Leila Heller Gallery in the News

October 2012 Newsletter

Events

CURRENT

GULAY SEMERCIOGLU

Variations on Line
October 11 - November 10, 2012
568 West 25th Street

Semercioglu forms geometric, 3-dimensional compositions by weaving thin vibrantly colored metal wires on to a wooden plank. More than twenty layers are created from one long piece of metal wire wound around numerous nails. The results are abstract, perhaps even meditative, works inspired by the shapes of microorganisms, simple leaf forms, mountains, and even water. Light and perception play a significant role in Semercioglu’s oeuvre. The aluminum knit works transform visually as light reflects off the work at different points according to the time of the day and the viewing position.

Image: Gulay Semercioglu, One Way, 2012, Wire, screws, wood, 69 x 69 in (175 x 175 cm)

SHOJA AZARI

Windows
October 11 - November 10, 2012
568 West 25th Street

The idea of making a film, or rather films looking through windows, first came to me when I was watching one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s films. I think it was Whitey. There was a long tracking shot moving from one character to the other, while they were seated at two sides of a table, engaged in conversation. In the space between the characters, there was a painting of a landscape. The camera framed this painting on its journey back and forth between the two protagonists. I remember thinking about that painting as a "window" into another world, and that while I, as the viewer, was made aware of it, the painting went completely unnoticed by the characters in Fassbinder’s film. For Fassbinder, this device was a very efficient and effective way to relate to his audience the implicit and indispensable connection between his characters and that of the German landscape. For me, there was a sudden realization of my relationship to the country I have been living in for the last twenty years as an exile.

Image: Shoja Azari, A Room with a View from Windows (still), 2006, Beta SP, 9 min

INSTITUTE for WOMEN and ART at RUTGERS presents

The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art and Society
August 13, 2012 - January 13, 2013

The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art and Society,conceived and produced by Ferris Olin and Judith K. Brodsky, co-directors of the Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers, is an ambitious and unparalleled showcase five years in the making of exhibitions, public programming, and an accompanying catalog (ARTBOOK/D.A.P., September 2012) of the same title centered around the work of 24 contemporary feminist artists of Middle East heritage who do not want to be pigeonholed by national or religious identities. The work of these “transnational” artists examines and reveals from their global perspectives the complex social, theological and historic issues that have, and continue to shape, the state of Middle East women. The exhibition includes Leila Heller Gallery artists Negar Ahkami and Shiva Ahmadi.

On November 14, at the New York Public Library, Negar Ahkami will be part of a panel that will discuss the complex social, political, theological and historic issues that shape the status of Middle East women in Middle East countries and the diaspora as expressed through their art.

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Image: Negar Ahkami, Hot and Crusty, 2011, Acrylic glitter and gesso on panel, 48 x 36 in (121.92 x 91.44 cm)

UPCOMING

KATE ERIC

Ripped Seams and Other Delights
November 15 - December 15, 2012
Leila Heller Gallery
568 West 25th Street

Collaborative artists Kate Eric (Kate Tedman and Eric Siemens) will have their first solo exhibition in New York City at Leila Heller Gallery in Chelsea at 568 West 25th Street from November 15 through December 22. The husband and wife team takes turns painting layer upon layer of vibrant jewel-toned colors to create fantastical and dynamic large-scale paintings. These nature inspired works transport the viewer to a surreal universe inspired by insects, volcanoes, sandstorms, dark galaxies, and the deep sea filled with flourishing algae and coral.

Image: Kate Eric, Feeder on the Flurry, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 79 x 59 in (201 x 150 cm)

ABU DHABI ART

November 7 - 10, 2012
Saadiyat Cultural District
Abu Dhabi, UAE

Booth P12: Leila Heller Gallery

Leila Heller Gallery will feature artworks by Ayad Alkadhi, Kezban Arca Batibeki, Khosrow Hassanzadeh, Lee Krasner, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Rashid, Mitra Tabrizian, Iké Udé.

