Interviews by Brainard Carey

Kandy G Lopez As a multi-media Afro-Caribbean American portrait artist, Kandy G Lopez explores identity through marginalized individuals who represent her community. Navigating through her own identity has inspired works from a variety of mediums to further the conversation of “otherness” with metaphorical and psychological significance. Lopez (b. New Jersey) lives and works in Fort Lauderdale. Selected solo exhibitions include “(in)visibility: cache,” NSU Art Museum of Fort Lauderdale (2023); “Phenomenal Woman,” Miramar Cultural Center (2023); “Intersectionality”, Coral Spring Museum of Art (2023); “(in)visible: Code-Switching,” Girls Club Warehouse, Fort Lauderdale (2022); “(in)visibility: Yup-Pity,” Frank C Ortis Gallery (Third Space), Pembroke Pines (2022). Lopez’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Kinfolk House, Armory Art Center, New Bedford Art Museum, and Studio 18. Lopez received the Broward County Cultural Division Artist Innovation Grant for 2022–2023 and the Project Row House Grant in 2022. She has also been awarded residencies at Nacan in the Dominican Republic (2023), Ucross in Wyoming (2022), Hambidge in Rabun County, Georgia (2021), and Stay Home Gallery & Artist Residency in Paris, Tennessee (2021). Octavia, 2023 Yarn and acrylic on plastic canvas, 50 x 60 in. Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York Marly & Luis (green), 2022 Yarn and acrylic on plastic canvas, 96 x 60 in. Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York Br00klynBetty, 2021 Yarn and spray paint on plastic canvas, 90 x 60 in. Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York

Photo: Keith Stein Anita Rogers Gallery is pleased to presentSuperunknown,an exhibition of new work by Henry Mandell.Superunknown, Mandell’s debut solo exhibition at Anita Rogers Gallery, features paintings and drawings from several bodies of work the artist began during the pandemic. Mandell’s studio practice is focused on the exploration of experimental artistic practices, the human condition, scientific principles and their merging effect on our lives, pioneering unique approaches to creating abstract artworks. All of the paintings inSuperunknownbegan as stories, poems, or written data. Using digital tools, Mandell transforms line by line, letter by letter, the characters of selected source text into visually compelling abstract imagery. The first step in transforming what is known into the unknown, experimenting and painting without the use of iterative code. All creative decisions remain with the artist’s hand and mind, establishing Mandell’s wide visual vocabulary with digital painting. The Superunknown series of paintings depict multilayered objects composed of fine colored lines of transformed text about dark matter and current theories about what comprises the fabric of the universe. Each colored line is a separate letter. Like fabric, the overall form is knit up from thousands of separate fine colored line elements like a tapestry from another dimension. The source theories bound up into the artwork represent the limits of our knowing, as 80% of everything everywhere is invisible dark matter / dark energy and is beyond our understanding. The Satoshi’s Garden paintings depict looping vortexes of chimerical limbs and primeval roots; strange forms that seem to overrun the thresholds of cognition and formation. A growing living network inspired by mycelium. The paintings are composed from the text of the Bitcoin White Paper. No one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is. He, She, It or They authored the Bitcoin White Paper. The paper solved the problems of establishing an internet-based platform for conducting financial transactions without banks via a ‘blockchain’ of growing code that lives on thousands of networked computers worldwide mimicking the Wood Wide Web of living plants. Within the Wood Wide Web, actual living root systems are connected by mycelium fungi. They are completely mysterious, and how they work to nourish every living plant in the wild is beyond our understanding. The Plumb paintings shimmer with thousands of thin vertical lines converging into a veil of color. A plumb line is traditionally used to level and center one’s self on the surface of the Earth. It is an ancient tool still in use today, with a hanging weight at the end of a single string that always points to the center of the Earth due to gravity. In the paintings, the lines are the transformed text of poetry by Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. The Theory Of Mind paintings form expressively sinuous interwoven patterns of colored lines within an inverted triangle. Composed from altered text about theory of mind, an important social-cognitive milestone that involves the ability to think about mental states, both your own and those of others and their emotions, desires, beliefs, and knowledge. Foundational to the development of empathy in children. Also, triangles seem to suggest ‘otherness’, as in it is an unfamiliar form in everyday experience and can serve as an invitation to relate to an ‘other’. The theme forSuperunknownis described by the artist in this way: “I am inspired by the words of the great artist Ann Hamilton in her essayMaking Not Knowing: One doesn’t arrive — in words or in art — by necessarily knowing where one is going. In every work of art something appears that does not previously exist, and so, by default, you work from what you know to what you don’t know. You may set out for New York but you may find yourself as I did in Ohio. You may set out to make a sculpture and find that time...

