honors the participant and viewer, treating him/her as an artist himself, capable of producing a valuable contribution to her creations. The creative act is social, one of healing and companionship in which people come together to construct something larger than themselves. This is a spiritual and moral act that implies the betterment of humanity. Ultimately, this is a gesture of love and companionship. From the psychoanalytic perspective, her constructed environments could be seen as what D.W. Winnicott calls the “holding transitional environment,” a space for pure freedom and play where emotional healing and transformation, psychological integration can fully occur. For Alpay, each artistic act is a creative and transformative ritualistic experience. For every gesture that she takes – from applying paint to silk, to painting her own body – are spiritual acts of rebirth, expressions of love for humanity. Challenging the boundaries of the art world, she stretches her own imagination and ours, to envision another kind of world where people interact freely and openly in love and companionship.

1. The Armory Show
Piers 92 and 94, 12th Avenue at 55th Street
Thursday, March 4 – Saturday, March 6, 12-8pm; Sunday, March 7, 12-7pm
$30
This year’s fair boasts 209 contemporary dealers, 80 modern dealers, and 6 non-profits. The Armory Show – Modern, which focuses on 20th century works, takes place on Pier 92, while Pier 94 is chock full of current work by a wide array of top-notch, international artists. Berlin is the focus city, a new feature at this year’s fair, and British conceptualist Susan Collins provides the 2010 fair’s visual identity. An excellent program of panel discussions, which are free with the entry ticket, takes place at Pier 92 and at VOLTA NY, the Armory Show’s sister fair.

2.The Art Show
Park Avenue Armory
Park Avenue at 67th Street
Wednesday, March 3 – Saturday, March 6, 12-8pm; Sunday, March 7, 12-6pm
 $20

The Art Show, which is organized by the Art Dealers Association of America, features contemporary, modern, and master artworks in a variety of media. The 70 American galleries represented in this year’s fair focus on solo and thematic presentations of international artists in a dynamically designed setting.
3. Pulse New York
330 West Street (corner of West Side Highway and West Houston)
Thursday, March 4 – Saturday, March 6, 12-8pm; Sunday, March 7, 12-5pm
$20
Pulse is a cutting-edge fair with some 60 international galleries, featuring solo and group exhibitions. The Impulse section focuses on solo presentations of emerging artists. Large-scale sculptures and installations are sited throughout the show and a video program offers new works by artists of Caribbean and Latin American descent.
4.Scope New York
Pavilion at Lincoln Center Damrosch Park, 62nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue
Thursday, March 4 – Saturday, March 6, 12-8pm; Sunday, March 7, 12-7pm
$20
Occupying a tent in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park, Scope offers an eclectic mix of some 50 galleries from around the world. Additionally, this year’s fair presents a fashion exhibition, organized by Parisian fashion blogger Diane Pernet; a fascinating film program; and a Personal Development Auction, where bidders vie for a chance to win mini mentorships.

5. VOLTA NY
7 West 34th Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)
Thursday, March 4, 2-8pm; Friday, March 5 – Sunday, March 7, 11am-7pm
$15
No Guts, No Glory, the title of this year’s show, presents 88 solo projects from a tight line-up of international galleries. Special artist projects are also peppered throughout the lobby, elevators, and bathrooms, while the catalog is designed as an artist book by onestar press. Talks are held in conjunction with the Armory Show.
6. Fountain New York
Pier 66 at 26th Street and West Side Highway in Hudson River Park
Friday, March 5 – Sunday, March 7, 11am-7pm
$10
Starting out as a renegade fair, Fountain has established itself as freewheeling, experimental exhibition. The 2010 show features 20 exhibitors, which range from scrappy Williamsburg galleries to Gawker Artists’ NSFW (Not Safe For Work) exhibition.
7. Red Dot New York
Skyline Studios, 500 West 36th Street at 10th Avenue
Thursday, March 4, 12-6pm; Friday, March 5 – Saturday, March 6, 11am-8pm; Sunday, March 7, 11am-6pm
$10
With few international exhibitors, Red Dot features a line-up of 33 small town galleries from across the US.
8. Verge New York
The Dylan Hotel, 52 East 41st Street (Between Madison and Park Avenues)
Friday, March 5 – Saturday, March 6, 12-8pm; Sunday, March 7, 12-6pm
$10
A hotel fair, Verge features 24 diverse exhibitors from Europe, Asia, and the US.
9. PooL New York
Gershwin Hotel, 27th Street and 5th Avenue
Friday, March 5, 6-10pm Vernissage ($20)
Friday, March 5 – Sunday, March 7, 3-10pm
$10
Another hotel fair, PooL offers independent artist projects.
10. Independent
548 West 22nd Street
Thursday, March 4, 4-9pm
Friday, March 5 – Saturday, March 6, 11am-8pm; Sunday, March 7, 12-4pm
Free
An exciting new event in the former X Initiative and former Dia Center for the Arts space, Independent presents 38 galleries, independent curators, publishers, and nonprofit spaces in an experimental format.
11. Dutch Art Now
The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South
Wednesday, March 3 – Sunday, March 7, 11am-5pm; March 8-14, call ahead
Free
A dozen galleries from the Netherlands offer new work by 33 Dutch contemporary artists, working in a variety of media.
12. Korean Art Show
la.venue
608 West 28th Street, between 11th and 12th Avenues
Wednesday, March 3 – Sunday, March 7, 11am-7pm; Thursday, March 4, 11am-8pm
Free
The Korean Art Show grants visitors the unique opportunity to see the work of emerging and established artists from 24 Korean galleries.

