Category: Exhibitions

Save the Date! Spring Art in the Barn at bga April 29 – May 7, 2023

March 8, 2023 0 Comment
29ddm Mourning Station #4, Dominic Di Mare, hawthorn, handmade paper, silk, bone, bird’s egg, feathers, gold and wood beads, 13″ x 7″ x 7″, 1981. Photo by Tom Grotta

For Spring 2023, browngrotta arts is pleased to announce a wide-ranging exhibition of work by noted artists from around the world. Acclaim! Work by Award-Winning International Artists (April 29 – May 7) will highlight mixed media, fiber sculpture and contemporary textile artists artists creating and advancing the field of fiber arts now and throughout the last six decades, including Sheila Hicks, Dominic Di Mare, Kay Sekimachi, Jiro Yonezawa, Carolina Yrarrázaval and Ed Rossbach.

5pco Microgauze 84, Peter Collingwood, Warp: Black and natural linen; Weft: natural linen, 72″ x 8.375″ x .125″, 1970. Photo by Tom Grotta

Awards by the dozen
The nearly 50 artists in Acclaim! Work by Award-Winning International Artists, have each achieved formal art acknowledgement in the form of an award or medal or selective membership. In the US, that may mean the award of a Gold Medal from the American Craft Council — 10 of the artists in Acclaim! belong to that group. In Canada, it means membership in the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, which three of our artists have achieved. The late masterweaver Peter Collingwood received an OBE, Order of the British Empire. Yeonsoon Chang of Korea was selected Artist of the Year by the Contemporary Art Museum in Seoul. In France, Simone Pheulpin was awarded the Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris. Grethe Sørensen of Denmark and Agneta Hobin of Finland received the Nordic Award in Textiles. Sheila Hicks of the US,  was awarded the French Legion of Honor and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center; Helena Hernmarck received the American Institute of Architects, Craftsmanship Medal and the Prins Eugen Medal conferred by the King of Sweden for “outstanding artistic achievement.”

26yc The Path which leads to the center II, Yeonsoon, Chang, teflon mesh, pure gold leaf, eco resin, 25″ x 50″ x 6″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

Results of recognition
Receiving an award can provide important affirmation for an artist. “There are no other large prizes in the UK for artists working in this medium,” says Jo Barker, winner of the Cordis Prize. “So what winning mostly felt like to me was a real validation of the career that I’ve had so far.” Such recognition can influence the direction of an artist’s work. Lia Cook’s Gold Medal from the American Craft Council provided her support for her process — particularly, she says, for “my continued interest in following the unexpected.” Once selected as Artist of the Year by the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, Korea, Yeonsoon Chang saw her textile work in the broader scope of contemporary art. “Objective recognition gave me courage to work and a sense of responsibility,” she says. For Chang, the award also meant expanded interest in her work from museums, galleries, and collectors. Winning Best Visual Arts Exhibition of the Year from the Circle of Critics of Art in Chile was a recognition of 40 years of work  for Carolina Yrarrázaval  and a confirmation for all those who believed in her work, clients, galleries and museums. More importantly, Yrarrázaval says, it was the first time that textile art received this award in Chile, placing it on par with all disciplines in visual arts. “It was not only a recognition of my personal contribution,” she says, “but also to this discipline, which for a long time was seen as a minor art.”

25cy Deseos Ocultos, Carolina Yrarrazaval, jute, linen, paper and raffia, 60.5″ x 30.5″ x 1″, 2023. Photo by Tom Grotta

Art undeterred
After some years of being overlooked and undervalued, contemporary textile art has finally been embraced (again) in the last several years by a wider world of museums and galleries. The current focus on artists working in fiber finds complex, thoughtful and accomplished work – some produced today and some in years when gallery and museum attention was slight. “What may appear to be an explosion of textile producers, from a historical perspective, is an explosion of interest and awareness of a tradition that has always been important, deep and rich,” Adam Levine, director of the Toledo Museum of Art told Art News last year. (Katya Kazakina, The Art Detective: Textile Artists Are Back in the Public Spotlight in Museums and Galleries. Art Collectors? They’re Still Catching Up, February 4, 2022). in other words, even when out of popular favor, fiber artists were undeterred, continuing to create exceptional work.

A through line — then and now
The work in Acclaim! creates a through line from the movement’s early days to its current creative explosion, highlighting the importance of persistence and the benefits of recognition along the way. Fiber art’s revival in museums, galleries and with collectors is built upon the dedication and extraordinary talent of artists like those featured in Acclaim!

