ERIS ART and the Opening Gallery are pleased to announce a private event celebrating the publication of Edward W. Said's Poetry Collection "Songs of An Eastern Humanist," on Monday, September 25 at 7pm at 42 Walker Street, marking the 20th anniversary of Said's passing. 

Poems from the book will be read by Udi Aloni, Simon Critchley, Stathis Gourgouris and Mona Miari

SONGS OF AN EASTERN HUMANIST

by Edward W. Said

Edited and with an Introduction by Timothy Brennan

PUBLISHES 25 SEPTEMBER 2023

“Considering the emphasis in Said’s critical work on space and place and the political importance of geography, it is less surprising to see the luxuriant evocation of a specific topography of dusty roads, grottos, plump figtrees, desert flowers, muddy clods, and the “beckoning hands of lambent hills”. Most revealing of all, perhaps, is the poems’ tendency to see the world through musical form. Musical imagery is everywhere, testifying to how much of Said’s mind in an introspective mood was immersed in the sounds, forms, and fables of Western classical music.”

Timothy Brennan
From the book’s Introduction

Edward Said was renowned for the breadth, erudition, and humanity of his scholarly and political writing. His ground-breaking studies of literature and culture threw a dazzling new light on the ways in which non-Western peoples have been misrepresented over the course of the centuries, and he was among the world’s most prominent voices in denouncing the modern-day injustices of Western foreign policy. This volume collects all his never-before-published poems, offering insight into the personality of the author of Orientalism,The World, the Text and the Critic, and Culture & Imperialism “to a degree hidden in those works themselves”.

The nineteen works collected in Songs of an Eastern Humanist canvass a variety of poetic forms, but they are all shot through with Said’s capacious intellect and passionate sensibility. They are also remarkable achievements of poetic craft. Said’s poetry alternates with unerring judgment between wit and pathos, between sublimely elevated and disarmingly quotidian registers.

His individual lines of verse are exquisitely constructed and richly elusive, while his poems as a whole are at once sweeping in their vision and keenly evocative of sensory experience. Their publication amounts to a major literary event, marking twenty years since the great public intellectual’s passing.

THE OPENING GALLERY

SEPT 2023

 

Multimedia, immersive, and sound installation.

 

Sounds of Nathalie Forget. New York 2023.

 

With thanks to « Les Amis de Magaud » and Alexandra and Charles-Henry Dubail.

Tribute to Patrick Rimoux and Agnieszka Slosarska.

Curated by Sozita Goudouna.

 

Yann Toma, artist-observer at the UN since 2007, presents an immersive installation at The Opening Gallery. Consisting of a central piece (a Pythia sound sculpture resting on light bulbs) and surrounded by a Wall of Divinatory Hands (MMD cyanotypes) as well as photographs of Radiant Fluxes of ARTEFACTS and immersive videos (OUIJA + Climatic Divinations) , DIVINATIONS is an installation that mixes bodily perceptions and restitutions of captures and “care” carried out in places sometimes steeped in history, in several parts of the world where the artist has been methodically harvesting “zones of polarities” for nearly several decades.

 

The images present, reflections of an invisible energy amplified by the sound of the Martenot waves of the composer Nathalie Forget, result in their immediacy from an encounter and from the artist's desire to engage the imaginations of her somatic space at the heart of the ENERGY of the world.

 

This desire is embodied in space by the presence of original publications and a MANIFESTO relating to the formula of ARTISTIC ENERGY (EA). Through the summoned figures and the relationship they establish, a form of affinity is engaged and makes the Visions of the Pythia and the public resonate, all amplified by the benevolent presence of the sound frictions that circulate in the space. For our eyes as observers, the consequences are immediate and similar to fleeting apparitions. The movement appears in us and the images of thoughts emerge from our back and forth in the space between the works which then present themselves to us in a strange way, relying on hybrid forms resulting directly from the circulation of sound and images of radiant fluxes. All sorts of visions therefore arise that call on the energy inscribed in each of us, like what Yann Toma transmits to us from his experience at the UN via ante-divination documents from 2023. This immersive form, the artist exhibits captured moments, amplifies his action in the space of The Opening Gallery by a real gallery of universal and iconic portraits which reflects a shared and internalized vision of time and space of the energies present, sending us back to ourselves and to our deepest intimacy.