Judy Fox is a sculptor who works in the Hudson Valley, with a studio in Rhinebeck, New York. As an undergraduate she studied sculpture at Yale (BA1978) and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She received advanced degrees in Art History (MA1983) and Conservation (1985) from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (NYU).She is a Senior Critic and professor at the New York Academy of Art. Fox has participated in numerous exhibitions around the U.S. and in Europe. A fellow of both Yaddo and MacDowell residencies, she has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the “Anonymous Was a Woman” Foundation, the National Academy of Design, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has had solo exhibitions at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI; and Kunsthalle im Pallazo, Liestal, Switzerland. She has been the subject of many reviews and articles, including features in Art in America (2000), Artnet (2007), Sculpture Review (2010), O Magazine (2012), Ceramics: Art and Perception (2013), New Ceramics (2015), and Artforum (2019). Her work has been featured in several books, including David Ebony et al,Curve/The Female Nude Now(2003), Veronica Gunter,500 Figures in Clay(2004), the Dutch publicationHet Grote Boek 2(2017), Judith Schwartz,Confrontational Ceramics(2008), and Cristina Cordova,The Figure in Clay(2022). She contributed essays toThe Figure: Painting, Drawing and Sculpture: Contemporary Perspectives(Rizzoli 2014). Judy Fox, Broccoli, 2023, terra cotta, casein paint 4 x 10 x 7 inches Judy Fox, Naval Orange, 2023, terra cotta, casein paint 8 x 8 x 8 inches Judy Fox Pumpkin, 2023, terra cotta, casein paint 11 x 15 x 12 inches

Michael Polakowski is a painter based in Detroit, MI. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at Oever Gallery in Oostende, BE, in the two-person show ‘Near/Far’. In January 2023, his solo show ‘Anywhere and Here’ was mounted at Thinkspace Projects, Los Angeles, CA. Other notable exhibitions include the group shows ‘Potluck’ at Hashimoto Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA; ‘LAX / AMS’ at Thinkspace Projects, Amsterdam, NL; ‘Voyage’ at Nothing at All, Sheung Wan, HK; ‘Get Together’ at Reyes Finn, Detroit, MI; and ‘Pet Peeves’ at 5-50 Gallery, NYC

. Polakowski was awarded the Red Bull House of Art Residency in the fall of 2019. He recently completed a mural in collaboration with the Detroit Institute of Arts as a part of their Partners in Public Art Program and has participated in Murals in the Market and Bright Walls Mural Festival. His works have been featured by publications like Juxtapoz, Booooooom and ArtMaze Magazine. Polakowski’s work is currently on view at 5-50 Gallery in New York City, in the two-person show ‘Back In 5’, alongside paintings by Ivan Montoya. ‘Back in 5’ is on view through the 8th of October. Michael Polakowski, 'I'll Be Back in 5', 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24” Michael Polakowski, 'Minor Inconvenience', 2023, acrylic on canvas, 46” x 36”

 Michael Polakowski, 'Kick Your Feet Up', 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24"

