(Revised) MY TV SHOW I ♡ TV by Marc Kokopeli at Reena Spaulings Fine Art

     Hidden on an upper floor of a building in Chinatown, Reena Spaulings Gallery presents Marc Kokopeli's exhibition MY TV SHOW I ♡ TV. The show challenges what we see when looking at a TV. What counts as a TV? What makes it possible to view media on this TV? The show features many different forms of televisions, such as a "High School Musical Locker TV", artificial reality-type see-through screens, and a piece of jewelry with a mini TV in it. 

    Most of the media on the TVs is hard to make out, as on the TV in the back of the room, covered by an animation of an elephant building a brick wall. This forces the viewers to look beyond what is on the screen and focus rather on what is behind the creation of the TV, from questioning how the transparent screen is showing a video while you can see cobblestones sitting in the TV box behind it, or noticing how the red, round VT is warping the media. Kokopelli encourages the viewers to contemplate the construction of the TVs and how they each create their own unique viewing experience.

    The exhibit questions what other objects provide one service to the viewer, while there is a whole process and years of evolution and technological advancement required for that object to provide its service, which is not often appreciated.

Remotes for the TVs

-Jude Fox

Arsenal Gallery - Sarah Stevenson

    Sarah Stevenson's work walks the line between drawing and sculpture. Her sculptures evoke geometric architectural drawings, but are undeniably supple and curvaceous. The forms are spectral and disappear if you look at them from an angle  where the light does not catch on the multitude of colors; to appreciate them fully one must experience them in the round, letting them come in and out of view. The colors of the works seemingly shimmer as one moves around them, and this experience gives them an organic opalescent quality that accentuates the weightlessness and delicate nature of the sculptures. She achieves this through the use of multicolored thread, wire, and acrylic paint. 

    The sculptures are displayed in natural light, causing shadows to extend from the point where the sculptures hover just above the ground like ghosts. The shadows expand the presence of the sculptures - the amount of space is taken up is impressive given the relatively small amount of material used. Her forms while meticulous and mathematical in their construction remain round and organic - though they feel like architectural plans in their extreme precision and symmetry. In the shape and lightness of the form her sculptures feel related to Ruth Asawa but the geometric construction sets them apart and gives them a unique personality,

    Stevensons sculptures are clearly inspired by drawing in their emphasis on line creating form however, they do not feel like simple three dimensional renderings of color pencil drawings. Instead, they display a clear understanding of the power of sculpture to command space and demand the viewer experience the works in person as there is no other way to experience their fleeting essence.

Sin Wai Kin’s The End Time and the Satire of Life in the Digital Age

Sin Wai Kin’s The End Time, currently at Canal Projects, is a compelling video work that immerses viewers in a sitcom-inspired television episode. The work seamlessly blends humor, satire, and the human struggle against time. A secondary screen features an audience responding in sync with the scenes, emulating the artificiality of a standard American live audience. At its core, the work offers an ironic critique of our cultural obsession with entertainment. The husband-and-wife characters, played by trans people, are clad in exaggerated makeup and clothing, emphasizing traditional gender roles—hypermasculine provider and submissive housewife. Their costumes serve as a visual metaphor for how identity is shaped and sold under capitalism. Gender becomes a performance, commodified for public consumption. The work also critiques digital-age desensitization, where fragmented, provocative content blurs the line between meaning and absurdity. By mimicking internet culture’s chaotic energy, it reflects how overstimulation erodes our ability to process or feel deeply. As viewers are drawn into this hyperbolic digital landscape, the piece induces a sense of derealization, prompting them to question their own role in the spectacle. Beyond its critique of media, The End Time also reflects on the existential nature of time itself, exposing the social and cultural rituals—birth, graduation, marriage, death—that shape our perception of aging and existence. Its glitching visuals and fragmented sequences alternate between “past,” “present,” and “future,” echoing the disjointed nature of memory. The exaggerated performances, the spectacle of the actors, and the depiction of the “live” audience create a layered experience that demands engagement. At once an acute commentary and a playful subversion of contemporary art and media, The End Time emphasizes our mortality through the bleakness of pop culture’s hyper-consumable nature.

Carriage Trade is Reconsidering Viewership in The Age of Social Media

The eleventh installment of “Social Photography” at Carriage Trade has been extended nearly an entire month, a lucky break for anyone who has not yet gotten the chance to visit the exhibition. The show is a collection of images sent via email by artists, friends, contributors, or associates of the gallery, hung in a grid along facing walls. The consistent formatting of the images, as well as their unpredictable content, is comparable to the visual abundance of social media, minus the big bad algorithm controlling your experience. 