Join us next month
browngrotta arts
276 Ridgefield Road Wilton, CT 06897

Artist Reception and Opening: April 29, from 11am to 6 pm

Remaining Days
Sunday, April 30th: 11AM to 6 PM (40 visitors/ hour)

Monday, May 1st – Saturday, May 6th: 10AM to 5PM (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, May 7th: 11AM to 6PM [Final Day] (40 visitors/ hour)

Safety protocols 
Eventbrite reservations strongly encouraged • No narrow heels please (barn floors)

Reserve a spot here: RESERVE

Artist Focus: Ferne Jacobs

February 15, 2023 0 Comment
Installation Photo of Building the Essentials: Ferne Jacobs
Installation Photo of Building the Essentials: Ferne Jacobs. Photo: Madison Metro, Craft in America

At the forefront of the revolution in fiber art, Ferne Jacobs has been creating innovative work since the mid-60s. At her retrospective in 2022 in Los Angeles, Building the Essentials: Ferne Jacobs, the Craft in America Center noted that Jacobs is recognized for her mastery of material and process. Reinventing and advancing traditional techniques used for basketry, including knotting, coiling, and twining, Jacobs has generated an entirely new language of sculptural art. Her acute sense of color melded with her poetic and intuitive approach set her work apart. You can order a copy of the catalog at browngrotta.com.

Ferne Jacobs Portrait
Portrait by Carter Grotta

Ferne Jacobs began as a painter, exploring the possibilities of three-dimensional painting in the mid-1960s, before moving to weaving after workshops by such avant-garde fiber artists as Arline Fisch and Olga de Amaral. After the American Craft Museum (now Museum of Art and Design) exhibition Sculpture in Fabric (1972), Jacobs gained national attention for her work. Jacobs has taught and lectured on fiber arts and design since 1972. She received her M.F.A. from Claremont Graduate University in 1976 and has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad. She is the recipient of the Flintridge Foundation Award for Visual Artists, and in 1995 she was named a Fellow of the College of Fellows by the American Craft Council. 

Red Sculpture by Ferne Jacobs
3fj Interior Passages, Ferne Jacobs, coiled and twined waxed linen thread, 54” x 16” x 4”, 2017.
photos by Tom Grotta

Jacobs’ work is meticulous, intensive and personal. She felt particularly close to Interior Passages, “as though we are one and the same.” She says that “[t]his has never happened so completely to me before. It has caused me to ask why, and to try to find a way to explain it to others. In the world I find myself today, feminine values are often desecrated. I am beginning to understand that there is no such thing as a ‘second class citizen’ — anywhere, anytime. There are aspects of world culture where weak people try to control others; because that is the only way they feel their own existence.” Interior Passages emphatically resists that approach. “Interior Passages knows she exists,” Jacobs notes. “She needs no one to tell her who she is or what she is. She knows her value, and I expect the world to respect this inner understanding. When it doesn’t, I think it moves toward a destructiveness that can be devastating.”

Green Basket sculpture by Ferne Jacobs
4fj Open Globe, Ferne Jacobs, coiled and twined wax linen thread, 13” x 13”, 2001. Photo by Tom Grotta

Open Globe reflects Jacobs’ reaction to the environment. “The title Open Globe came from experiencing the piece as I was making it,” Jacobs explains. “In my mind, it was the earth. The colors green, brown, blue, grey are the elements on our planet. Open came because there is no bottom or top. The piece is open, so can we see the earth as a globe/ball and open/unending.” The undulations in Blue Wave operate on numerous levels, conjuring ancient Greek pottery, wave froth and water, and the female form among other references.

Detail of Blue and white Ferne Jacobs wall sculpture
5fj Blue Wave detail, Ferne Jacobs, coiled and twined waxed linen thread, 19” x 17.5” x 6”, 1994.
Photo by Tom Grotta

Jacobs’s work is found in many public collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, the de Young Museum, San Francisco, California and the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island. 

Ferne Jacobs’ work will be included in browngrotta arts’ spring 2023 exhibition Acclaim! Work by Award-Winning International Artists. You can order a copy of the catalog Ferne Jacobs: Building the Essentials at browngrotta.com.

Ferne Jacobs Building the Essentials catalog

Artist Focus: Lawrence LaBianca

January 11, 2023 0 Comment
Full Stop, Lawrence LaBianca
6ll Full Stop, Lawrence LaBianca, oak, modified trailer winch, cast glass, steel cable, 41″ x 40″ x 13″, 2007

The UN-declared International Year of Glass has just ended, but the many positive attributes of glass deserve to be recognized well into 2023. Among the attributes the UN cataloged are — glass’s role in communication at optical fiber, the fact that it is chemically resistant and used in creating and distributing Covid vaccines, that bioglass can stimulate bone growth and healing, and that glass sheets are used to create solar energy. Of most interest to browngrotta arts, the UN also noted that “Glass artists across the globe have given humankind an awareness of this wonderful material including its remarkable methods of fabrication, inherent beauty, and ability to capture and display nature’s full spectrum of color.”

Wayne Art Center installation of Timeline by Lawrence LaBianca
Wayne Art Center installation of 5ll Timeline by Lawrence LaBianca, walnut ladle, cast glass,steel, 10″ x 48″ x 10″ , 2000

Lawrence LaBianca is one of those artists. He creates glass elements for many of his works, in addition to creating elements of wood and wrought iron and photography. Six of LaBianca’s works are featured in Beyond Glass at the Wayne Art Center in Pennsylvania through January 21, 2023. Beyond Glass, curated by Josephine Shea, gathers artists who choose varied techniques and materials to create work that combines glass with other materials, such as metal, wood, or found objects. Invited from across the United States and beyond, the exhibit also provides a sliver of history, as glass migrated from the factory floor in the early 1960s and returned to the artist’s studio. 