In this interview with Jasmin Anoschkin, her husband, Severi Haapala serves as the translator for part of the interview Jasmin Anoschkin creates her sculptures entirely by her own hand, whether she is carving wood with a chainsaw or molding clay. Eschewing attempts at technical perfection, she does not hide evidence of these physical processes, embracing uneven surfaces or unexpected glaze effects in her ceramic works. Her whimsical yet poignant characters and the dreamlike world they inhabit suggest an alternative to the rigid and narrow societal standards of what is valued and accepted. Their absolute and unironic sincerity feels almost radical—perhaps even uncomfortable sometimes—provoking reflection not only on the prejudices we hold towards others but on the internalized shame we carry within ourselves. Empowering through the permission it offers, this fantasy universe is an invitation to play and to exist as we are, without inhibition. Each work that Anoschkin has produced over the course of her career as a sculptor forms a piece to an ongoing story. No linear timeline or cohesive narrative is made apparent to the viewer in this surreal journey; her creatures interact but their relationships remain ambiguous. Yet, the artist allows us glimpses into her inner life through the unique titles she bestows upon each piece. Often humorous and surprising, they imbue the sculptures with distinct personalities and individual histories.There’s No Italian ManandBunch of Violetswere conceived as a pair, in memory of Anoschkin’s late aunt Terttu, a great supporter of Jasmin’s creativity. When Terttu was younger, there was an Italian man she would visit every summer. Later, when Jasmin would try to inquire about him, she would always snap, “There’s no Italian man.”Bunch of Violetsin Finnish isTerttu Orvokki, a play on her aunt’s name.Contemporary Stalkerreceived its title when it emerged from the kiln and Jasmin, an artist for the past twenty years, proclaimed, “Oh yes, I have finally made contemporary art!” A recurring motif throughout her practice has been the unicorn, which she has adopted as an avatar both in her sculptural and video works, as seen in this exhibition withPlatinum Yoga UnicornandGolden Menstruation Yoga. Through her unicorn persona, Anoschkin rejoices in herself. Supercharged Lollipop Valleymarks Jasmin Anoschkin’s second solo presentation in the United States. Her breakthrough artwork in Finland wasBambi, shown at the Mänttä Art Festival in 2009, and again in 2010 at the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, Turku on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Association of Finnish Sculptors. This piece was subsequently acquired by the Finnish State Art Collection. Anoschkin has been the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and accolades, including being selected as the 2012 young artist in the Satakunta region of Finland, as well as having her work published on a series of postage stamps in 2017. She has exhibited extensively, and is in the collections of numerous institutions such as the Espoo Museum of Modern Art; Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, Turku; Hämeenlinna Art Museum; Vantaa Art Museum; Lönnström Art Museum; and Kerava Art Museum. Her work is on permanent display in the lobby of the Helsinki City Museum, and she is currently featured in group exhibitions at the Hvitträsk Museum, Kirkkonummi, the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, Turku, and the Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Anoschkin has been a member of the Arabia Art Department Society since 2014. Contemporary Stalker, 2023, glazed stoneware, 43.5" H x 26.5" W x 27" D Golden Menstruation Yoga, 2020, glazed stoneware, 29.5" H x 23.5" W x 16" D Aqua Ancestor Frog, 2023, glazed stoneware, 27.5" H x 15.25" W x 21.25” D

photo is by Colin Outridge, image courtesy Charles Moffett Keiran Brennan Hinton (b. 1992, Toronto) lives and works in Toronto and Elgin, Ontario. He received his BFA from Pratt Institute in 2014 and his MFA from Yale University in 2016. Past international solo shows of Brennan Hinton’s work include exhibitions at MAKI Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2022); Thomas Fuchs Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany (2021); Charles Moffett, New York, NY (2021); Michael Gibson Gallery, London, Ontario (2020); and Francesco Pantaleone Gallery, Palermo, Italy (2019) among other. His paintings have been featured in institutional exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario; James Castle House, Boise, Idaho; and Katonah Museum of Art, Westchester, NY. Keiran Brennan Hinton A Week in March, 2023 56 x 88 inches Oil on linen Photo by Laura Fin. Photo courtesy the artist and Charles Moffett. Keiran Brennan Hinton Morning Coffee, 2023 56 x 44 inches Oil on linen Photo by Laura Fin. Photo courtesy the artist and Charles Moffett. Keiran Brennan Hinton Lilacs in May, 2023 12x9 inches Oil on canvas Photo by Laura Fin. Photo courtesy the artist and Charles Moffett.