Abu Dhabi Art, much more than an art fair, is a platform for modern and contemporary art and public programmes, bringing together a selection of leading art galleries from across the world. In its fourth edition, galleries showcase a variety of works in a range of prices; from museum-quality pieces to those in a dedicated section for emerging artists that has already proven popular with collectors.

Thursday 8 November
4:30 – 5 pm
Abu Dhabi Art panel with Leila Heller
Hall 1 – Art Lounge
Drop-in on an intimate and informal discussion with some of the most fascinating contemporary artists and gallerists participating in this year’s fair.

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Image: Khosrow Hassanzadeh, Haft Khan, Gole Morge (The Flower and The Bird), 2012, Silk screen, painting, collage, gold leaf on ceramic, 86.6 x 47.2 in (2.2 x 1.2 m)

KEZBAN ARCA BATIBEKI AT ANIMA GALLERY

He Loves Me...She Loves Me Not!
Novenber 5, 2012 - January 2, 2013
30 La Croisette
Porto Arabia
The Pearl - Qatar

Anima Gallery proudly presents a solo exhibition by Kezban Arca Batibeki, in conjunction with Leila Heller Gallery, New York.

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Image: Kezban Arca Batibeki, Red Line, 2012, Acrylic based mixed media and embroidery with sequins on canvas 63 x 55 in (160 x 140 cm)

SHIVA AHMADI at The College of Wooster Art Museum

October 23 - December 9, 2012
Ebert Art Center
1220 Beall Avenue
Wooster, OH

Opening Reception
Thursday, November 8, 2012
â¨6:30–8:00 p.m.â¨Gallery
talk by the artist at 7:00 p.m.

The College of Wooster Art Musuem presents Shiva Ahmadi solo exhibition. Born in Tehran, Iran, in 1975, Shiva Ahmadi’s representational watercolors are influenced by Persian and Indian miniature painting, yet occupy a charged psycho-visual space. According to the artist, her loosely spattered and highly layered paintings on aqua-board, “Create an allegorical realm where faceless tyrants and religious authorities sit on ornate gilded thrones while subservient minions bow to them."

View Images of Installation

Image: Shiva Ahmadi, Safe Heaven, 2012, Mixed media on aquaboard, 60 x 120 in (152.4 x 304.8 cm)

News

ARTnews

Reviews: New York
"Ran Hwang, Leila Heller Gallery"
By Lilly Wei
September 2012

Clear and colored buttons and bright shining beads animated Ran Hwang's many-splendored exhibition, transforming a neutral white box into a kind of dazzling pan-Asian garden. Hwang, based in New York and Seoul, pins countless buttons and beads onto wood panels so that they sometime jiggle, creating light and shadow patterns that shiver delicately, enlivening the intricately composed pointillist surfaces.

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Image: Ran Hwang, East Wind, 2012, Buttons, beads, pins on wood panel, 70 x 141 in (180 x 360 cm)

Artdaily
"First solo exhibition in the U.S. by Turkish artist Gulay Semercioglu opens at Leila Heller Gallery"
October 16, 2012

Semercioglu is aware that her work evokes dualities. “I like that [my art] makes contradictions exist and reconcile.” The interplays between East and West, ancient and hi-tech, art and craft, sculptural and painterly, silken and textured are all encouraged and provoked in Semercioglu’s ultra-fine steely tapestries. Works such as Separate Pieces, 2012, Green Apple, 2011, and Golden Circles, 2012, seem at once representational, suggestive of other things—peacocks tails, glossy fans—and yet only of themselves and the integrity of their material. “People like to touch them, as if they were piano or harp strings.” Semercioglu says. “That is as it should be—they are tactile, made by touch. They communicate also on that level.”

