ART WALK WITH DEREK WEISBERG
Derek Weisberg studied ceramic sculpture in Oakland, at California College of Arts and Crafts, where he graduated in 2005. Since then, Weisberg has founded and co-owned Boontling Gallery, curated numerous other exhibitions, and worked with highly esteemed artists such as Stephen De Staebler, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and Manuel Neri. In addition, Weisberg has maintained a strong and demanding studio practice, presenting solo exhibitions both nationally and internationally. He has also been invited to participate in residencies in Istanbul, Mexico, and France. Weisberg currently lives and has a studio in NY, as well as being faculty at Greenwich House Pottery and Teachers College at Columbia University.
We asked him to send us his favorite works he saw in May and June.
ART WALK WITH DEREK WEISBERG | ART WALK WITH DEREK WEISBERG | ART WALK WITH DEREK WEISBERG | ART WALK WITH DEREK WEISBERG
Kari Cholnosky at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, NY, NY
Kari Cholnosky’s show at Nichelle Beauchene was a great show. Cholnosky has a distinct language and vocabulary. She creates a world that looks like biology and technology intertwine seamlessly to create a cyborg alternate reality. I always think of Cronenberg’s movies with Kari’s work, specifically Existenz.
The Brant Foundation, NY, NY
All artists in some ways are inventors of worlds, but Keith Haring, was really effective at this. He developed a highly stylized use of line to create symbols, narratives, and his own visual language. He put his line on everything from subway advertising spaces to canvases, to found objects, to people. His use of repetitive line carried the reverberating vibrancy of life. This was a massive show of his work, much of which addressed social issues ranging from the AIDS epidemic to the drug crisis.
A group show of 9 artists, curated by myself at Jane Hartsook Gallery, Greenwich House Pottery, NY, NY photo: Alan Weiner
I am not sure this show reverberates with the vibrancy of life, but in curating this exhibition I did attempt to put together a show which somehow communicates the reverence for it. This exhibition brings together nine artists: Paul S Briggs, Monica Cook, CROSSLYPKA, Stephen De Staebler, Ruth Duckworth, Anders Hamilton, Kentaro Kawabata, Kuniko Kinoto, and Anna Mayer, who all treat clay with extreme care and consideration and explore ideas that I consider to grapple with awe and wonder.
Helen Frankenthaler at Gagosian, NY, NY
This exhibition surveys four decades of paintings from 1960 to 1992, and features more than twenty of Helen Frankenthaler’s largest, most ambitious works. Frankenthaler was deeply committed to abstraction and introducing new techniques and imagery to the history of painting. Her work is exploratory, lyrical and operate on an expansive scale.
Sally Silberberg at Berry Campbell gallery, NY, NY
In Shifting Ground, we see another artist, Sally Silberberg, focused on abstraction, here through porcelain sculpture. These works were created during the 1980’s and have gone mostly unseen. After years of working on the potter’s wheel, Silberberg made a decisive shift away from functional ceramics toward a radical new approach to sculpture. These works reference geology, cubism, op art, geometric abstraction, and more. They are inventive and fresh, and it was wonderful that they were unearthed and finally shown.
Rose Nestler at Public Gallery, off-site location in NY, NY
Another artist who uses material in interesting and transformative ways is Rose Nestler. Her exhibition which coincided with NY’s Frieze art fair week, was on view in an empty apartment on Central Park West. Rose’s work often deals with surrealist, playful, and sometimes slightly foreboding imagery. This work mostly sculpture in fabrics and carved wood in low relief are slightly more friendly, images and sculptures of flowers, beauty and life in bloom.
These four images are all works that I enjoyed when I visited the Independent Art Fair in NY in May. Like all art fairs there is a great range of work, styles, materials, approaches and techniques. Here we have Burgos’s shaped painting blurring painting and object, Frank Gaard’s funny, cynical, almost irreverent art world commentary, Kinoto and Tanka’s experimental ceramics, and Lewis’ cut and picked collage works.
These four images are all works from another art fair running concurrently called NADA. NADA is a fair that features slightly more emerging artists and galleries, on a whole was challenging, but there were a few gems. I gravitated towards presentations that were object oriented. Manganni’s mixed media works criticize the prison industrial complex, the group presentation at Galerie Nicolas Robert was full of interesting material explorations, Narahashi had a presentation of playful and surrealist ceramics, and Oglander presented a large grouping of his quirky whimsical miniature sculptures.
Corridor 2026