3lb Camphor, Lawrence LaBianca, glass with photo, branch, steel, 12″ x 22″ x 7″, 1999

Among the works of LaBianca’s in Beyond Glass is Camphor. In it the artist has mounted a branch on an iron stand, topped with a piece of glass, into which has been embedded a photographic image of the branch, creating a tool through which the branch can be observed and understood in several different ways. “The tools we apply to nature—to contain it, shape it, understand it and categorize it—also have a profound affect upon it,” LaBianca explains. “It is this impetus to measure, understand, contain and manipulate nature that I enact through my work.”

LaBianca creates tool-forms that explore our relationship with nature through attention to craft, form, physicality, and the fluidity of the boundaries between these ideals. “His work is both abstract and narrative, as the materials with which he works assume new and idiosyncratic identities,” wrote the Virginia A. Groot Foundation in awarding the LaBianca a grant. LaBianca combines natural, organic materials such as wood with manufactured elements to create hybrids. Many of his pieces reference the human body to explore a variety of human emotions. For example, in Full Stop, tree branches and trunks are cut into discs and separated with blown pieces of glass to resemble vertebrae.  The natural sections of this structure appear to be supported and augmented by manufactured glass-like prosthetics.

7ll My Father’s Dream, Lawrence LaBianca, oak, green neon, transformer, cord, 24″ x 96″ x 10″, 2004. Photo by Tom Grotta.

In My Father’s Dream, LaBianca combines a large oak branch with green neon placed in a carved channel inside.  “This work references the dream world with its title and its night-green glow,” wrote Emily Raabe, “but it also implies the act of memory … the way that our memory allows us to hold our observations, emotions, dreams and stories in a state of restless simultaneity; a momentary abeyance that pulses under the force of our own imaginations.” LaBianca agrees about the role of memory.  “Memory leaves an imprint,” he says. “Through time these imprints become makers that provide us with insights of where we have been and once pieced together show us our path.”

The artist explains that My Father’s Dream was influenced by a memory of his fathers adaptation of our suburban home with the addition of a wood stove during the 70’s oil crisis. “During this time my dad would wake us up, very early, to collect wood that fell into our neighbors yards during ice storms. Our family station wagon could fit several limbs. These limbs needed to be of a certain length and of a certain wood which would optimize our outings. The limb used for My Father’s Dream is the optimal length, weight and fuel for such an outing.” 

For more examples of work by Lawrence LaBianca, a “blacksmith of the 21st century,” visit our website.

browngrotta arts Year in Review/Preview

January 4, 2023 0 Comment

Hi all!
We like to take a look back most Januarys. We make plans, and, more optimistically, resolutions for the New Year.

This year has been a busy one for us and next year is shaping up to be busier still! 

Below, a look back and  a look ahead for browngrotta arts. Hope you’ll add some of our upcoming activities to your schedule.

Exhibitions

Opening reception for crowdsourcing the Collective
Crowdsourcing the Collective exhibition. Photo by Ezco Productions

2022 
• More than 500 people attended our 2022 Exhibitions, Crowdsourcing the Collective: a survey of textiles and mixed media and Allies for Art: Art from NATO-related countries.

• After the in-person exhibitions ended, we posted the work on Artsy as exclusive on-line collections.

• We curated a Viewing Room in March. Featuring works in frames, it was entitled Art With an Edge: The Case for Frames.

Tom installing The Station/Kuala Lampur for our Upcoming Glen Kaufman Viewing Room exhibition. Photo by Rhonda Brown

2023
• We’ll host two in-person exhibitions next year, one in the Spring and one in the Fall. Add the Spring exhibition dates to your calendar now: April 29 – May 7, 2023

• We’ll be involved with three exhibitions at public spaces. We’ve loaned work to Norma Minkowitz: Body to Soul at the Fairfield University Art Museum in Connecticut, which opens January 27th and will loan several indigo works to the Denver Botanic Garden in Colorado for an exhibition that opens July 1st and we’ve partnered with the Flinn Gallery, Greenwich Public Library, Connecticut for Wordplay: Messages in Branches and Bark, which opens on March 30th. 

• We’ll present an online exhibition of the late Glen Kaufman’s work, Glen Kaufman: 1960-2010  in our Viewing Room on our new website.

• We will curate at least one other 2023 on-line exclusive exhibition in the View Room on the new website. Topic TBD.

Outreach

James Bassler Two Flags video

2022 Social Media:
• We have continued to post regularly on our social channels, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and our blog, arttextstyle. We’ve upped the amount of information we provide on Instagram and you’ve responded by engaging with us more.

• Our Instagram impressions are up 13.5%, engagements 12.6% and Instagram video views up 16.9%

• Our Facebook Engagements are up 32.1%  

• Page views on arttextstyle increased by 15%

• Our Instagram Net Follower Growth has grown 90.5%

• Our Total Net Audience has Grown 46%

2023 Social Media and Live Programs:
• We’ll continue our social media postings on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and arttextstyle, which will move to our new website when it launches.