Exuberantly colored in bright blues, oranges, pinks, light purples, Colina’s work gives the immediate feeling of a children’s book. Through the setting’s abstract forms she composes a fantasy-like playground for the characters in her narratives. Her figures range in form, from a shape analogous to human, to creatures that look more similar to insects, bacteria, or perhaps an anticipated alien? Regardless of their representative associations, Colina’s characters’ relationships and interactions definitely add to the complex plot that exists within each of her pieces. Maybe more visually intriguing than the figures within each piece are the intricate and involved landscape fixtures that serve as a sort of cornucopia of habitat and activity for her characters. Seemingly ever-growing, they flower outward, increasing exponentially in size with each outer layer. They pull the viewer’s gaze in towards their receding center. Often appearing curious and questionable, these forms take on a different feeling from the lively color and zest of the rest of the piece. At times they even translate an erotic quality with the central hole surrounding by the many folds and layers, often having pipes and beams, signifying phalluses, passing through. Upon first glance, Colina’s work is animated, playful, and seemingly child-like, however, with further observation it begins to take on an ironic transformation.

A new breed of painting Elisabet Persson’s work invites viewers to a world full of vibrant colors and mysterious visages. Persson gracefully incorporates picturesque elements into the paintings she creates—works that stand for a reality observed through her own eyes and imagination. The result is a representation that is dreamy, capricious, and out of this world.

Swedish artist Elisabet Persson’s works explore a deeply contemplative corner of the visual sphere. Through her unique work Persson seeks to eliminate the boundaries of memory, history and geography in order to make a state of true contemplation possible. Her paintings span a dynamic assortment of stylistic and thematic conclusions that are linked by their reflective nature. Each work utilizes the canvas as a forum to display the conclusion of a journey that begins with her imagination and ends with a poetic act of expression. Her art teaches the viewer that pure art springs from a meditative state of mind. Expressive and fantastical, the innovative imagery of this multifaceted artist reveals the hidden side of her subjects’ personalities. Fascinated by imperfection, narrative and humor Persson attempts to incorporate incongruities and irregularity into her warm folksy mis-en-scene portraits. In fact, Persson proclaims, “I prefer to create with warmth and well-being as a theme, I want to approach the difficult things in life with a sense of humor.” Tur Att Jag Har Dig depicts a woman with a crimson face, conversing with an enthralled puppy, combined with a muted backdrop of slate grey and ivory. Encompassed by the near colorless negative space, she is engulfed in a space that is not of this world. The splatters of crimson and umber paint slashing across her facial features, evokes a sensation of violence, an impression compounded by her languid body and expression. Persson’s organic yet unified forms are deeply rooted in realism and are often renditions of people she knows well. Her oils, drawings, and prints reveal an intense observation of the subject; she makes his mark with authority and finality, and arrives at the essence of her figures. Persson’s signature thick black lines and the furious mark making she employs give her subjects a flickering quality of energy.

http://www.elisabetpersson.se/

Logan Riley

In the world of mysticims and sacred culture, woman is the center of the universe. Woman the creator, the bringer of life. It is woman, in the guese of the Hecate with their yarn and scissors or Diane and Artemis with the Moon and night sky or Psyche enamoring the epitome of love itself that has driven ancient and modern cultures. For a time though, the role of women has been misplaced, swept under the rug to make room for machismo and male domination. But, as they did then, things change.

imberly Berg is restoring women to their rightful place. Berg almost acts like the Tarot’s High Priestess- she ushers in the unseen, drawing back the mystical curtains, magical forces to enlighten The Fool- representing the world. Her art, as she says, is a door way (not an explanation). A doorway for the viewer to create and imagine a message. Kimberly Berg mixes the female form in a multitude of poses (some strong, some merely passive, but none weak) with mystic and sacred images like the sun, mandalas and even the metaphor of the dark wood. Using the ever malleable media of pastels, graphite, and other mixed media Berg manages to both draw focus to the woman subject as well as express a piece of the universe in the background. Sometimes the woman blends with the background like in Goddess I and II, while in Visitation of the Goddess the woman is the center and the background. In her Creatress series (mainly mixed media) Berg brings subject and metaphor to the front. Many of her women are pregnant, fulfilling a natural and divine rite- creation, the bringing forth, the holder of the sacred Yoni. Kimberly Berg breathes life into her art, a divine birth of creativity where art is the placenta that sustains the world while it grows, develops, and eventually becomes enlightened.

