One day, as Helena Hafemann was unloading the dishwasher, one of her porcelain saucers shattered. Breaking into several fragments, the beloved plate lost its functional use within a split second, but Hafemann continued to think about its value, reflecting on how much emotional weight the piece still held even in its daunting state.

Trying to salvage each fragment with glue felt as demoralizing as it was dismal, and she was left to think about worth: When an object’s value is so intertwined with its utility, what happens when the latter is taken away? What role does sentimentality play, especially when the original piece is transformed anew?

Hafemann is driven by these slippery notions of value, which seem more urgent when faced with loss. Suspending the brief moment of destruction, the Wiesbaden, Germany-based artist stretches hundreds of strands of filigree thread between broken segments of plates. Perfectly coinciding with the porcelain hues from which they flow, bundles of delicate fibers bridge the jarring gaps between each ceramic morsel.

Comprising plates from friends, family, thrift stores, and flea markets, the wall works make up her ongoing Fadenschein series, which translates to “threadbare.” She shares:

By connecting the shards with sewing thread, I freeze the moment of breakage, or the apparent disintegration of the porcelain plate. With the Fadenschein series, I want to create little moments of irritation in which you ask yourself whether time is really always moving forward, or whether it is perhaps possible that, just this once, it can make a broken plate grow back together again.

Hafemann is currently preparing for two solo exhibitions opening later this year. See her website for more work, and stay in the loop about her forthcoming shows on Instagram. You might also enjoy Nicole McLaughlin’s warped sculptures and Faig Ahmed’s drippy fibers.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Through Porcelain Shards and Hundreds of Threads, Helena Hafemann Shatters Notions of Value appeared first on Colossal.

THERE WILL BE PLENTY OF VENDORS AND OTHER ACTIVITIES TO ENJOY TOO. IN ROGERS, PEOPLE ARE GEARING UP FOR THE BIG MOMENT ON MONDAY! THE “ROGERS ART MARKET” MOVED BACK OUT ON THE PLAZA FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS YEAR. THE MARKET SET-UP áECLIPSE THEMEDá VENDORS AND ACTIVITIES FOR THOSE WHO WENT TODAY. 40-29 SPOKE TO THE MARKET MANAGER ABOUT WHAT SHE’S PLANNING TO DO FOR THE ECLIPSE. <> (“Well, for us, this is a weekend long celebration. I am here at the market today. I’m helping all of our community celebrate these small businesses. And then tomorrow I’m going to take my children and go to my parents house in Hot Springs, where they’re in totality. And we’re going to watch the eclipse with grandma.

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Rogers Art Market holds eclipse-themed celebration

Updated: 6:19 PM CDT Apr 6, 2024

Arkansas Eclipse Guide | Weather Forecast | Totality Zone Map | Arkansas Map & Table | Traffic Outlook | Events | Closed Schools | Eclipse Science | EMS Plans | Eye Safety | Taking PhotosThe Rogers Art Market celebrated the upcoming eclipse Saturday morning.The market was held outdoors on the plaza for the first time this year.”Well, for us, this is a weekend-long celebration. I am here at the market today. I’m helping all of our community celebrate these small businesses,” said Shelly Smith, the market manager.Smith is not only overseeing the market’s operations but also planning to partake in the eclipse viewing herself. “And then tomorrow, I’m going to take my children and go to my parents’ house in Hot Springs, where they’re in totality. And we’re going to watch the eclipse with grandma,” she added.The market manager also shared that the city’s open-air food and art market will continue to run through October.

ROGERS, Ark. —

Arkansas Eclipse Guide | Weather Forecast | Totality Zone Map | Arkansas Map & Table | Traffic Outlook | Events | Closed Schools | Eclipse Science | EMS Plans | Eye Safety | Taking Photos

The Rogers Art Market celebrated the upcoming eclipse Saturday morning.

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The market was held outdoors on the plaza for the first time this year.

“Well, for us, this is a weekend-long celebration. I am here at the market today. I’m helping all of our community celebrate these small businesses,” said Shelly Smith, the market manager.

Smith is not only overseeing the market’s operations but also planning to partake in the eclipse viewing herself.

“And then tomorrow, I’m going to take my children and go to my parents’ house in Hot Springs, where they’re in totality. And we’re going to watch the eclipse with grandma,” she added.

