REACHING ACROSS THE TABLE

The fifth part of a series of table settings and dinners. Now showing as part of the exhibition Unresolved (Issues) curated by Jennifer-Navva Milliken at UrbanGlass.

Opening Reception:
March 21, 6 - 8 PM
On view March 21 through May 5, 2018

Interactive Dinner
Nourished by OneTable
May 4, 6 pm

Agnes Varis Art Center
647 Fulton St
Brooklyn, NY 11217

“Unresolved”: A word used to describe a situation that lacks certainty or finality, a status still open for examination or processing. Unresolved issues, residing deep in the psyche, haunt and obscure cognition, impacting judgment and undermining attempts to cultivate relationships. For artists and makers, however, an unresolved issue—a skill that needs mastering or an idea that needs refining—can be the driving force in the process of creation, catalyzing critical decisions that test an artist’s technical and conceptual acuity.

The exhibition Unresolved (Issues) considers an artist’s ongoing relationship with a specific material and technique—glass—in parallel to the 2,000-year trajectory of its development and production in a region whose contemporary identity remains unresolved.

Researching ancient and contemporary practice in glass in eretz Israel past and present is a complicated endeavor. Due to the wealth of sand and soda found on the eastern end of the Mediterranean coastline (the “Levant”), glassblowing enjoys a long and unique history in the region, with multiple timelines and varying influences. From the early experiments documented by Pliny, Josephus, and Tacitus, to dynastic practice in Hebron that continues to this day, the hot glass industry has waxed and waned along with the civilizations that rose and fell upon these sands. How does this history impact a new, globally oriented generation of glass artists whose work is physically built upon the archaeological, political, and cultural strata that lies beneath it? Following hundreds of years of development and examination by studio glass artists conspicuously concentrated outside this small but focal part of the Middle East (Italy, the Czech Republic, and the United States among them), an examination of “place” seems extraneous and provincial. And yet, at a time when glass as an art medium is gaining traction among local artists due in part to globalism, digitalization, and international exchange—vis-à-vis residencies and sabbaticals; international exhibitions; internet venues such as YouTube, art blogs, and social media; and more—the ancient history of glass in the region provides a fertile backdrop for the examination of the development of contemporary practices taking shape.

Resolution, and the lack of it, is a part of the artistic process; parallel to that are the existential questions surrounding the past, present, and future of Israel. Unresolved (Issues) creates room for contemplation of these questions in the gallery, reflected in the glass that binds them together in the space.

WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE

INTERACTIVE MEAL
Through a series of participatory dinners artist Alexandra Ben-Abba evokes the uncertainty, aggression and helplessness often felt during times of conflict. By inviting participants to bring their culturally specific food and serve it on hazardous dinnerware they made, during the workshop, she brings the realities of discord to the table. For the fourth dinner in her series the artist focuses on the international refugee flow by creating a space for others to reflect upon their histories. The meal will consider historical and contemporary displacement through interacting with a new set of dinnerware and recipes sourced from the participants.

WORKSHOP
Alexandra Ben-Abba and Tal Gur invite you to join them in responding to conflict with music and make your own table setting for the interactive meal What's on Your Plate.

ARTIST TALK
Alexandra Ben-Abba discusses her series of interactive meals:
Always on Our Plate I&II Never on Our Plate and What’s on Your Plate
Tal Gur discusses his process and work on Mind Crossing

Friday, February 23rd, 6pm
Saturday, February 24th, 6pm

Café Prosa, Ullmannstrasse 45, 1150 wien, Austria

In partnership with Vielmehr fur Alle.
Made possible by the generous support of Asylum Arts.


GLASS HAIRCUT

A performance by Alexandra Ben-Abba @ Urban Glass

As part of the exhibition Glass Ceiling: Art of Resilience and Fragility
curated by Osman Can Yerebakan

Wednesday November 8, 2017
Opening 6-8PM
Performance 7:30pm
Agnes Varis Art Center
647 Fulton St
Brooklyn, NY 11217

On view through January 13, 2018

Glass Ceiling: Art of Resilience and Fragility, is a group exhibition bringing together artists who address challenges raised by representation of self and identity through glass. Coined for the first time by Marilyn Loden in her 1978 speech, the term “the glass ceiling” has gained further resonance within the current political and social climate prevalent in the United States and across the globe. The autonomy of women in the social arena in the U.S. has followed a considerable trajectory, from the Seneca Fall Convention in 1848 to Hillary Clinton’s announcement of her presidential candidacy on June 13, 2015. However, the heftiness of a glass ceiling seems overwhelming—and perishable, not only for women, but for those facing perpetual impediment due to gender and race.