 

The Opening Gallery presents the New York premiere of  

Orit Ben Shitrit

:  

ECHOES IN MY MOUTH

+

WARD OF THE FERAL HORSES

(EMPAC commission)

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 20, 6-8pm

Exhibition: July 19 - July 29, 2023 (Tue- Sat)

The Opening Gallery, 42 Walker Street, Tribeca, NY

Curated by Maureen Sullivan

________________________________________________

Special Event: Wednesday, July 26, 6:30-7:30pm  

“Becoming leaf: queering technologies toward human photosynthesis” talk by Vanina Saracino. Followed by a conversation with Orit Ben Shitrit.

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Short version:

Orit Ben Shitrit: ECHOES IN MY MOUTH +WARD OF THE FERAL HORSES

ECHOES IN MY MOUTH and WARD OF THE FERAL HORSES are moving image speculations about the fragmented Mind. ECHOES depicts humans who struggle to find purpose and motivation in a future society where memories have been rewritten, and conflicts resolved. WARD lays out a cyborg's upheaval. Their broken and fractured mind is ultimately celebrated through imagination, color, music and dance.

Orit Ben Shitrit: ECHOES IN MY MOUTH +WARD OF THE FERAL HORSES

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 20, 6-8pm The Opening Gallery, 42 Walker Street, Tribeca, NY

These works are moving image speculations involving the fragmented Mind. In ECHOES IN MY MOUTH, individuals struggle to find meaning and motivation in a futuristic society where machines have achieved consciousness. Within this world, human memories and traumas have been rewritten and erased, leading to the supposed healing of our current fractured humanity and its conflicts. Bodies in robot-like movement roam from the natural world to a cave, seeking a dose of archived memories. This work references both seed banks and memorial archives, as well as Plato’s Allegory, questioning reality and our ability to create other entities, and the realm of artificial intelligence, beyond our self-referential cognition.
WARD OF THE FERAL HORSES is set in a 19thc. horse stable. It depicts the upheaval of a cyborg who struggles with suppressing his primal urges to conform to societal expectations. Distraught and failing to communicate his pre-Oedipal being, his mind cracks and unleashes an emancipatory carnivalesque dance troupe— Jinns—who emerge from his room’s furnishings.  

The recent MEMORY DAYDREAMS, black and white acrylic paintings, are a rumination and an extension of the images from ECHOES IN MY MOUTH. Depicting trans-species combines of humans, plants, animals and machines, they are futuristic in essence, imagined beyond the limits of our human-centric perspective.

The Opening Gallery is pleased to present the Group Exhibition Spectral Senses featuring a selection of works by Stella Ampatzi, Daniel Firman, Nefeli Masia and Eleni Paridi addressing issues of the hauntology and ontology of the senses curated by Dr. Sozita Goudouna.

The group exhibition explores the ways that the impact of new technologies is rearranging the established hierarchy of the senses.

The project draws from the ways our highly mediated world, and technology becomes an important model for the artistic process, while the participating artists explore the implications of the techno-human interface by investigating embodied technology and the technologized body. The auditory, the olfactory and the tactile are similar to the visual crucial sites of embodied knowledge. However, the modernist segmentation of the senses is now giving way to dramatic multi-sensory mixes or transpositions.

Daniel-Firman The Door 2019 Mixed media 79.5x33x37in ©AdamReich | Courtesy Ceysson & Bénétière

The techno-human interface is manifested in Daniel Firman’s installation “2nd hug” whereas a human figure makes an entrance into a door (opening) that consists of an assemblage of worn out objects. The artist reflects upon the logic of assemblage as he is making a statement related to life as to art.