Polina Barskaya(b. 1984, Cherkassy, USSR) received a MFA fromPratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY and a BA fromHunterCollege, NY. Barskaya received an Artist Fellowship in Painting fromNew York Foundation ofthe Arts(NYFA) in 2021,and anElizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grantin 2023, 2022 and 2020. Recent exhibitions includeTaymour GrahneProjects, London;Althuis Hofland Fine Arts,Amsterdam;DC MooreGallery, NY;Marianne Boesky Gallery, NY; andMonya Rowe Gallery, NY. Her work has been featured inArtforum,Artnet, The Brooklyn Rail,New York Magazine (“TheBest New York Art Shows of 2021”) andHyperallergic, among others. The artist lives and works in Brighton Beach,Brooklyn, NY and Citta Della Pieve, Italy. Barskaya is represented byMonya Rowe Gallery, NY. Polina Barskaya, Morning in London, 2023, acrylic on panel, 24 by 29.75 inches. Courtesy of Monya Rowe Gallery, NY. Polina Barskaya Panicale, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 29.75 by 39.75 inches. Courtesy of Monya Rowe Gallery, NY. Polina Barskaya, Surrounded by Beautiful Things, 2023, acrylic on panel, 24 by 30 inches. Courtesy of Monya Rowe Gallery, NY.

Will Pappenheimer is a Brooklyn based artist and educator working in new media, performance and installation. His current work explores the collage of the virtual and physical worlds in the recent mediums of augmented or mixed reality and artificial intelligence. He was a founding member of the augmented reality (AR) collective, Manifest.AR, formed in 2011, which pioneered interventionist projects worldwide. His projects and performances have been shown internationally at Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Museum and the Moving Image Art Fair in New York; LACMA and Fringe Exhibitions, Los Angeles; MOMA and Bitforms Gallery in San Francisco; Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; FACT, Liverpool, UK; Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, Istanbul; the ICA, CyberArts Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. He recently debuted a solo show of new at the Alpha Gallery in Boston. His works have been reviewed in the Whitney Museum curator, Christiane Paulʼs historical editions of “Digital Art,” Art in America, New York Times, Hyperallergic.org, WIRED, the Boston Globe, and EL PAIS, Madrid. Beacon Hands : for Emma Lazarus, 2022, Will Pappenheimer with choreography by Freya Björg Olafson, an animated AR alternative monument for the statue of Bavaria, in Munich, GDR for public installations #MakeUsVisible x denkFEmale Munich GDR organized by the XREnsemble #65 Flooded and Moldy Rooms After Artists: After Isa Genzken, 2023-07-21 09.31.53, artificial intelligence text prompt image generation, Instagram digital image, inkjet print 40” x 40”, alternatively signed “noOne” to indicate collective and auto-computational processes of authorship Mirrored Lines Painter, Will Pappenheimer, 2021+, Custom Augmented Reality, AR app on IPad Pro, performance documentation still at the :iidrr Gallery for the “404error” show, curated by Natasha Chuk June 16 – July 16, 2023