Organized by Osman Can Yerebakan, the exhibition interprets the metaphorical conception of a glass ceiling, defining impalpable challenges imposed on certain groups of individuals, while materializing this expression through glass, a medium linked to women through ideas of decoration that has historically been dominated by men. Either working in sculpture to employ the fragile, yet resolute nature of glass or using its aesthetic luster in film or photograph to capture fluidity and resilience, the artworks manifest endurance and assurance in their statements, daringly embodying elegance and allure on the surface. Jes Fan’s wax dumbbells on pillowy glassbubbles comment on masculinity norms through the tension between two mediums, while AK Burns and Katherine Hubbard’s mixed media sculpture puts glass in conversation with other mediums to build an all-embracing narrative on memory and womanhood.


NEVER ON OUR PLATE

An interactive meal by Alexandra Ben-Abba @ A.I.R. Gallery

Exhibition @ Repair the World curated by Rebecca Pristoop

THE MEAL
Friday October 7, 2016
7p, dinner @8
A.I.R. Gallery
155 Plymouth Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

THE EXHIBITION
Thursday October 20, 2016
6-9p
Repair the World
808 Nostrand Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11216

Tickets for the meal must be purchased in advance for $10 https://goo.gl/94evyK

Exhibition remains on view @ Repair the World through November 4, 2016

Through a series of participatory Shabbat dinners artist Alexandra Ben-Abba evokes the uncertainty, aggression and helplessness often felt during times of conflict. By serving culturally specific food on hazardous dinnerware she brings the realities of discord to unaffected communities. For the third dinner in her series the artist focuses on the international refugee crises by reflecting upon her own history as a Jewish descendent of displaced people. The meal will consider historical and contemporary displacement through interacting with a new set of dinnerware and recipes sourced from places where Jews have been outcast. The dinner will highlight the lack of material comfort refugees endure.

This event was made possible through the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation's #MakeItHappen initiative.

Additional support from Asylum Arts.
Nourished by OneTable.

We thank A.I.R. Gallery for hosting the meal


Devotion/Destruction: Craft Inheritance

Devotion/Destruction: Craft Inheritance exhibits artworks created as a result of formal investigations into the materials and methods historically affiliated with craft. Artists exhibited are those whose intense study of traditional means for producing functional objects, or whose extended relationship with such objects and ornamentation, has led them to a place of intimate inquiry into their chosen materials. Through their work, each artist makes visible the physicality of de/construction and the visceral effects of their actions. In their making, the artists also carve a space for the re/consideration of the socio-historical constructs of traditional craft production.

Curated by Rebecca Pristoop

January 17th through March 27th

D O R S K Y G A L L E R Y

C u r a t o r i a l P r o g r a m s

11-03 45th Avenue

Long Island City, NY 11101

(718) 937-6317

(718) 937-7469 (fax)

registrar@dorsky.org


ISRAEL GLASS 2015

The exhibition displays the works of 62 selected local artists from the last four years. This is the third time that the Eretz Israel Museum is holding such an exhibition (in 2007, and in 2011) in an effort to survey the local glass scene and draw an updated picture of the contemporary artistics expression in glass.

The scope and diversity of the works display innovative approaches and involvement in contemporary art issues, as well as the creative and imaginative ways glass is being exploited by Israeli artists as a medium for artistic expression.

Curator: Henrietta Eliezer Bruner

Closes: June 20, 2015


ALWAYS ON OUR PLATE

Solo Exhibition
January 16 - 22
Exhibition Opening and Performance: January 17 7pm

S L A G Gallery
56 Bogart Street, Ground Floor
Brooklyn NY 11206


Fragile Territories

Fragile Territories brings together artwork by three Israeli artists of the same generation who explore their complex relationships to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While each artist moved to the United States to pursue her own artistic exploration, it is the home she left behind that beckons her full attention. Individually, the artists wrestle with poetic notions of faith and loss while enacting artistic processes that question the division between personal identity and national responsibility. Together, they represent a growing community of Israeli expats struggling to unpack the meaning and significance of this inheritance. Through diverse materials and processes each artist grapples with the loss of security and rightness within Israel’s national history as it intersects with a thinly veiled private life.

