I found this exhibit to be a refreshing homage to life and art culture. As I passed each work I felt as though I was in on the joke, being invited to the artist's wealth of experience in traditional and modern fine arts. The paintings were a fascinating mix of trompe l'oeil and historical moments, cherry picking pieces of art history and bringing time forward with current sentiments and queer symbols. As a queer show I felt there was a refreshing lack of overtly sexual shock art, instead replaced with an intimate view of queer romance and pride. These works retold the artist story but were right beside city life and modern internet culture. A detail I did not notice until later review was that each painting had a distinct background, that of an art school pin-up wall, each panel bolted in as needed. There is a nice efficiency to the work, even in the midst of all that detail, the painter lets go and lets the viewer imagine. The only piece that broke this recall exercise was the gay bar scene; the painting is inherently photographic. The build of moments in time is abruptly broken and we are now in our time. At first I felt adverse to this break, but then tying into the inheritance theming I think the bar is a culmination of our history thrown back at us, hopefully to show how far we have come in the face of adversity.
Thursday, September 17
Tuesday, September 8
The Museum of Moving Image; Overexposed (Art and Technology)
Stepping into the gallery I first noticed the stark absence of natural light, cuing me in to the artificial nature of the theme. The gallery opened with X-Rays, mainly I think to open up the discussion of what we are generally familiar with seeing and what we as the audience should be fascinated with "revealing". At first the pure fantastical amusement beyond the initial scientific breakthrough was shocking, as I am so familiar with X-Rays as a strictly medical practice that I did not even connect the dots to the "peepshows" on display. I felt a certain willingness to be amazed and join the spectacle of the naked body. Naked Truth, the spectacles on display that were to be used to look up a woman's skirt, was the first clue to me. We as the audience are viewing these X-Rays in a feminist manner, reflecting on the male gaze and that particular view of the nude. This idea began to rapidly tie into every other display, starting with the experimental films. Grandmamauntsistercat, the surreal collaged film featured a hodge-podge of a women's collective life and functions juxtaposed with domestic machinery recreating procreation. The experience of this gallery was entirely strange and at times deeply uncomfortable. I felt the purpose of the pieces were almost to find a mechanical alternative/replacement for women's suffering, searching for a sexuality unexploited by the patriarchy. At the same time I believe there was a small victory of humanity, a celebration of life. Nurses complaining, partying, chattering away to one another, finding comfort together, maybe a silver of hope for our society.
Monday, May 18
Revised- Vignettes and Mutations by Eric White at GRIMM Gallery
Revised Vignettes and Mutations by Eric White at GRIMM Gallery Review
Stella Kowalsky
Vignettes & Mutations by Eric White at GRIMM Gallery is a deeply introspective exhibition by creating a feeling of partially remembered experiences rather than complete narratives. In one piece, a woman sits at a table with her face cropped and partially hidden. The viewer is placed in an uncertain position, we are close to the subject yet separated from her. Because important visual information is withheld from us the image feels familiar while also distant, like the painting of a car interior facing an unreadable billboard against a sunset which presents a perspective that feel like is uncommon in painting but more in photography. Instead of observing a clear scene, we are put in a position that feels personal, almost as if we are seeing through someone else’s eyes.
The exhibition drew me in through its realism. They initially resemble photographs because of their precision and attention to visual detail, but after spending more time with them, they feel a lot more strange and constructed. Rather than simply documenting a scene, they create moments that seem suspended between memory and fiction. The work forces us to become aware of our own process of looking. As we search for meaning in the images, we notice details that felt insignificant at first. The paintings feel deeply personal without relying on dramatic events or direct emotional displays, emotion emerges through absence and suggestion. The spacing and arrangement of the paintings creates the feeling of moving through a series of individual moments rather than following one continuous story. Each work acts like a vignette, revealing fragments of people and environments that hint at larger stories. Details like the jewelry, cigarettes, objects on tables, paintings within paintings, and domestic interiors are clues about the lives represented in the work. These objects don’t function as random decorations they show habits, personalities, and histories of the people depicted. White is interested in how people leave traces of themselves through the objects and spaces they occupy.
White becomes both a collector and participant within these images making a visual archive that reflects not only the people around him but also his own perspective and relationship to memory. These paintings suggest that identity can’t be fully understood through a single image or narrative. It emerges through accumulation, small details, fleeting encounters, and partial views that slowly build a larger understanding of a person and of the artist himself.
