Willie Cole

The Future of Art: Willie Cole, a contemporary artist creating unique work and positive change.

Willie Cole has been making innovative work with unique iconography for over half a century, but talking to him, he sounds like a friendly, smart colleague or neighbor next store. Perhaps that’s why his work is so accessible and inspirational.

The artist, who lives in Mine Hill, NJ, has been the subject of shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1998), Bronx Museum of the Arts (2001), and Miami Art Museum (2001). These institutions, some of the biggest in the world, along with private collectors from New York to Los Angeles, see something provocative in his work.

When Art Review City caught up with him, the artist invited us to a visit his home studio where he was finishing the works for the collective exhibition “There’s There There,” curated by renowned American artist Rashid Johnson at blue-chip gallery Hauser and Wirth’s Southampton location. This show invites visitors to reflect upon the pleasures and complex histories of the shapes, movements, and objects that permeate the everyday, and Cole’s ironing board works are clearly the stars of the show.

Installation view, ‘There’s There There’, Hauser & Wirth Southampton, 2021. © Hauser & Wirth. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Thomas Barratt.

The artist has spent a lifetime working to look at thing differently than most artists. He is most concerned with recycling, green energy, and living a healthy and spiritual life to live at one with Mother Earth. He spent many of his early days in a pew at Sunday School, and later studied Buddhism in high school and college, but today he says he is a “no-frills nature worshipper” which explains a lot about him as a man and as an artist. “Nature, no matter what you call it, is powerful, and it deserves to be admired … Click here to read more

David Kastner

Bonnie Richards Becker sat down with artist David Kastner and spoke with him about growing up in the Midwest, his constant experimentations of materials of the course of his life’s work, and his current phase that has a renewed focus on color and the process of painting.

“Finding that moment when the human mind is free, but before conscious activity develops consecutive thought, was a difficult mental space to understand, exist in, and use for the creative moment of expression..”

– David Kastner

My first real recollection of art came from the Art Institute in Chicago. My mother took me to the Museum when I was about five years old. Seeing the various paintings, sculptures, and other media left a deep impression that persists in my life today. Before that, I only knew of my own love for making and building things. But there I first felt the effects of the many great artists who left their ideas for others to see. Without really knowing what the creative process meant, I knew I wanted to create.

While it is possible to reflect on early childhood development, attempting to identify when and how the creative process came into being in one person’s life, it is likely there is a more general creative essence in that person’s life, rather than a singular epiphany. For me, I knew early on that I liked making things. This meant piling sticks, digging, and making marks in mud, etc. These early renderings were a precursor for more complex mark making that became the pursuit of my life’s work to date.

In elementary school we had art class with pencils, paints, and clay – and all the other materials a small child needs to build their first artistic masterpieces. Inspired by … Click here to read more

Aurora Robson

Lily Kostrzewa speaks with Aurora Robson

Aurora Robson is a multi-media artist known predominantly for her meditative work intercepting the plastic waste stream. Her practice is about subjugating negativity and shifting trajectories. Her work is a formal meditation on recurring nightmares she had as a child which she hybridizes with forms found in nature. Robson was born in Toronto in 1972 and grew up in Hawaii. She lived and worked in New York City for over two decades during which time she studied art history and visual arts at Columbia University. Recently, Robson moved to the Hudson Valley to raise her two daughters with her husband Marshall Coles.

Installation view of *Remnant Romance Environmental Works: Idelle Weber and Aurora Robson*.
Courtesy of Hollis Taggart.

Because of my personal interest in female artists, I took the opportunity to interview the environmental artist Aurora Robson regarding her recent two-person exhibition at Hollis Taggart Gallery with her collaborator the late environmental realistic painter Idelle Weber (1932-2020). Aurora Robson uses mostly plastic waste debris as her main medium to create her artworks. For her, plastic waste materials’ effect on the environment is of crucial concern. This concern is evidenced by her powerful and often colorful artistic representations.

As a recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts grant, she worked at Penn State University to develop an exhibition with plastic waste debris. Her work there solidified in her what I call the four Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle, and rethink.

One might wonder what plastic waste debris has to do with fine art. Well, as it almost always happens, artistic representations are a most powerful form of education. For me, Aurora’s Creations are impactful yet attractive.

As I talked with her, I started with her making process. She first explained that color was important … Click here to read more

Robin Antar

Artist Q&A with Robin Antar

American sculptor Robin Antar was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1957. All of Antar’s current work is rooted in observation. “Whatever is going on, I express it in stone,” Antar says. “It could come out as realism, as an abstract form, or as a combination of both. The style I use is one that best reflects the inspiration behind each piece.”

“Ballpark Frank”, limestone, travertine, mixed media, and steel, 12 x 39 x 16 in | 31 x 100 x 41 cm, 2017

How did you become a professional artist?

Ever since I took chisel to stone over forty years ago, sculpting has been my “language” for communication. I’ve sculpted through teenage angst, marriage, divorce, having children and losing one of them to addiction.