• Gyöngy Laky and John McQueen will each speak on different dates at the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich in April in conjunction with the Wordplay: Messages in Bark and Branches exhibition that features their work. Tom will also speak at the Flinn during the Wordplay exhibition. More on dates and times to come.

• Tom will speak at the Ridgefield Library on Contemporary Art Textiles and Fiber Art on Sunday, April 16, at 2 pm and also at the Appraisers Association of America meeting in NYC in June.

Publications

Gyöngy Laky: Screwing with Order, assembled art, actions and creative practice; Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries; Crowdsourcing the Collective: a survey of textiles and mixed media art
Gyöngy Laky: Screwing with Order, assembled art, actions and creative practice; Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries; Crowdsourcing the Collective: a survey of textiles and mixed media art catalogs

2022
• We were pleased at the publication of Gyöngy Laky: Screwing with Order, assembled art, actions and creative practice, this Spring. It was designed by Tom features text by Jim Melchert, Mija Reidel and David M. Roth. You can buy it on our website and in the MoMA book store, among other outlets.

• We published a 148-page, color catalog for our Crowdsourcing the Collective exhibition.

• We published a 148-page, color catalog for our Allies for Art exhibition.

2023
• In early 2023, we will make available our fifth monograph, Glen Kaufman: 1960 – 2010.

• On March 15th Anne Newlands authoritative book on noted Canadian artist Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Weaving Modernist Art: The Life and Work of Mariette Rousseau-Vermette will be published. It features many of Tom’s photos of Mariette’s work. We hope to make it available in the browngrotta arts’ site.

• We will publish a color catalog for our Spring “Art in the Barn” exhibition in April 2024.

• We will publish a color catalog for our Fall “Art in the Barn” exhibition in September-October 2023.

External Platforms

Artsy viewing room and 1stdibs browngrotta arts page
Artsy and 1stdibs

2022
• Art from browngrotta arts could be found on 1stDibs and Artsy in 2022. We created our first Artsy Viewing Room to showcase the work of Wendy Wahl and Norma Minkowitz, then-included in the Westport Museum of Contemporary Art Exhibition, Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse, in Connecticut. Artsy included Yasuhisa Kohyama in its article: 5 Artists on Our Radar in June.

2023
• Art from browngrotta arts will again be found on 1stDibs and Artsy in 2023. We’ll be adding videos on Artsy to give viewers even more information about available works.

Please join us. We’d love to see our views grow in 2023.

Art Out and About: An Abundance of Events in the US and Abroad, Part II

November 23, 2022 0 Comment

Here is more information about numerous fiber art activities underway this Fall, featuring artists who work with browngrotta arts and others. Hope you’ll have a chance to check some of these out.

Brussels, Belgium
MUTE
Through December 18, 2022
Stephanie Jaxx Gallery
53 Rue Joseph Stallaert 4
1050 Brussel, Belgium
galerie-stephanie-jaax.com

Ce qu'il en reste IV sculpture by Stéphanie Jacques
Detail: Ce qu’il en reste IV, Stéphanie Jacques, osier, enduit, fil, 40.5″ x 16″ x 11″, 2015. Photo by Tom Grotta

Stéphanie Jacques shows her work with that of Yannick Carlier in MUTE: Lively, between two fields of the body, in Brussels through December 18, 2022.

Hobro, Denmark
Artifact: Nature recreated – Jane Balsgaard, Vibeke Glarbo & Britt Smelvær
November 26, 2022 – February 25, 2023
Artists Hobro
St. Torv, 9500 
Hobro, Denmark
https://kunstetagerne-dk.translate.goog/kunst/kalender/kalender2022.php?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=da&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

Jane Balsgaard abstract boat sculpture
photo by Jane Balsgaard

Jane Balsgaard, Vibeke Glarbo and Britt Smelvær create installations and individual works that examine the relationship between nature and art.

Crossed Helix Ⅸ by Shoko Fukuda
Caption: A sample of work proposed for commission by Shoko Fukuda, ramie, plastic, H75×W90×D30cm, 2022. 

Commissions

Shoko Fukuda has been producing 185 small commissioned works for a residential project in London since April. This Fall the works were installed on the walls of the two bedrooms. For another commission, in Japan, she produced samples for Japanese hotels.

The Hague, the Netherlands
Anni and Josef Albers
Through January 23, 2023
Kunstmuseum Den Haag
Stadhouderslaan 41
2517 HV The Hague, the Netherlands

Featuring over 200 works – including textiles, paintings, graphic art, photographs, furniture and drawings – this exhibition shows how Anni Albers (1899 -1994) evolved into a true pioneer of modern textile art, and highlights the process of artistic development Josef Albers (1888-1976) underwent which culminated in his internationally renowned Homage to the Square series which comprises innumerable colour studies in a square format.