Isaac Aden is an American artist. Aden’s work has always engaged painting from the periphery and approached content as a conceptualist. Deeply informed by Art history, Aden implements a structuralist theory developed Rosalind Krauss in her seminal text Sculpture in the Expanded Field to painting. One aspect of Aden’s work remains true to the tradition of painting while the other veers into new territory. Aden has exhibited internationally, including: dOCUMENTA 13, MassMOCA, The Fidericianum, White Box, Kassel Werkstadt, Gallerie Rasch, Ulrike Petschel Gallerie, Ethan Cohen Fine Art, SPRING/BREAK, Art Miami, Contemporary Istanbul, VOLTA Basel, Sotheby’s, The Jerome A. Cohen and Joan Lebold Cohen Center for Art. The Bertha and Karl Luebsdorf Gallery, The International Gallery of Contemporary Art, The Parthenon Museum, The New York Public Library and the World Trade Center. He has been awarded Fellowships from the Kossak Foundation, Creative Capital, The New York Foundation for the Arts and the United States State Department. Isaac Aden, The Numinous Sublime (installation view), 2021, oil on canvas, 144 x 108 each in., Photography by Yao Zu Lu, courtesy of David Richard Gallery Isaac Aden, The Luminous Sublime (for John Friedrick Kensett), 2023, oil on canvas, 144 x 324 in., and Saturn Devouring His Son, 2021, oil on canvas 144 x 108 in., Photography by Yao Zu Lu, courtesy of David Richard Gallery Isaac Aden, The Numinous Sublime (installation view), 2021, oil on canvas, 144 x 108 each in., Photography by Yao Zu Lu, courtesy of David Richard Gallery

This is the 2nd interview with Joel-Peter Witkin on this program, the fist one can be found here. Note: All the images discussed in order in the interview can beseen here. Joel-Peter Witkinwas born in Brooklyn, New York in 1939. In 1959, Edward Steichen, head of the department of photography at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), selected one of Witkin’s photographs for its permanent collection when Witkin is 16 years old. Enlists in the U.S. Army as a photographer from 1961-1964. In 1974 he receives a B.F.A. in sculpture from The Cooper Union, the same year awarded a fellowship in writing from Columbia University. In 1976 he receives a M.A. in Photography from the University of New Mexico, and then 1986 he receives a M.F.A. from the University of New Mexico. He has won numerous awards including four National Endowments in photography and the I.C.P. Infinity Award. His photographs have been exhibited internationally and are included in many museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA), Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Spain), The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (USA), Centre Georges Pompidou (France), The Guggenheim Museum (USA), The J. Paul Getty Museum (USA), The Whitney Museum (USA), and Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) (England). Other achievements include Decorated Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1990 and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres of France in 2000. Over thirty books have been published on his work. Joel-Peter Witkin lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife Cynthia. Joel-Peter Witkin is a photographer whose images of the human condition are undeniably powerful. For more than forty years, he has pursued his interest in spirituality and how it impacts the physical world in which we exist. Finding beauty within the grotesque, Witkin pursues this complex issue through people most often cast aside by society-human spectacles including hermaphrodites, dwarfs, amputees, androgynies, carcasses, people with odd physical anomalies, fetishists, and “any living myth… anyone bearing the wounds of Christ”. His fascination with other people’s physicality has inspired works that confront our sense of normalcy and decency while constantly examining the teachings handed down through Christianity. His constant reference to paintings from art history including the works of Picasso, Balthus, Goya, Velasquez and Miro are testaments to his need to create a new history for himself. By using imagery and symbols from the past, Witkin celebrates our history while constantly redefining its present-day context. Visiting medical schools, morgues and insane asylums around the world, Witkin seeks out his collaborators who, in the end, represent the numerous personas of the artist himself. The resulting photographs are haunting, beautiful and grotesque yet bold in their defiance hideous beauty that is as compelling as it is taboo. Witkin begins each image by sketching his ideas on paper, perfecting every detail by arranging the scene before he gets into the studio to stage his elaborate tableaus. Once photographed, Witkin spends hours in the darkroom, scratching and piercing his negatives, transforming them into images that look made, rather than taken. Through printing, Witkin reinterprets his original idea in a final act of adoration. Joel-Peter Witkin lets us look into his created world which is both frightening and fascinating as he seeks to dismantle our preconceived notions about sexuality and physical beauty. Through his imagery we gain a greater understanding about human difference and tolerance. “My work is based on the nature of man and his relation to the divine. In the work, I attempt to establish a creative and intellectual standard for still photography in a society in moral free fall.” – Joel-Peter Witkin