In my early years, aesthetic beauty and superficial thought were not a concern as I focused instead on fundamental feelings and basic sensations, creating abstracted sculptures with an uncommon perspective, jarring color and anomalous form. I set up a working studio in Brooklyn after receiving my BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and continued carving in a loose, intuitive style rooted in my emotions and personal experiences. I created a series of carved stone knots as an exploration of the formal possibilities of intertwinements. While the imagery of knotting is deeply embedded in our consciousness as a metaphor for unresolvable or transformative conflicts, my choice of marble for this series has connections to nature and high culture in art history. My most powerful work, “David’s Knot in Flames”, reflects this perfectly. Carved in Turkish marble, I created the sculpture in memory of my youngest son who passed away at the age of 26. The knot represents his pain as a … Click here to read more

Jacques Jarrige

Artist Q&A with Jacques Jarrige

Jacques Jarrige is a Paris-based artist working in the confluence of fine art and decorative art with sculptural and functional objects in relation to the body and human scaled spaces. He is represented by Valerie Goodman Gallery in New York.

“Double Dining Table”, beech wood, 42 x 30 x 120 in | 107 x 76 x 305 cm, 2020

Who is your favorite artist of all time?

I love the work of Henry Moore. I first saw his work at the Château de Bagatelle in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, which is famous for its rose garden. In this naturalistic English landscape style park setting, Moore’s work gave me the feeling that I was meant to be a sculptor. It was his work that made me believe I was meant to do it.

How did you become a professional artist?

I have always felt strongly connected to art. My father was an avid art collector, so there were a lot of paintings in my home as a child. There were also two small, distinctive Rodin sculptures that were always in the house, and now, in the back of my mind.

Through studying architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts and decorative art at Ecole Supérieure d’Art Moderne, I became drawn to creating more sculptural works. The first object I created was a chair made of rebar I had envisioned in my mind. I bought a welding gun and created the piece in my kitchen. By physically creating a work of art in this manner, I understood it more and became less reliant on drawing in my practice. I was inspired that I could directly create what I had envisioned.

In school I was not interested in pursuing anything other than drawing. Not music, math or any other field, and later architecture wasn’t really satisfying. … Click here to read more

Frodo Mikkelsen

Artist Q&A with Frodo Mikkelsen

The last ride, acrylic on canvas, 80×70 cm, 2020

Why did you become an artist?

My father was an artist, and when i was 8 years old, I told him that I wanted to be an artist. He gave me all the support I needed and told me that i had to choose a path. That path started in 1984 when I started painting graffiti at just 10 years old.

Frodo Mikkelsen, photo by Nikolaj Palmskov

How is your work different than everything else out there?

I have heard many times that my work is unique, even though I use symbols like the skull a lot. Other artists use them, but mine is just still mine, being clean and crisp.

What’s different about your current body of work?

My early work was very crowded, and I tried everything. I still do a lot of different things, but I don’t mix it anymore like I used to. I’m working on getting my art more clean and graphic; it’s shaping up!

Totem dreams, painted oakwood, 100x100x50 cm

What’s coming up for you?

Right now I am showing in a gallery in Brooklyn called Java Project Brooklyn, in a show that me and Paul Brainard curated with American and Danish artists. I am also showing at The HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Frederikshavn Kunstmuseum, and Vestjyllands Art Museum, all here in Denmark. There are also group shows in Kode, Bergen Art Museum, and in Mocak-Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow. Next year I will be showing at Vrå Art Museum, and a gallery in Hamburg and Berlin in Germany.

What advice would you give to an artist just starting out today?

A lot of people thinks that being an artist is easy, but it is hard work 24/7, so think big, have fun, and … Click here to read more

“EXODUS V: Aesthetics in the Political”

The Elixir of Ataraxy in a Sea of Trouble

For nine long months the United States has been facing severe distress from the coronavirus forcing the closing of galleries, museums and art centers in New York City. But WhiteBox Harlem continues to independently operate as a community engaged nonprofit venue, a beacon for art lovers for 22 years despite facing numerous crises over the years. Over two decades, it has nurtured many outstanding artists in New York City and abroad, continuing its mission as an experimental center for experiencing new art with social èlan.

“Exodus V: Aesthetics in the Political” is an exhibition curated by New York-based Kyoko Sato. This remarkable curatorial creates new metrics putting under scrutiny a diverse, singular group of 17 contemporary expat Japanese women artists aged 31 to 84 who chose to emigrate to New York to continue and expand their careers in a less constrained atmosphere than back home. Due to the increasing number of practicing female artists in the art scene in the past 30 years, art museums in Western countries have begun to have many feminist inspired exhibitions awakening the public’s attention to this voluminous subject. Most exhibitions tend to emphasize the inequality between men and women, or talk about women’s sexuality openly such as women’s awareness of the autonomy of their bodies. Time and again, some of these thematic shows unfortunately become cliché. In the spirit of finding a differential, I was quite curious to see how “Exodus V” may be different from many of these other women’s exhibitions I have witnessed.

At the opening reception I went through the entire exhibition and interviewed several of the exhibiting artists. I must confess my experience and exchanges observing the whole affair felt like an awakening stream of fresh … Click here to read more