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Image: Gulay Semercioglu, Split in two, 2012, Wire, screws and wood, 74.8 in diameter (190 cm)

ARTINFO
"Istanbul Takes New York: A Look at 4 Fall Shows From Turkey's Surging Art Scene"
by Rachel Corbett
October 24, 2012

Gulay Semercioglu, “Variations on Line,” Leila Heller Gallery, October 11-November 12

Istanbul-based painter Gulay Semercioglu makes her U.S. solo debut at Leila Heller with a collection of architectural abstractions woven from razor-thin metal wires and mounted into wooden frames. The work draws upon the history of her hometown, Gaziantep, which was known for its wire-woven textiles. “My grandfather, when he was bored or unhappy, used to resort to weaving,” she explained in a statement. “My grandmother used to win prizes for her embroidery and jewelry. It’s in my genes and in the process.”

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Image: Gulay Semercioglu, Green Apple, 2011, Wire, screws, wood, 71 x 118 in (180 x 300 cm)

The bare square
"Jen Recommends.....Metal in Motion"
by Jen Wallace
October 16, 2012

From one vantage point, Gulay Semercioglu’s sculpture Golden Circles might look as though there are literally golden discs stacked amongst each other like a blossoming chrysanthemum. When viewed from another angle, the “golden discs” seem to spin and interact with each other as they catch the gallery lights. The work comes alive!

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Image: Gulay Semercioglu, Golden Circles, 2012, Wire, screws, wood, 75 in diameter (190 cm)

1st Dibs
"Editor's pick: GULAY SEMERCIOGLU AT LEILA HELLER"
by Abigail R. Esman
October 2012

If you could capture pure light and pure color and hold them in your hand or hang them on your wall, they might look a lot like an artwork by Turkish artist Gulay Semercioglu, whose first one-person exhibition in the US runs through November 10 at the Leila Heller Gallery in New York's Chelsea.

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Image: Gulay Semercioglu, Inside, 2011, Wire, screws, wood, 64 x 44 in (162 x 112 cm)

Art + Auction
"Instabul on the edge"
by Sarah P. Hanson
November 2012

Next year Contemporary Istanbul will have another competitor: ArtInternational Istanbul launches in September 2013 under the leadership of Sandy Angus, a cofounder of ArtHK. Turkey's combination of "cultural substance" and "demographic advantages," Angus explains, "led us to believe that Istanbul will be the venue for one of the major global art fairs in the medium term." The selection committee includes representatives from Rampa as well as Gallery Isabella van den Eynde, Dubai; Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna; and Leila Heller Gallery, New York.

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ART SY

Popular Artists this week
"Kate Eric"
September 2012

Chaos—from the molecular to the social—forms the core subject matter of collaborative duo Kate Eric’s (Kate Tedman and Eric Siemens) practice, through which they explore the dynamics of how entities interact in both physical and figurative senses.

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Image: Kate Eric, Fray Vs Frizzle, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 34 x 52 in (86.4 x 132.1 cm)

POSITIVE IMPACT MAGAZINE
"Art-Platform-Los Angeles 2012 Announces Fair Highlights"
September 22, 2012

Rachel Lee Hovnanian, Cafe, 2012, Mixed media installation

In the interactive installation/ performance piece, Cafe, 2012, Hovnanian presents a small neighborhood cafe in Texas. Or is it? There is what seems to be an authentic cafe aroma, but the fare is decidedly untraditional. The milky white liquid posing as coffee smells and tastes real, but it is actually a chemical substance created in a lab. BBQ, lemonade, and pie grace the menu, however “Food Bytes” or synthetically modified food is served in the cafe. Look out the window: there is a view of a barn – a video projection entitled, Outside Nacogdoches. The apparent customer at the counter, who is replaced with an LCD panel affixed to a chair, is preoccupied by angry birds and text messaging. @CafeWaitress (the waitress) oozes southern charm and sugars up every sentence; another ersatz reality, she’s an actress from New York City with a Twitter account.

Image: Rachel Lee Hovnanian, Cafe, 2012, Installation

CA HOME + DESIGN
"Inside Art Platform"
By Sarah Whit
September 25, 2012

Art Platform — Los Angeles is back in a big way in its second year with 65,000 square feet of exhibition space highlighting the incredible diversity of the area’s thriving artistic culture. While it draws galleries, dealers, museums and collectors from art hubs around the world, the focus of the modern and contemporary art fair is to grow the local appetite for LA-based art.