Clinton, New Jersey
Moving Lines
Thread Hijack
Through Jan. 8, 2023
Hunterdon Museum of Art
7 Lower Center Street
Clinton, NJ 08809
https://www.hunterdonartmuseum.org/exhibitions/amie-adelman-moving-lines/
https://www.hunterdonartmuseum.org/exhibitions/thread-hijack/

Natasha Das, Pink
Thread Hijack! Natasha Das, Pink,(detail), 2019, Oil and thread on canvas 60 x 36 inches Courtesy of the artist and Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia

Moving Lines is a room-sized site-specific thread installation, Amie Adelman creates a moment of mesmerizing focus that invites viewers in for a closer inspection. Learn More:  https://tinyurl.com/rtejba5n. Thread Hijack explores what happens when artists take thread in new and interesting directions, away from its original utilitarian purpose. The six artists in Thread Hijack!Thread Hijack — Abdolreza Aminlari, Caroline Burton, Natasha Das, Jessie Henson, Holly Miller, and Raymond Saá — employ thread as an artmaking material or tool to expand or replace conventional mediums such as drawing, painting, collage, and printmaking. They use thread to draw a line, compose a shape, record a gesture, or glue elements together. Several stitch directly on paper using commercial sewing machines or hand sewing. Others innovate with needle and thread to make marks on a painted canvas. They all exploit the tension between fragility and strength that is intrinsic to thread. Learn more from this insightful review: “Adventures in embroidery: ‘Thread Hijack’ at Hunterdon Art Museum showcases consistent creativity,” Tris McCall, October 27, 2022, NJArts.net.

Art Out and About: An Abundance of Events in the US and Abroad, Part I

November 16, 2022 0 Comment

Our artists have been busy this fall. They are involved in a number of exhibitions and commissions, some of which we’ve listed below; some of which we will cover in next week’s arttextstyle. We’ve also noted a few other exhibitions worth adding to your radar.

Exhibitions

Kyoto, Japan
The World of Textiles and Basketry
Ended October
Gallerie Aube
Kyoto University of the Arts
Kyoto, Japan
https://uryu-tsushin.kyoto-art.ac.jp/detail/1041

The World of Textiles and Basketry exhibition installation
photo from https://uryu-tsushin.kyoto-art.ac.jp/detail/1041

In September and October, 2022, as a milestone of 40 years at Kyoto University of the Arts, Keiji Nio, Professor, Department of Arts and Crafts, prepared an exhibition that combined his own history, woven kimono, tapestry, fiber art and basketry, which are rarely seen in the same venue. Aiming to create an exhibition space that transcended the scope of the group of works, he planned The World of Textiles and Basketry, held at the Galerie Aube attached to Kyoto University of the Arts. Included was work by Erika Otsuka, a traditional crafts exhibition exhibitor, Misako Nakahira, a tapestry artist who makes full use of tsuzureori, photographs and kasuri weaving, works of Megumi Takeda, a tapestry artist who combines the above, and the works of 30 artists, including Noriko Takamiya, who have been participating in and annual basketry exhibition for many years, all in the same venue, it was a fresh group of works that are not bound by materials or techniques.  In addition to classical textiles, there were many structures and works that can be called sculptures though “woven” at first glance. There are additional images in the University newsletter: https://uryu-tsushin.kyoto-art.ac.jp/detail/1041.

Irvine, California
Dissolve
University Art Museum
UC Irvine Institute and Museum of California Art (IMCA)
Through December 10, 2022 
Interim Location: 
18881 Von Karman Avenue
Suite 100
Irvine, CA 92612
https://imca.uci.edu/exhibition/dissolve/

Gridlock weaving by Lia Cook
Gridlock C, A&B, by Lia Cook. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Dissolve explores how certain artists, including Lia Cook, perceive what it means to change from one form to another. Through painting, photography, sculpture, installation and video, selected artworks demonstrate how gradual and immediate changes impact viewers’ perceptions of self, one another, and the shared environment. Adopting an inclusive view of the process of dissolving, the featured artists visualize the physical dissolution of light, water, distance, and geographic borders. They also address the dissolution of personal relationships, identity, and social and political networks. 

Cheongju, Korea
The Gravity of Movement
Through December 11, 2022
Cheongju Korean Craft Center
https://cjkcm.org/craft1_eng/

The Gravity of Movement exhibition installation
The Gravity of Movement exhibition photos by Park Myung-rae

The Gravity of Movement features works by Chang Yeonsoon, including works from the matrix series, the road to the center, and a site-specific installation are included.

Commissions

Jennifer Falck Linssen commission
Components from Jennifer Falck Linssen’s Aeolian., Katagami-style handcarved paper and metal wall sculpture. Materials include archival cotton paper, aluminum, linen, pigment, mica, acrylic, and varnish. Photo Jennifer Falck Linssen

Jennifer Falck Linssen has completed a commissioned wall sculpture, Aeolian for a client in the US. It’s 168 inches long of Katagami-style handcarved paper and metal. Materials include archival cotton paper, aluminum, linen, pigment, mica, acrylic, and varnish. The work will be installed in December.