The market manager also shared that the city’s open-air food and art market will continue to run through October.

Dealers reported strong sales during the VIP preview of the Dallas Art Fair on Thursday (4 April) and were even more optimistic about making connections with collectors and institutions in Texas, as the art market in the region continues to grow.

The fair nearly overlaps with the “Great American Eclipse” taking place on Monday 8 April, with Dallas being the largest city in the eclipse’s path of totality. Some travelling attendees say they will stick around Dallas to take advantage of the just under four minutes of totality the city will see. More than one million tourists are estimated to be travelling to Texas and will add around $1.4bn to the state’s economy to see the last total solar eclipse that will be visible in the contiguous US until 2044.

The Austin-based gallery Martha’s sold out its stand of paintings by local artists Conner O’Leary and RF. Alvarez, with prices ranging from $5,000 to $9,000. Cris Worley, a longtime Dallas dealer, sold works by Erick Swenson including Seance (2019-23), along with pieces by Robert Sagerman, Raychael Stine and William Cannings. Pencil on Paper, a Dallas gallery taking part in the fair for the first time, sold work by Elyse Hradecky and Jessica Vollrath. Dallas gallery Keijsers Koning placed a piece by Kate Barbee, a Dallas native now working in Brooklyn, with a collector who flew in from California to see the work, a gallery representative said.

The Los Angeles-, Bucharest- and New York-based gallery Nicodim sold Sjambokland (2022) by Thania Petersen to the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) for $60,000 through the Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Program, which places works from the fair into the DMA’s collection thanks to an annual gift from the Dallas Art Fair Foundation. The gallery also sold four works by the Montreal-based artist Chantal Khoury priced between $15,000 and $25,000 each, four works by the Polish artist Agnieszka Nienartowicz ranging from $20,000 to $30,000, and a painting by the Spanish artist Ángeles Agrela for $55,000.

Inman Gallery sold The Table of Love (2022) by JooYoung Choi to the DMA through the Dallas Art Fair Acquisition Program, and placed Lost (2023) by Houston-based artist Alexis Pye with a private collection. The New York-based gallery Management sold Pim (2024) by Tim Brawner for $14,000 during the fair’s VIP preview day. McClain Gallery sold three paintings by the Modernist artist Dorothy Hood (1919-2000) for prices ranging from $30,000 to $76,000.

Piero Atchugarry Gallery from Miami reported selling five works, totalling $65,300. Luis de Jesus Los Angeles sold Montgomery Flag (2024) by June Edmonds for $40,000 to a local collector; two papier-mâché sculptures by Jean Lowe in the range of $4,000 to $5,000 to a Houston-based collector and Evita Tezeno’s collage painting No one else makes me feel the colors that you bring me (2024) will be going through the acquisition process of a major Texas museum for approximately $30,000, a gallery representative said.

Mrs. Gallery from Queens, New York, sold an $8,000 Chris Bogia bonsai sculpture and an $80,000 Carolyn Salas sculpture. The Boston-area gallery Praise Shadows, which is showing a solo stand dedicated to works by Crystalle Lacouture, sold six drawings that address the 2022 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, along with four woodblock prints.

There’s a new fair in town

At the Dallas Invitational, held across the street from the Dallas Art Fair in the Fairmont Hotel, Los Angeles-based Night Gallery sold three paintings by Japanese artist Keita Morimoto: Out the Window (2024) and Calling you (2024) for $18,000 each, and Nightfall (2024) for $26,000.

In the Invitational’s second edition after it was founded in 2023 by local dealer James Cope from And Now gallery, the hotel fair saw more foot traffic thanks to increased media attention, word-of-mouth, social media presence and a longer run. Opening the same day as the Dallas Art Fair’s VIP preview, the satellite fair on the Fairmont’s 17th floor was busy well into the afternoon, Cope says. Many of the Dallas Invitational participants took advantage of the hotel setting to display smaller art works and invite collectors into the quiet spaces for more intimate conversations, according to participating dealers.

“I think people really like the smaller, curated, more thoughtful approach,” Cope says. “I think that’s what the collectors like, that it’s manageable. It’s not overwhelming. People will come in, sit on the bed and kind of let their guard down a little bit more, and you can show them work in a more relaxed setting.”