Exhibition Opening: July 20 7-11pm
New Regulations Performance: 7-9pm
Music: 9-11pm

Closing Reception Sunday August 4th 4-7pm
Artist talk 5pm

LaunchPad
721 Franklin Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238
646-494-7211

www.facebook.com/events/488198181249532…

Hebrew Press: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4407017,00.html

“Body As Site” - Glass and Metal Mix-Media
Rhode Island School of Design

Body as Site, a glass and metals Mix Media course, establishes an understanding of how to conceptualize, develop, and articulate the body as site and/or objects of adornment. Investigations in the materials of glass and metal as well as exploration of their properties, will be our primary focus. Utilizing and experimenting with methods of production will be a critical component of this course as illustrated through weekly in-class demonstrations and lecture presentations. Students learn ways to combine the two materials and develop their own ideas to culminate in mixed-media objects that illustrate technical and conceptual understanding.
Historic and contemporary examples of sculpture, systems of adornment and performance are presented in image based lectures, short readings and videos. Using a hands-on approach and independent investigation, through a series of conceptual exercises, research, and model making, students sharpen, provoke, and hone the use of material combination as an artistic medium to articulate the boundaries of function, space, and utility in relation to the body.

Designed and Taught by Alexandra Ben-Abba and Mariah Tuttle

bodyassite.blogspot.com

Performance Video: Private/Public Body

Curated by Alexandra Ben-Abba Greenpoint Film Festival 2013

Sunday 9/22 @ 6:45pm followed by panel – 67 West St

Private/Public Body features contemporary video work by visual artist. Residing between the public and the private, artists in the program choose to use the human body as a focal point of their frame. They create installations or events that explore the personal within the public sphere. Naomi Safran-Hon and Katayoun Vaziri talk in two different languages, they create an honest piece that deals with the effect of political decisions on personal relationships. Three short pieces by Courtney Lockeme presents us with a humorous, tasteful and honest artist that brings to the public realm intimate moments of herself in her personal space. K Laub takes on a persona of a simple American person, this genderless person talks about existential questions such as loneliness, money and death in way that doesn’t leave us indifferent. Habby Osk creates clean and minimalistic videos that deal with human interactions, the generalization of these actions creates space for diverse interpretations. Looking at their own image, or at a generalized body they all share their ideas and by doing that comment on public issues.

Panel with the artists Courtney Lockeme, Katayoun Vaziri and Habby Osk, moderated by Curator Alexandra Ben-Abba

http://greenpointfilmfestival.org/films-2013/performance-video-privatepublic-body/


Body and Material
A video program curated by Alexandra Ben-Abba Greenpoint Film Festival 2012

Since the 70’s artists have been using video to document events and interactions they have with materials and audience. The video documentation of performances alongside the development of technology generated a new genre of time based - moving image work. While his work parallels to experimental film it is unique in its approach to the human body and materials. This hour-long program offers a collection of short video works made in the past few years.

The program will be followed by a panel with artists Liz Collins, Amy Jenkins, Catherine Telford-Keogh, Naomi Safran-Hon, Tal Gur, Tamar Ettun, Brett Swanson & Alexandra Ben-Abba


The Body Show
A spring exhibition at the Gelman Galler at
Rhode Island School of Design opening March 24th 2011

Your body is not itself. Nor, I should add, is mine. It is under siege from the pharmaceutical, aerobic, dietetic, liposuctive, calorie-controlled, cybernetic world of postmodernism....The body is at once the final point of resistance to the global imperatives of postmodernism and the first to be affected by them.
—Nicholas Mirzoeff

The body is not only a physical structure. It is where our psychological and spiritual selves reside. Artists have explored the body since ancient times. Representational figurative work, however, is not enough to describe the complexities of the twenty-first century body. The Body Show presents contemporary artists who engage the body as both subject and object, pushing its boundaries, manipulating its appearance, and redefining its structures to understand our postmodern existences. Working in a variety of mediums—from sculpture to photography to digital media, drawing, and embroidery—they bring various perspectives to themes such as identity, mortality, and fragility to create a survey of the body as represented in art today.

Curated by Alex Ben-Abba, MFA Glass, 2011
and Beth Weaver, Graphic Design, 2012

thebodyshow.blogspot.com