Also of Note

London, UK
Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope
Through May 21, 2023
Tate Modern
Bankside
London, UK SE1 9TG
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/magdalena-abakanowicz

In the 1960s and 70s, the Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz created radical sculptures from woven fibre. They were soft not hard; ambiguous and organic; towering works that hung from the ceiling and pioneered a new form of installation. They became known as the Abakans. This exhibition presents a rare opportunity to explore this extraordinary body of work. Many of the most significant Abakans will be brought together in a forest-like display in the 64-metre long gallery space of the Blavatnik Building at Tate Modern. The exhibition is organized by Tate Modern in collaboration with the Fondation Toms Pauli at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne/Plateforme 10 and Henie Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden.

Check them out.

Allies for Art: Exclusively Online on Artsy through November 18, 2022

October 19, 2022 0 Comment

Did you miss the in-person version of Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries at browngrotta arts? Good news! You can see the art that made up the exhibition exclusively on Artsy through November 18th.

Three dimensional embroidered leaf shaped wall sculpture
7ak Embraced by Nature II, Anda Klancic, embroidered viscose, flax, cotton, polyester, metal filament, PVA fabric 31” x 23” x 9.25”, 2004. Photo by Tom Grotta

The nearly 50 artists in Allies for Art are from 21 different countries — 18 NATO members and 3 NATO applicants. Their work reflects diverse perspectives and experiences. The exhibition includes art created under occupation, in the ‘60s through the 80s, art by those who left repressive governments in Hungary, Romania and Spain, and art by other artists who left Russia in later years. Allies for Art also includes current works created by European artists including Gudrun Pagter of Denmark, Åse Ljones of Norway, Włodmierz Cygan of Poland, Ceca Georgieva of Bulgaria and, artists new to browngrotta arts, including Esmé Hofman of the Netherlands, Aby Mackie of Spain and Baiba Osite of Latvia.

Abstract off the wall textile sculpture
20mb Giallo, Marian Bijlenga, cotton; horshair, 58″ x 53″, 1994. Photo by Tom Grotta.

You can also learn more about the exhibition in the Allies for Art full-color catalog, which includes lush images and details shots and an essay by Kate Bonansinga, Director, School of Art, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio available on our website.

VIEW EXHIBITION ONLINE: Artsy
VIEW EXHIBITION IN PRINT: Order an Allies for Art catalog

Make a Day of It: Events to Visit on Your Way to Allies for Art at browngrotta arts

September 29, 2022 0 Comment


On your way to see Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries at browngrotta arts (October 8-16, 2022)? Here are some other venues of interest in browngrotta arts’ neighborhood or nearby.

1. Aldrich: 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone
Through January 8, 2023.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
258 Main Street
Ridgefield, CT 06877
Tel 203.438.4519
6.2 Miles

South Gallery: Aldrich
South Gallery, left to right: Grace Bakst Wapner, Calving, 2020; Stella Zhong, Every Other Chopped, 2021; Merrill Wagner, Inlet, 2010. Photo by Tom Grotta

Aldrich: 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone (https://thealdrich.org/exhibitions/52-artists-revisiting-a-feminist-milestone) celebrates the fifty-first anniversary of the historic exhibition Twenty Six Contemporary Women Artists, curated by Lucy R. Lippard and presented at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in 1971. 52 Artists showcases work by the artists included in the original 1971 exhibition, alongside a new roster of 26 female identifying or nonbinary emerging artists, tracking the evolution of feminist art practices over the past five decades. 52 Artists encompasses the entirety of the Museum (approx. 8,000 sq. ft)—the first exhibition to do so in The Aldrich’s new building which was inaugurated in 2004.

2. From the Pen to the Knife
From October 15 – November 27, 2022
Westport MoCA
19 Newtown Turnpike
Westport, CT 06880
Tel. 203-222-7070

Marion Christy, Untitled
Marion Christy, Untitled. Photo courtesy of the artist

From The Pen To The Knife features the watercolor paintings of Marian Christy. Christy was a pioneer of the Knifed Watercolors® style, a process that creates original watercolors using only palette knives and puddles of paint.  

3. Grace Farms
365 Lukes Wood Rd.
New Canaan, CT 06840
Tel. 203-970-1702

Grace Farms. Photos by Tom Grotta

Always a rejuvenating place to visit,  Grace Farms is a scenic 80-acre cultural and humanitarian center in New Canaan, Connecticut. Schedule a tour or make a reservation for one of Grace Farms’ unique events. Visitors must schedule a visit in advance. Admission is free. (https://gracefarms.org/visit/) 

4. Leaves: The Endangered Species of New England
Through December 1, 2022.
Fairfield University Art Museum, Bellarmine Lawn
1073 North Benson Road
Fairfield, Connecticut 06824
(203) 254-4000
(https://www.fairfield.edu/museum/leaves/) 

Alan Sonfist, Leaves
Alan Sonfist, Leaves: The Endangered Species of New England (Installation view), 2011, aluminum, on loan from the artist.

The leaves installed on the Bellarmine lawn are on loan to the Fairfield University Art Museum for the next year from the American artist Alan Sonfist (b. 1946), best known as a pioneer of the Land or Earth Art movement. These four larger-than-life aluminum sculptures of leaves were created in 2011 and represent several of New England’s most beloved native trees: the American Beech, the American Chestnut, the Burr Oak, and the Sugar Maple. The sculpted leaves act as reminders to honor and protect the trees, and as a warning that failure to do so could result in their extinction. 