Other highlights include the LA-based contemporary art from Paris’ Praz–Delavallade gallery, the Santa Monica Museum of Art’s collection of Environmental and Conceptual Art, and live installations such as Rachel Lee Hovnanian’s “Café,” a mixed-media performance piece in which a small-town Texas café is not all it seems.

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LA WEEKLY
"10 Great Artworks at Art Platform Los Angeles"
By Shana Nys Dambrot
October 2, 2012

1. Rachel Lee Hovnanian (NYC)
Also commissioned by the fair organizers as a public installation work, Hovnanian's remarkable Cafe was an interactive public performance installation nestled amongst gallery booths, featuring a pair of sunny, hospitable waitresses with sugar-sweet Texas accents offering coffee and a menu of free snacks to all comers. Bacon, pecan pie, and pulled pork arrived in the form of fragrant, authentically tasty jelly candies that required an adventurous spirit to consume. The entire experience was charming and a little scary, but ultimately a resounding take on the ideas of beauty, technology, authenticity, artificiality, appetite, and access that characterize the art world itself. rachelhovnanian.com.

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Image: The author enjoying the menu at Rachel Lee Hovnanian's Cafe

Huffington Post
"Is Modern Art Really Rotten to the Core?"
By Ben Mirza
October 17, 2012

British artists may not be creating anything of merit, but further afield artists hold beauty in high regard, in fact the very essence of the beautiful aesthetic lays at the foundation of all their work, such as Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Hadieh Shafie, Farid Saleem Kamboh and so on, who occupy a unique place in the art world, which is expanding each year. They have shown us that art doesn't need to be doused in urine or geared towards shocking the public to get the message across, but instead subtlety, craftsmanship and intellectual curiosity are the keys to success.

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Image: Hadieh Shafie, Gold, 2012, Ink, acrylic and paper with printed and hand written Farsi text Eshenghe "Love", 12 x 12 x 3.5 in (30.4 x 30.4 x 9 cm)

The Guardian
"Mitra Tabrizian's best photograph: mosque students at breaktime"
by Sarah Phillips
October 17, 2012

It took me almost a year to get access for this shot. It's part of a 2010 series I did called Another Country, focusing on Shia and Sunni Muslim communities from the Middle East who are living in London. As they live under surveillance and are subjected to constant harassment, they don't trust outsiders. But once I won them over, they were extremely helpful.

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Image: Mitra Tabrizian, from Another Country series, 2012

Signs
"Visibility and Visuality: Reframing Gender in the Middle East, North Africa, and Their Diasporas"
by Andrew Mazzaschi
October, 2012

In conjunction with the Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art, and Society project initiated by the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art, Signs presents a special virtual issue addressing the complexity of women’s lives, livelihoods, and circumstances in North Africa, the Middle East, and their diasporas. Drawn from essays published in the journal over the past two decades, this wide-ranging, interdisciplinary collection explores political engagement and protest; sexuality, marriage, and family life; Islamicization and secularism; the politics of resistance in public and private spheres; cultural production and translation; migration and diaspora; labor and class within and across nations; agency and identity; and conflict and postconflict situations. As a compendium of sophisticated feminist scholarship on the Middle East, North Africa, and their diasporas, the issue is a vital teaching tool and scholarly resource.

Featuring, Shiva Ahmadi and Negar Ahkami

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Image: Shiva Ahmadi, Hades, 2011, Mixed media, 80 x 60 in (203.2 x 152.4 cm)

New York Space
"top 50 designers"
September, 2012

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Image: Mojgan and Gisue Hariri

Hariri & Hariri

The Pink Jalk Project to benefit The Breast Cancer Research Foundation

Hariri & Hariri - Architecture was invited to participate in The Pink Jalk Project to benefit The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. This year's Pink Project is dedicated to the Memory of Evelyn H. Lauder, making it even more special to take part in.

Image: Harir & Hariri, Chair

568 West 25th Street New York, NY 10001
(Tel) 212 249 7695
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www.leilahellergallery.com
info@leilahellergallery.com