This year’s Invitational has 14 galleries participating, including a handful that previously took part in the Dallas Art Fair across the street, like Various Small Fires, Night Gallery and James Fuentes. Cope says he did not set out to “poach” dealers from the larger, more established fair, and that he was approached by those galleries to take part in the Invitational.

“There’s some talk within the community about the Dallas Invitational being in competition with the Dallas Art Fair, but I’m not trying to disrupt anything, I’m just trying to add more to the Dallas scene,” Cope says. “Competition is good, right? It creates growth. I saw an opportunity to do something different that people will be interested in. Dallas is big enough for two.”

The Dallas Art Fair’s director, Kelly Cornell, agrees. “More is more,” she says. “I don’t think [the Dallas Invitational] is concerning. There’s a big market here.”

Both Cope and Cornell say their respective fairs receive a lot of demand from gallerists hoping to take part and gain access to Dallas’s large collector base plus the region’s museums and other institutions. Even dealers at the Dallas Invitational who did not have any finalised sales to report at press time say they are happy with the introductions they made during the fair’s first day.

“It’s not a conventional fair framework, so we weren’t really pushing pre-sales. We’re more excited about what possibilities might emerge from having a presentation here,” says the New York-based gallerist James Fuentes. “It’s guaranteed this is going to be very good for business and for our artists, especially with a couple of museum conversations that we’ve had—not only museums in Dallas, but also San Antonio. It’s not a heavy lift, but it’s high-impact for us.”

Dallas (art) buyers club

Dallas collectors run the gamut in terms of taste, art education and budget, dealers at this week’s fairs in the city say. Their ranks include trendsetters like Kenny Goss and Howard and Cindy Rachofsky (who may be looking to fund an acquisitions spree with their consignment of an eight-figure Lucio Fontana to Sotheby’s this week) as well as more recent transplants to the booming Sunbelt metropolis. It has one of the more established and active art markets among Texas’s half-dozen major cities.

“They’re at all levels of appreciation. Some people have art history backgrounds and they’ve been going to museums for years and they’re collectors. And other people just want to find something beautiful for their home, or keep up to date with what’s going on in the world,” says Cheryl Vogel, the vice president and curator of Valley House Gallery and Sculpture Garden, the oldest modern art gallery in Dallas.

This year, the gallery will celebrate its 70th anniversary. Valley House Gallery’s stand at the Dallas Art Fair features works that range in price from $165,000 to $800,000, and includes a set of 18 Eclipse paintings by Emily LaCour, inspired by the birth of the artist’s son.

One thing almost everyone in Dallas agrees on is that the art scene in the city has grown exponentially over the years. The city is home to an emerging, younger generation of collectors and dealers. One of the city’s newer galleries is Pencil on Paper, opened by Valerie Gillespie just before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. This is the gallery’s first time showing at the Dallas Art Fair, and Gillespie has filled its relatively small stand with works by Abi Salami, Elyse Hradecky and Jessica Vollrath, three women artists with connections to the Dallas area.

“Womanhood was a big theme, but more so human experience. Almost every artist that I work with talks about the woman experience, the Black experience, the human condition, social issues in the world and cultural commentary,” Gillespite says. “I’ve noticed that I seem to gravitate towards artists that have that narrative.”

Born and raised in Dallas, Gillespie says the city’s art scene has also grown more inclusive over the years. Pencil on Paper is one of four Black-owned galleries now operating in Dallas, she says, and works by more Bipoc (Black, Indigenous and people of colour) artists are appearing in local galleries and institutions.

“I can walk into galleries here and feel welcomed. It wasn’t always like that when I was in my teens,” Gillespie says. “We’re all just sharing the love and, slowly, mindsets are changing.”

• Dallas Art Fair, until 7 April, Fashion Industry Gallery, Dallas

Next week marks the biggest and busiest art week of the year in Colossal’s back yard, EXPO CHICAGO returns to the Navy Pier from April 11 to 14 with hundreds of galleries, site-specific projects, talks, and satellite programming across the city. Numerous galleries, museums, artists, and curators are also partnering for EXPO ART WEEK, which launches April 8.

We know it’s impossible to be in 341 places at once, but as we prepare our own schedules, we wanted to share what we’re looking forward to on-site and off.

Of the 170 galleries at the fair this year, several will show works by artists previously featured on Colossal. Here’s what we’re most looking forward to.