The museum is working with the Biology Department, the Environmental Studies Program and the artist, around a series of programs to be presented in the spring of 2022 to highlight these sculptures, along with climate change and endangered species.

5. Yale Art Gallery: Three New Thematic Displays of Asian Art
1111 Chapel Street (at York Street) 
New Haven, Connecticut
(203) 432-0600
(https://artgallery.yale.edu/news/three-new-thematic-displays-asian-art) 

Detail: Sultan Tughril III
Detail: Sultan Tughril III, from a Manuscript of Hafiz-i Abru’s Majma’ al-tawarikh. Photo: Yale University Art Gallery.

Yale Art Gallery’s collection of Asian art comprises nearly 8,000 works from East Asia, South Asia, continental Southeast Asia, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey and spans the Neolithic period to the 21st century. Highlights of the collection include Chinese ceramics and paintings, Japanese paintings and prints, and Indian and Persian textiles and miniature paintings. Due to the sensitivity of these artworks to light and climate, they are rotated out roughly every six months. 

On view through November are three new thematic displays of Asian Art including: Understanding an Eighteenth-Century Indian Album which brings together several manuscript pages featuring exquisite paintings of musical modes, given to Yale in 1939 and 1940. Second, Chinese Painting between War and Revolution, 1830–1950 highlights the vibrancy and experimentation with Western and Japanese visual traditions that characterized Chinese painting during the tumultuous period between the Opium War (1839–42) and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Finally, celebrating the varied rendering of cherries in paintings, woodblock prints, lacquer, and metalwork, Sakura: Cherry Blossoms explores the longstanding Japanese fascination with the beauty of this delicate blossom as a symbol for the ephemeral nature of life and its pleasures.

Have great trip! We look forward to seeing you at browngrotta arts:

Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries
Saturday October 8, 11 -6
Sunday, October 9, 11-5
Monday, October 10 to Saturday October 15, 10 – 5
Sunday, October 16, 11 to 6
276 Ridgefield Road

Wilton, CT 06897

203-834-0623

Who’s New for Fall’s Art in the Barn? Introducing Baiba Osite and Mercedes Vicente

September 21, 2022 0 Comment

Baiba Osite and Mercedes Vicente are two more artists we are pleased to introduce whose work is included in Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries, our upcoming Art in the Barn exhibition this Fall.

City Walls driftwood wall sculpture Latvian artist by Baiba Osite
Detail: 1bo City Walls, Baiba Osite, driftwood, canvas, 70″ x 54″ x 4.5″, 2019. Photo Tom Grotta

Baiba Osite is from Latvia. Since graduating from the Latvian Academy of Art Textile Department and finishing her Master’s degree, she has participated in art exhibitions worldwide. Among those exhibitions were the biennial Textil Art of Today which traveled to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, International Fiber Art Biennial, From Lausanne to Beijing, China, the World Textile Art Biennial, Madrid, Spain, and the 3rd International Textile Competitions, Kyoto, Japan. She works in education and is a member of Latvian Artist Union and Textile Association. Recently, she has enriched her experience in two valuable residencies: ”Cite des Arts” in Paris and “Textilsetur” residency in Iceland. Osite leads a folk art textile studio. Partipants there spent two months sewing a safety net for Ukrainian national guards, a project they will continue again in the fall.

Detail: 1bo City Walls, Baiba Osite, driftwood, canvas, 70″ x 54″ x 4.5″, 2019. Photo by Tom Grotta

Osite is known for her work with different fiber materials including driftwood, glass beads, wire, metal spirals, wool and linen. “Historically,” Osite says, “these materials were used in household textiles. I assign to them contemporary understanding and concept.” The various materials are sources of inspiration for Osite to create new works. Her work is also inspired by traditional ethnographic patterns and influenced by different cultures.

The works that Osite will exhibit in Art for Allies are made from driftwood segments that she collects  on the shore of the Baltic Sea. One of Osite’s driftwod works, Substantia, was awarded the Acquisition Prize of Contextile 2018, the Contemporary Textile Art Biennial in Portugal. The work was based “on the paradoxical game between ‘being’ and ‘not being’ and the transformation of ‘being,’” Osite explains. Driftwood works like City Walls reflect her propensity for dissecting patterns from nature and recreating them in a new form. Osite created City Walls for the World Textile Association Biennial, Sustainable City in Madrid in 2019.

2mv Coralima, Mercedes Vicente, canvas, 13.5″ x 23.5″ x 12″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

Mecedes Vicente is an artist based in Galicia, Spain, specializing in craft art. A regular participant in exhibitions around the world, Vicente is currently working with wood and textile projects, including sculptures made of canvas strips. Her work is influenced by the French artist Pierre Huyghe.

Born in Madrid in 1958, Mercedes Vicente’s family moved to various locations in Spain during her youth, an experience that pushed her to approach learning in a fundamentally self-taught manner. Initially, her art was pictorial, but it evolved into sculpture, with canvas as her primary medium. She loves the elastic, organic, flexible and translucent properties of the fabric with which she works. She must first prepare the untreated canvas by gluing it and priming it.

