Posted inArt

Tracing a Path from Cubism to Digital Art

I first learned about Cubism in an art history class my sophomore year of college. I remember the moment of revelation, after reading a lot about but still failing to grasp what exactly Picasso and Braque were after. In the darkened lecture hall one afternoon, our teacher summed it up this way: how sparingly could you paint a face while still having the viewer understand it as a face? What was the bare minimum required for representation? As legend has it, these questions and the art they inspired changed the course of art history forever.

Is the same true of the digital revolution? That’s the premise of Decenter, an exhibition curated Andrianna Campbell and Daniel S. Palmer and currently on view at the Abrons Arts Center.

Posted inNews

Your Chance to See One of William Wegman’s Dogs Dance

If you’ve ever wanted to see a dancing dog — and not just any dog, but one of William Wegman’s Weimaraners — you’re about to get your chance. Choreographer Karole Armitage has teamed up with a handful of visual artists, including Wegman, Will Cotton, Kalup Linzy and Aïda Ruilova, for a dance-cum-performance-art show at the Abron Arts Center titled “Werk! The Armitage Gone Variety Show.”

Posted inArt

More than What Meets the Eye at a Little Known LES Arts Center

This week I skipped the Chelsea gallery scene (the show I wanted to see was unexpectedly on hiatus when I got there) and found myself on a road less traveled for me and I am sure other art-goers as well. The destination was the Henry Street Settlement Abrons Art Center on Grand Street between Pitt and Columbia Streets. As I walked the several blocks from the F train Delancey stop (several more than I expected), it seemed that the dust of the previous tenement neighborhood still settled on these streets. Not only did it remind me that, as much as New York reinvents itself, the past is never far behind, but it was also a refreshing art viewing experience that I probably would not have found in the white boxes of Chelsea.