When walking through the Whitney Museum of American Art, Kainoa Gruspe’s Welcome to here—doorstops immediately attracted my attention. This piece incorporates many found objects, including salvaged stone; kiawe wood, haole koa wood, and Douglas fir; coconut fiber, plastic, and cement. The installation is composed of many small pieces, usually combining two or three materials together. For example, one piece consists of a stone enclosed within a woven rope structure, while another features a found glass bottle tied onto a brick with rope. These pieces are scattered casually across the floor, giving the installation an unfinished and organic feeling, as if the objects naturally accumulated within the gallery space rather than being carefully arranged.
The diversity of materials and the contrast between different ways of treating them add a strong sense of civilization and history to the work. It gives the impression that these objects had been used for a long time before being collected and displayed. The rough surfaces, weathered textures, and handmade qualities create a feeling that the materials carry traces of everyday life and labor. For instance, the way plant fibers are woven around the stones constantly reminds me of traditional fish traps. Another piece, in which burlap is wrapped around a stone and secured with plastic zip ties, makes me think of bundled pork sold in markets or prepared for cooking. These uses of materials evoke memories of past ways of living experiences. Although the objects themselves are simple, the combinations of natural fibers, industrial materials, and salvaged fragments create layers of cultural associations.
Considering that Gruspe collected many of these objects from golf courses, hotels, and military bases in Hawaii, the work inevitably reflects his thoughts on extractive relationships between colonialism, industrialization and the environment. Through creating these doorstops, Gruspe hopes to keep the door open for more possibilities in the future. The title itself suggests resistance against closure, as if memory, history, and cultural identity can still remain active in spite of environmental and social transformation.
The other piece that echoes this work from a distance is heʻe and leho forever / cones. It is composed of hanging translucent fabrics, shells, fishing materials, wood, and found objects. The translucent fabric is supported by a wooden frame and a piece of cement, standing upright on the floor like a fishing net. Gruspe embroiders onto this surface and attaches fossilized squid to it.
The title uses Hawaiian words: “heʻe” means octopus and “leho” refers to a seashell. These references connect the artwork closely to the ocean and to Hawaiian culture. The cement comes from Kālia, a site that was later developed into the Hilton Hawaiian Village resort, suggesting Hawaii’s colonial history and the impact of industrialization on the ocean and the land. Gruspe transforms these remnants of developed land into parts of his artwork, encouraging viewers to reconsider the relationship between land, memory, and nature. His works carry both a sense of mourning for what has been lost and a quiet hope for future possibilities.
MoMA PS1: Red Canary Song's "Touch the Heart"
MOMA PS1 James Turrell "Meeting"
MOMA PS1 JAMES TURRELL "Meeting"
By Evan Wu
James Turrell’s Meeting at MoMA PS1 feels less like entering an artwork and more like stepping into a pause. The space is almost empty, but the emptiness becomes the main material. Sitting inside the room, the opening in the ceiling frames the sky so precisely that it starts to look artificial, almost flat, like a projection instead of something real. What interested m
e most was how Turrell manipulates perception without physically doing much. The work depends on time, weather, and the viewer’s patience. As the light slowly shifts, the sky changes color and depth, making you question if what you are seeing has always been there or if the space itself is producing it.
What I appreciate about Meeting is how it heightens awareness toward something people usually ignore. Looking at the sky is such an everyday act, but Turrell stages it in a way that feels theatrical and uncanny at the same time. The room frames a familiar experience until it becomes strangely unfamiliar. It reminded me that perception can be choreographed through subtle interventions rather than dramatic gestures. The work does not force an interaction, but instead creates conditions for observation and sensitivity. I left thinking more about slowness, stillness, and how architecture can alter the way we experience ordinary moments.
David Armstrong: Portraits Review
Artists Space
David Armstrong: Portraits
David Armstrong is a well-renowned photographer in any educational photography program. It was amazing to finally be able to see their work in person. It was really interesting to see how the exhibition was sequenced on the wall, where there seemed to be a clear distinction between the styles of the work. By this, I mean how the black and white prints were printed and framed more traditionally, with the black film bordered prints put into a white-framed shadow box, highlighting the materiality of the prints. This varied greatly from some of the other color prints, which had really massive black borders reaching back to the frame. For most of the exhibition, these forms of display were installed in the traditional manner of a straight line, semi-seperated by style, except for one wall. This one wall had all of these projects merged together, tacked to the wall in a really interesting way, creating a new way to interpret the work. This modern salon style hang started to resemble open image files on a desktop or some of the new photobooks of Vince Aletti’s archive, such as The Drawer. Together, the collage starts to change the focus of the people in the images into a collection forming an archive on queer existence. The range in printing style creates a visual timeline for audiences that may not be aware of the advancements of the artist's works, building a larger conversation of queer existence
- Lewis James
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