Art Zealous
Before Paradiso, There Is Purgatorio: An Interview With Artist Michael Gittes
December 18, 2020
In his new multimedia installation at Victori + Mo’s Chelsea gallery, Gittes taps into the collective experience of pop culture from across the world, synchronizing popular music videos and performances with hit songs that all possess a common tempo. Every now and then, the audio and visual elements of the installation come together in moments of eerie, harmonious synchronicity: a gentle reminder of how we all exist in a space that is at once both random and totally incredible. Gittes chooses to focus on moments in his work – moments where “the eternal and ephemeral intersect.” Read full article>
Artnet
Editors’ Picks: 16 Events for Your Art Calendar This Week, From a Virtual Print Fair to an IRL Show Inspired by the 19th Amendment
October 7, 2020
In this lush two-person exhibition, artists Alex Ebstein and Amy Boone-McCreesh explore the often mesmerizing aesthetics of our aspiration-driven culture. Ebstein transforms yoga mats and powder-coated metal into sinewy renderings of eyes, curves, and limbs. Ebstein made most of the works while quarantined in her apartment—they hint at a social media world of advertising that traffics in the industry and glamour of wellness and fitness, which the artist transforms into floating emblems disconnected from their sources. Amy Boone-McCreesh, meanwhile, creates intricate hand-cut collages that meld imagery of windows and luxury goods. Her lavish and grand tableaux are a delight to look at, but they subtly prod at tropes used to manufacture “good taste” and their inherent connections to class and consumption. Read full article>
WhiteHot Magazine
Highlights from Intersect Aspen
July 29, 2020
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s physical fair was replaced by an online exhibition with viewing rooms presenting an international array of art and design. We’ve picked some of our favorite works—ranging from Rhonda Wall’s collage paintings tackling our ever-changing social circumstances at Paris’ Galerie Anne de Villepoix and Adrienne Elise Tarver’s depiction of contemporary black women as Three Graces at Victori+Mo Contemporary from New York to Nick Knight large-scale, photographic still lives of luscious floral arrangements at Albion Barn from Oxford and OrtaMiklos and Otto du Plessis’ fantastical furniture designs at New York’s Friedman Benda and Cape Town’s Southern Guild, respectively. Read full article>
WhiteHot Magazine
Armed Disposal Virtual and Gallery Exhibition by VICTORI+MO
July 29, 2020
Katrina Majkut’s embroidered “2 S &W M&P 9mm,” depicting two pistols in a yin-yang position, evokes the troubling authentic duality around the issue of weapons and gun ownership in the United States, in the Victori+Mo curated group exhibit, Armed Disposal. Using the media of embroidery, Majkut joins the long line of feminist artists who use traditionally deemed domestic or feminine and therefore inferior media to both conversely empower both women and elevate the media. Read full article>
The New York Times
What to See Right Now in New York Art Galleries
February 20, 2020
The first artwork you see upon entering Adrienne Elise Tarver’s third solo show at Victori + Mo is a painting of a woman’s lower body under water. Her white bathing suit and brown legs float amid ripples of navy, grayish blue, and aquamarine. The piece, “Head Above Water” (2018), suggests glamorous freedom — but by the time I encountered it again on my way out, I understood it differently. The exhibition plays on two meanings of its title, “Escape”: a vacation getaway and breaking free of bondage. Ms. Tarver connects them via the tropics, a frequent subject of hers and a region where idyllic beaches can mask histories of colonialism. In a series of small collages, she frames historical images of enslaved people and plantation workers within advertisements for cruise lines. They are cutting. Read full article>
ART IN AMERICA
Langdon Graves on Family Myths and Commemorating the Dead
January 10, 2020
Virginia-born, New York–based artist Langdon Graves explores belief systems—ranging from ancient Greek mythology to nineteenth-century spiritualism to family ghost stories—and their connection to grief and trauma. While Graves has been probing this set of ideas for years, her latest body of work adds a personal twist. Presented in “Month’s Mind,” her second solo exhibition at Victori + Mo in New York, the delicate sculptures and drawings that evoke familiar tableaux (the half-smoked remains of snuffed cigarettes; a lingering outstretched hand) appear to float before the seafoam-green walls in clustered succession. The show, on view through January 18, commemorates the one-year anniversary of her grandmother’s death. Below she discusses how her new work was informed by childhood memories and family history. Read full article>