Kimberly Berg’s work will be on display at the Florence Biennale 2009.

http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolio/i/isisrising/

Catherine Y. Hsieh

Segueing between paper and oil paint, artist Betty Disco creates a mysterious world that solicits viewers to explore the strange beauty of her paper sculptures, paper installations, and oil paintings. Disco’s creations, while coming in different forms and mediums, possess a similar quality, the quality of colors. Turquoise, off white, purple, green, navy, and earth tones permeate Disco’s work. She is skilled at cutting and twisting paper into imaginary objects that remind viewers of their everyday life and distance them from it at the same time. Her oil paintings, abstract and multihued, manifest innocent and thoughtful brush strokes. Disco takes great advantage of the texture of the two mediums: paper, soft and gentle; oil paint, creamy and fluid. Both become more versatile in the artist’s hands as she wields her scissors and paintbrush.

By creating unique paper pieces, Disco tells stories of nonexistent cultures that reside only in her mind. Organic shapes and natural shades bring forth a fairy-tale land visible to the ones with an eye for the magical and the fantastical.

With a palette in hand, Disco travels through the continuum of time and space, painting an entirely different dimension with her oil-on-canvas work. Undistinguished forms and broken horizons rise from the surface and a private universe materializes. One that is full of passion, perplexity, and pathos.

Raw and primal, Disco’s work speaks a language with an exotic tone, understood and appreciated by viewers whose state of mind stay untainted by mass culture and public brainwashing. A pioneer on her artistic journey, Disco intuitively excavates along the way rare splendor that lies amidst the sheets of paper and just beneath the layers of paint.

Minimalist artist John Gesager Nielsen’s oveture are a tribute to the legacy of sculpture and engineering as well as to its visionary union of art and nature. Nielsen’s questioning of the conventional attitudes of art and culture does not stop with the creation of objects and images; he is committed to exploring of attitudes and ideas as a critical component of his work. Nielsen has been creating evocative figurative and abstract sculpture for many years. An earnest devotee to the human condition, he renders both Plexiglas, and metal in an elongated, mannerist style. Nielsen who is Danish-born, and now based in Norway uses his sculptures to grapple with emotions fundamental to interpersonal relationships, from passion and desire, to loneliness and love. His abstracted figure sculptures depict individuals and couples running, standing, kneeling, and embracing each other—each work possessing a sense of life and movement that seems to belie the static nature of sculpture.

The artist’s recent work in Plexiglas further highlight his astonishing capability to create figurative sculpture that transforms human bodies into an elongated, aesthetical form. His sculptures depicting couples describe feelings such as love, passion and erotism. They portray perfect unity and harmony juxtaposed with a struggle for domination and independence. Nielsen’s haunting, poetic—even anguished images could be described as perfect expressions of the way in which human figures form relationships with one another in space. Certain pieces (Confidence for instance) could also been seen as symbols of human fortitude. Though the form is heavy and rooted to the ground, each part of the sculpture echoes two bodies rising up, determined to stand up straight regardless of any adversity they may encounter.

Despite the consistent use of metal or plexiglas throughout Nielsen’s work he is more varied than could be assumed— it can be playful, sensual and even devoutly tender. Volumes of bodies are scattered throughout his overture; linked through a network of connected points and faceted planes. In another series, Toward summit the artist highlights his innately diverse nature: tentative of surface and awkward in description, this series sharpens one’s sense of Nielsen’s developing powers, not only in his capacity for emotional depth and surface variety, but also in terms of compositional power. In addition to revealing how people feel on the inside, he captures the exterior with a painterly surface marked by traces of the artist’s hand.
The viewer can’t help being powerfully struck by Nielsen’s extreme openness to a plethora of visual influences, from Giacometti and Picasso to Lipchitz, Laurens and Brancusi, not to mention more traditional modes of European sculpture. His work is also about myth, meaning and movement. Combining the great cross-cultural tales and themes of humanity with the technical skill of the sculptural masters, his work aims to capture the defining moment when timeless storytelling, profound significance, and realistic bodily movement intersect.

www.gesager.com/