“When I started using this technique, I realised that people were amazed by such a manual process,” she says. “Then I started to think that what I was doing was within the realms of craftsmanship, art and design.” She chose fabric in part because it was easy to get hold of, since a member of her family worked in a factory producing canvas.

Vicente’s works often being or adapt a spiral shape. She told Thought Object about the significance of that shape. “Space is where the spiral arranges itself and where it’s subject to effects that impact it as if it were an architectural work: it’s exciting and moving how light acts upon the figure and how you can imagine yourself for a moment inside the spiral,” she points out. “This is part of the experience of space, dimensions, and volumes. It’s also the material with its finish and configuration and moreover, it’s the empty space around it where emotion lives.”

3mv Carinaria, Mercedes Vicente, canvas, 10″ x 13.75″ x 6″ , 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries (browngrotta arts, October 8 – 16, 2022) will feature nearly 50 artists and highlight work from 21 countries in Eastern and Western Europe, 18 countries in NATO and the three current applicants. The artists in the exhibition reflect diverse perspectives and experiences. Allies for Art will include art created under occupation, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, art by those who left Hungary, Romania and Spain while occupied, and art by other artists who left Russia in later years. Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related Countries will also include works created by artists. like Osite and Vicente, who are currently working in Europe. Reserve your spot in Eventbrite. 

Who’s New in Allies for Art? Anneke Klein and Aby Mackie

September 14, 2022 0 Comment

We are excited to include the work of five artists new to browngrotta arts in our upcoming exhibition, Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries (October 8-16). Among these artists are Anneke Klein of the Netherlands and Aby Mackie who lives and works in Spain.

Detail: 1-2akl Family and Labels, Anneke Klein, hemp, cotton, linen, acrylic paint, 21.5″ x 21.25″, each. Photo by Tom Grotta

Anneke Klein of the Netherlands was originally educated as a goldsmith. Her passion for weaving was born from her struggle with hard and cold materials. In order to pursue her preference for warmth and softness in materials, she retrained herself as a weaver.  After a period of designing and manufacturing clothing, she worked on a commission for the American minimalist Richard Tuttle for his exhibition in the Vleeshal of the Frans Hals Museum and for Alexis Gautier in the Bozar Museum Brussels. She developed her own style for wall objects. As a goldsmith she learned to express in miniature. It suits her, and she often applies that approach in her textile works as an element for rhythm and repetition. “I create a variety of shapes, textures and structures to express my imagination of social themes,” she says. “It is an ever-growing process inspired by instinct and intuition, an investigation, a translation, as if looking through a symbolic lens at the everyday and the things that touch me emotionally. It stimulates social awareness in myself and probably the viewer, too.”

Detail: 1-2am Between Chaos & Order 5 & 6, Aby Mackie, gilded gold lead deconstructed and reconfigured antique textiles, 72″ x 24″ each, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

For Aby Mackie, an emerging artist who lives and works in Spain, the very act of making artwork is political. Mackie responds to current economic and social inequities in her country, particularly in housing and food, by confronting consumerism head on. “Everything I buy, from the materials for my artwork to the clothes that I wear, the furniture in my house to the books that I read, I buy second hand — recycling, reusing, reimagining — standing against the insane consumerism that adds to that sense of us all living in a system that is broken.” Mackie reconstructs textiles — cutting, painting, stitching, weaving and gilding them … a process of deconstruction and transformation. “The materials that I use,” she says, “are sourced from the local flea market, a practice that was born out of necessity to find cheap (but unique, high quality, interesting, often sumptuous) and free materials to use in my artwork. I go at the end of the day and buy up all the unwanted antique cloth, clothing, and domestic textile, collecting the discarded, such as flamenco dresses, Spanish plates, antique dolls, horse collars integrating them into my practice.” In Mackie’s hands, these “discards” are given a new life as elegant and engaging artworks. A rich mix of influences can be seen in Mackie’s work in terms of concept (the found object sculpture of Picasso, Miro, Tapies, Grau-Garriga), techniques and materials (Anatsui) and subject matter and aesthetic sense (Basquiat, Schwarz), inviting the viewer to create their own connections and interpretations and encouraging a personal storytelling through materiality.

Join us at browngrotta arts in Wilton, CT
for Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries (October 8-16):

Exhibition Schedule:
Opening & Artists Reception (300-Visitor Cap)
Saturday, October 8th: 11AM to 6PM  
Viewing Dates & Times (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, Sunday October 9th: 11AM to 6 PM
Monday, October 10th – Saturday, October 15th: 10AM to 5PM 

Final Day (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, October 16th: 11AM to 6PM  

Address
276 Ridgefield Road Wilton, CT 068977

Safety protocols
Eventbrite reservations strongly encouraged • We will follow current state and federal guidelines surrounding COVID-19 • As of August 1, 2022, masks are not required • No narrow heels please (barn floors)

RESERVE YOUR TIME: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/allies-for-art-work-from-nato-related-countries-tickets-392833123447

Contact Information
P: 203.834.0623
E: art@browngrotta.com