Top: Joel Daniel Phillips, “Killed Negative #40 / After Unknown Photographer,” 2021, pastel and colored pencil on paper. Bottom: Marie Watt (Seneca), “Butterfly” (2015), reclaimed wool blankets, satin binding, thread, cotton twill tape, and tin jingles, 94 x 126 inches

1. Joel Daniel Phillips and Marie Watt with San Francisco’s Catherine Clark Gallery, booth #344.

Amir H. Fallah, “I am Not This Hair, I am Not This Skin, I am the Soul Within” (2023)

2. Amir H. Fallah with Nazarian / Curcio in Los Angeles, booth #352.

Delita Martin, “Rain Falls From The Lemon Tree” (2020), acrylic, charcoal, decorative papers, hand stitching

3. Delita Martin with Galerie Myrtis, booth #405.

Jacqueline Surdell, “Impression, Nightscape, Clark St Bridge” (2024), nylon cord and steel

4. Jacqueline Surdell with Library Street Collection in Detroit, booth #133.

Gio Swaby, “Together We Bloom 4” (2024), fabric and thread

5. Gio Swaby with Claire Oliver Gallery, booth #356.

Antonius Tin-Bui, “Solo of Raven” (2021), hand-cut paper and paint, 109 x 60 inches

6. Antonius-Tín Bui, Yvette Mayorga, and Ebony G. Patterson with moniquemeloche.

Linda Nguyen Lopez, from ‘Dust Bunnies’

As part of /Dialogues, the fair’s spate of panels, forums, and discussions, our friends at Art21 are screening a selection of films on Friday afternoon. And on Saturday, join Chicago-based artist Michael Rakowitz off-site at Gene Siskel Film Center for a screening of “Haunting the West,”  a short film delving into Iraqi-Jewish heritage and how it informs his work.

Plus, artist Linda Nguyen Lopez will discuss contemporary craft with John Paul Morabito and Judilee Reed on Sunday afternoon.

For the fair’s public art program IN/SITU Outside, artist Brendan Fernandes will install scaffolding around the General John Alexander Logan Monument in Grant Park. Titled “New Monuments | Chicago,” the intervention suggests that the longstanding statue, which the Chicago Monuments Project cited as warranting greater public discussion, is in transition. There will be an accompanying performance on April 12.

Barely Fair 2023 at Color Club

And countering the enormity of EXPO CHICAGO with an event of equally epic proportions, Barely Fair returns to the Color Club in Avondale with thirty galleries in miniature. Stop by to see the small works from artists around the world nested inside 1:12 scale booths.

Get your EXPO CHICAGO tickets here, and use the code COLOSSAL24 for $5 off.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Here’s What We’re Excited to See at EXPO CHICAGO 2024 appeared first on Colossal.

Bats can be found nearly everywhere on the planet, except for extreme deserts and the poles, and there are more than 1,400 species with an incredible variety of traits. The tiniest is Kitti’s hog-nosed bat, also known as a “bumblebee bat,” because it’s less than 1.5 inches long and weighs only two grams. Then there’s the giant golden-crowned flying fox, which boasts a wingspan of more than five feet and weighs up to three pounds.

For Buenos Aires-based studio Guardabosques, the mind-boggling variety of the winged mammals inspires Amiguitos de la Oscuridad, or “little friends of darkness,” a continuing project—with its own Instagram account—capturing expressive likenesses in meticulously folded paper. Juan Nicolás Elizalde, who is half of the studio’s creative team, began the series five years ago, fascinated by the animals’ myriad ear shapes, snouts, fur, and colors.

Where Desmodus rotundus exhibits large, pointy ears and a pale nose, Nycteris grandis’s powerful ears shoot up like a rabbit’s, and Anoura fistulata’s long face and tongue are perfectly suited for reaching into crevices to catch insects. In their Guardabosques’ guises, the specimens are crafted from colored paper precisely scored, cut, and folded to shape each characteristic detail.

If you’re in the Northeast, you can find a few sculptures at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, in the exhibition Bats!, which continues through July 28. Guardabosques is about to launch on Patreon, and you can follow updates on the studio’s Instagram.

