A Weekend Guide to SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2017
The sixth version of SPRING/BREAK Art Show outgrew its former location at the James A. Farley Post Office and currently occupies the 22nd and 23rd floor of the former Conde Nast building at 4 Times Square. The labyrinth of 150+ curated office spaces contain the freshest, most cutting edge work of emerging and mid-career artists and independent curators. I must confess that this is my favorite Armory Week satellite fair. This year’s theme, Black Mirror, exhibits, “autobiographical artworks that engage, defy or uphold the idea that art should ‘hide the artist’.”
The volume of works, exhibited in a hive-like office structure, can become overwhelming. I would suggest more than one visit in order to fully take everything in. The problem is that there is so much worth stopping for and experiencing, making a rushed lap impossible.
Ambre Kelly + Andrew Gori
AZIKIWE MOHAMMED: Further Explorations into Contemporary Blackness (2355)
Azikiwe Mohammed follows the previous year’s immersive performance playing the role of New Davonhaime’s thrift shop owner with Further Explorations into Contemporary Blackness.
Chris Bors and Nicolas Touron
20 Eyes in My Head (2348)
20 Eyes in My Head features, “artworks with a magnified and abstracted reality takes it’s name from a Misfits song about a space creature with 20 eyes,”.
Chris Bors, Fuck Kanye West, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 20″ x 16″, image courtesy of Chris Bors
Michael Pybus, PWFG 1, 2017, Acrylic, permanent pigmented ink, UV blacklight paint and glitter medium on canvas, 24″ x 24″
Carol Bove, Selected Work from the Avi Whort Collection
Guy Richards Smit: A Mountain of Skulls and Not One I Recognize (2357)
Guy Richards-Smit returns from 2016’s The Grossmalermn Show! with a selection of watercolors and canvasses. The darkly humorous projections upon the remains in a mass grave can be described as “an oddly affecting meditation on mortality, history and unbelievable human suffering.”
Guy Richards-Smit, A Mountain of Skulls and Not One I Recognize
Coco Dolle
Milk and Night (2354)
“I have chosen the number of 13 artists as an element of discomfort, the ill-fated number evoking ideas of sin, curse, rebellion and lawlessness.”
The thirteen artists include twelve women and one “gentle-tokenman.”
The fair opened Tuesday February 28 with a performance by Ventiko and Davis Henry Nobody Jr. is scheduled to perform Self-Portrait as A Buffet Table 3:30pm Saturday, March 3.
“a live situational and surreal tableau where the artist offers multiple body parts within an edible food display. Engaging the viewer into a festival of visceral actions, this performance reads as a reflection of our obsessive consumption of media, stories and political dramas.”
David Henry Nobody Jr., Hamburger Helper, 2016, archival injet prints on photo paper, 16”x16”; David Henry Nobody Jr., Plastic Surgery Disaster, 2016, archival injet prints on photo paper, 16”x16”; David Henry Nobody Jr., The Duality of Stereo Reality, 2016, archival injet prints on photo paper, 16”x16”; David Henry Nobody Jr., Schizophrenic salad, 2017, archival injet prints on photo paper, 16”x16”
Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Am I Pretty Now?, 2015, archival inkjet print, 22”x16”
ANGE, Free as a Bird, 2016, inkjet print, 20’x16″
Rebecca Goyette, Puritan Bondage Souvenir, 2010, hand-built ceramic sculpture, 16″x20″
Marie Tomanova, Fish, 2016, archival pigment ink print
ANGE, Anarchy to Patriarchy, 2016, archival anklet print, 20″x16″
Ketta Ioannidou
Karma Chameleon (2373)
Karma Chameleon resonates with a nation closing its borders with recent travel bans and immigration sweeps with the work of five women born outside of the US.
Ketta Ioannidou, Whoa Camouflage, 2017, oil on canvas, 55x43in (140x110cm)
Daniela Kostova, Suspended, 2016-2017, Site-specific installation Photographic print on adhesive vinyl, styrene, wood, tire, other found objects, Dimensions variable.
Suzanne Kim
Cate Giordano: TV Guide (2206)
Giordano returns with another immersive environment filled with uncanny representations of the artist’s memory. The schemata encourage the viewer’s mind to fill in the spaces, unfolding a scene of working-class American life represented in paper-maché, cardboard, etc. The setting resembles a stage set in which objects have been constructed with unfinished backs, a reminder of the artifice of the environment. The small televion sets were the most affordable objects in the collection and were almost sold out within the first two hours of the opening night.
Mariah Kittens
Reflected Perceptions (2346)
“Filip Kostic and Evan Hembacher’s virtual reality installation builds off of the familiar, generic office environment, subverting expectation through the manipulation of common artifacts of the cubicle lifestyle.”
Filip Kostic and Evan Hembacher, Untitled VR
Filip Kostic, Empathy