In this space we, the viewers, are given the opportunity to direct our experience with the photographs, letting our own desires dictate how much attention we give to each image. While someone interested in the hustle and bustle of city life might find themselves drawn to photographs shared by Amalia Ulman or Eli Coplan, reality tv watchers will likely have their interest piqued by the photograph of a “Selling Sunset” star sent in by Shelly Silver. I, myself, took a photo (an iPhone photo of an iPhone photo–it’s all very meta) of an image with someone watching a scene from the 2024 film “Challengers” on an airplane. Lucky for me, I get the power of deciding when and how I use that photo, if at all, without the looming presence of an algorithm pushing a predetermined agenda–how refreshing.

Bradley Kronz, 2024, inkjet print, 7" x 5"

-Lily Duren, Current Season 472-02

Bride of The Far Side at Post Times

 Bride of The Far Side at Post Times

       Post Times Gallery’s exhibition Bride of The Far Side is an eclectic show that foregrounds kitschy, offbeat, often highly saturated paintings and sculptures imbued with humor and overabundance.

       Rather than a press release, the show is accompanied by a poem by Morgan Ritter, which contains the phrase “throwing goop into the heat”. Many of the works in the show are made of mixed media, allowing the artists to enact this metaphor of "throwing goop" literally.

        Tamara Gonzales’ painting Orange Tabby consists of acrylic, glitter, and other collage elements. It is childlike: acrylic handprints provide patterning to the cat with triangle eyelashes and rectangle whiskers. The painting is excessive, full of physical and conceptual "goop". 

Likewise, Marnie Weber’s Log Lady & Dirty Bunny, features a sculpture of a human-sized bunny-man with pink eyes, cocked ears, and an oversized bow sitting patiently atop a log from which a woman’s face emerges. As with Gonzales’ contribution, this work overflows with excess materials, textures, and symbols.

           Even when works in the show are not mixed media, they employ excess. Constance Tenvik’s acrylic painting High Tea is a brightly colored painting that teems with activity, people, patterned clothing, decadent jello and cakes, and an ornate floor. These elements illustrate a colorful scene that walks the line between kitsch and fine art.

"El Museo Fue Del Barrio" Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024

 I do not particularly like El Museo del Barrio. Last year I wrote a paper where I critiqued theI do not particularly like El Museo del Barrio. Last year I wrote a paper where I critiqued the institution, and this most recent exhibition makes me sure of my critique. 

In my paper I examined how the museum was moving away from its original artistic purpose, for the aim to become a national institution. El Museo was created to give voices to the Nuyorican community of Spanish Harlem, to see themselves reflected in the artwork presented, and to give opportunities for the artists of said communities to have their work exhibited. As of recently, El Museo has paid less and less attention to the neighborhood it resides in, in favor of receiving international acclaim like its many museum counterparts. Through their exhibits, they chose to highlight artists that already have a space for themselves, making it so that their own minority of artists aren’t even shown in the museum created for them. This move has been met with protests from members of the community asking whether the museum should continue with its broadening efforts or solely focus on the hyper specific Latino New York experience in their exhibitions. 

Alina Perez, Family Romance, 2024, charcoal on paper

Their most recent exhibition, Flow States, showcases their desire to further themselves from the Nuyorican community. The exhibition focuses on the diasporic flow of Latino artists based in the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia. Of the artist’s featured, very few were based in New York or even from El Barrio. Why should the museum continue to call itself El Museo del Barrio, if the artists highlighted are not from El Barrio and the museum no longer reflects the Latino community in New York?

~Jay Vargas-Garcia *

“The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition” at The Brooklyn Museum

 The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art was an invigorating display of over 200 artists who have lived in Brooklyn the past five years. Walking through the space, an array of ideas is presented through painting, sculpture, video-installation, drawing, and textile. The description of the show leaves much to the viewer's discretion, which ties together the exhibited pieces through guiding themes such as migration, memory, identity, history, uncertainty, turbulence, healing and joy. While it was remarkable to see such a wide range of ideas being explored, it would have been nice to see more accompanying material to explain the context for some of these pieces. Walking through the exhibition with no prior knowledge of the artists or their work made it challenging to get to know the very artists that made up the show. 

The Book Club, Bergdorf Goodman "Destination Extraordinary", Holiday 2016

Context plays a big part with Johanna Burke’s Green Monkeys. Upon first glance the bright green embroidery beaded monkey grasped my attention. The manipulation of material was exceptional, as it read as natural organic material at a distance. However, after further research I realized that this piece had been commissioned by the designer luxury department Bergdorf Goodman as a holiday display in their storefront. Because this work is essentially an ad for a high-end fashion store, the potency of the piece was extinguished. Looking back, it feels like a big jump between that piece and other works which shared the same room, such as Qualeasha Wood’s woven tapestry which explores personal identity against the technological gaze. This show made me wonder about the process used to choose the artworks. Why were these pieces chosen as Brooklyn's best, out of the 4,000 applications? That being said, this exhibition made me excited for what's to come in the art world.