Nycteris grandis

Pteropus capistratus

Clockwise from top left: Balantiopteryx io, Euderma maculatum, Hipposideros commersoni, and Vampyrum spectrum

Anoura fistulata

Micronycteris hirsuta

Clockwise from top left: Hipposideros pratti, Pygoderma bilabiatum, Hypsignathus monstrosus, and Mormoops magalophylla

Diphylla ecaudata 

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Guardabosques’ Meticulous Paper Portraits Celebrate Diverse Bat Species in ‘Little Friends of Darkness’ appeared first on Colossal.

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – The following was provided by event organizers:

USA Wesley Foundation is hosting their First Annual Community Art Market on Saturday, April 13th from 8 am to 4 pm. This family-friendly event will feature artists and makers from across the Gulf Coast region, highlighting the diversity and creativity of folks who call this place home. We will have delicious food and refreshing drinks for purchase, as well as a children’s area with fun for the whole family. There will also be a special community art project that all folks are invited to participate in!

This event is a fundraiser for USA Wesley Foundation (also known as “South Wesley”), a United Methodist organization serving local college students at South Alabama, Springhill, U Mobile, Bishop, Coastal, and others. Wesley feeds students throughout the week, provides snacks and supplies pantries, hosts worship services and bible studies, and takes fun trips a few times a year. We seek to provide a safe space for students to connect to the community and to thrive.

Event: Community Art Market

Date: April 13th, 2024

Time: 8 am to 4 pm

Location: 5835 Old Shell Road, Mobile, AL 36608

This event is free and open to the public! For more information, please visit https://fb.me/e/89Q8MPGGP

Copyright 2024 WALA. All rights reserved.

Dating back to the late 18th century, retablos are small devotional paintings created to thank God or a saint for their protection during a particularly trying or dangerous event. In his show, Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana, Guadalupe Maravilla (previously) conjures this tradition as he nests narrative works inside spiny mixed-media sculptures that address the indelible impact of childhood trauma.

The exhibition title translates to “if you don’t heal today, you will heal tomorrow” and is a line from a song some Latin American parents sing to their children when sick. Maravilla invokes the lyric as he references his immigration to the United States unaccompanied by his parents, a deeply trying experience he often returns to in his practice. “I remember making sculptures of the bullets I found in the street when I was three to eight years old. The civil war in El Salvador was a war of brother against brother, sister against sister. Bless the healing forces that protected us,” he says.

In addition to the wall-based sculptures, two freestanding works are on view, both part of Maravilla’s ongoing Disease Throwers series. The towering assemblages reflect the artist’s enduring interest in healing and sound therapies following his colon cancer diagnosis. “El Brujo Disease Thrower,” for example, features a gong suspended from a purple woven chair.

“Beginning Retablo” (2022)

Maravilla’s works are particularly timely given the increase in migration from Central and South American countries, along with Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza that has killed more than 12,300 children. Positioned on a blush wall with gold linework, “Letter to the Children Retablo” speaks to such atrocities as he recounts the tragic loss of a six-year-old friend named Luna as he fled the war in El Salvador. He writes:

To those children experiencing war, I hope to meet you in the future and hug you. In the future I hope you are receiving & inspiring love in your communities. That you’re healing. That you formed a new family. That you become leaders. That you are saving the trees and the oceans, that you find a cure for cancer. That you solve many of the world’s problems that we caused. That you that you show us and teach us about what is humanity supposed to be, because we lost we that…I have failed you, America has failed you and the world has failed you. You are my family, you will always be in my heart. I’ll see you in the future.

Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana is on view through April 6 at P·P·O·W Gallery in New York. Find more from Maravilla, including updates on his forthcoming sound baths, on Instagram.

Installation view of ‘Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana’

Detail of “El Brujo Disease Thrower” (2024), mixed media, 100 x 80 x 60 inches

“Letter to the Children Retablo” (2024)

“San Ysidro Retablo” (2023), oil on tin, cotton and glue mixture on wood, 96 x 93 x 20 inches

Detail of “San Ysidro Retablo” (2023), oil on tin, cotton and glue mixture on wood, 96 x 93 x 20 inches

“January 1984 Retablo” (2022)

Detail of “January 1984 Retablo” (2022)

“Bless You Magic Flying Woman Retablo” (2022), oil on tin, dried gourd, cotton and glue mixture on wood, 105 x 63 x 24 inches

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Guadalupe Maravilla Appeals to the Children of War in a New Series of Retablos appeared first on Colossal.