For the artist, offering a second chance as well as a second reading seems a necessary empathetic gesture towards the activation of our senses. Without exception, Firman’s pieces were produced with objects gleaned from the streets of NYC. The sculptures are the reflection of a second acceptance, they seem to be made of intertwining, of fusion, with objects sometimes reduced to their simplest materiality. The pieces have already been exhibited once, thus achieving a second attention, a second look, a second life in a kind of up-cycling.

Nefeli Massia Chrystal Etchings | “Spectral Senses” | The Opening | 42 Walker st NYC, June 29 2023

Biological metaphors often appear in discourses about up-cycling and about the relations of human nature to art. Nefeli Massia’s installation of sculptures intertwines the aesthetic with the biomedical by incorporating real immature cells that are able to make other blood cells that mature and function as needed, namely, stem cells that are used in procedures, such as bone marrow transplants. “Spectral Senses” see biological phenomena and aesthetic practices in a shifting and reciprocal relationship to each other.

Stella Ampatzi, Installation, DYSAUTONOMIC VS AUTONOMIC NETWORKS, installed at The Opening | 42 Walker st NYC, June 29 2023

Stella Ampatzi’s autonomic networks refer to self-managing or self-organizing networks that can operate and adapt without direct human intervention. In the context of warfare, the use of drones in conjunction with autonomic networks has gained attention and interest in recent years. Autonomic networks can enhance the capabilities of drones by allowing them to communicate, coordinate, and make decisions collectively, leading to improved efficiency and adaptability in warfare scenarios.

By juxtaposing DYSAUTONOMIC vs Autonomic NETWORKS, the artist’s intention is to draw attention to the stark contrast between the funding allocated for dysautonomic diseases and the funding dedicated to the development of autonomic networks in warfare. The purpose is to emphasize the disparity and raise awareness about the discrepancies in financial support between these two areas.

Eleni Paridi MURMURES # 02, 2020 “Spectral Senses” | Eleni Paridi | The Opening | 42 Walker st NYC, June 29 2023

Eleni Paridi is exploring notions of the sensuous as a transcedental form while her new pieces investigate the concept of synasthesia. “Murmures” were originally accompanied by Konstantia Gourzi’s sound composition thus the visual artist has conceived of these works in an expanded context where all the senses converge.

Presently, we notice the ever-closer relationship between the sensuous and the technological. The resulting set of experiences can be called a sensorium, namely, the subject’s way of coordinating all of the body’s perpetual and proprioceptive signals, as well as the changing sensory envelope of the self.

Daniel Firman “Monumental Confetti #7 2019 | Mixed Media

Multiple sensory structures, as well as other modes of perception, the sum of their relations and the ratio of mixture and importance comprise a sensorium. The exhibition pays attention to the otherwise imperceptible hauntings of our senses and of the sensorium.

Intermedia and sensorial artistic practices address the influence of technology on the senses and are often involved in a mediated form of communication (where the viewer is imposed by the work of art), produced, or transmitted not through a direct sensory contact, but by means of an electronic system for the processing of information. The effect of media on our senses (namely the sensorium) is a creation of the physical, biological, social, and cultural environments of the individual organism and its relationships, while being in the world. According to Stanley Cavell, medium (media) is not a given, it is not an a priori; Cavell focused on the communicative and therefore temporal contingency of the word medium, as he wrote, ‘I characterized the task of the modern artist as one of creating not a new instance of his art but a new medium in it.’ In the selected art pieces the sensorial intersects with the intermedial in the ways they construct sentient and experiential aspects of artistic creation and audience reception to challenge our perception of the ontology and hauntology of the artistic medium and of the senses.

“Spectral Senses” | Daniel Firman and Eleni Paridi “Spectral Senses” | The Opening | 42 Walker st NYC, June 29 2023

Visual Artists Bios

Stella Ampatzi: https://www.stellaampatzi.com

Daniel Firman: http://danielfirman.com

Nefeli Masia: https://nefelimassia.com

Eleni Paridi: https://www.eleniparidi.com

SPECTRAL SENSES

EVENT: July 12th at 6–9PM

Bleedings, Confessions and Other Sacred Stories

Gabriele Tinti & Andres Serrano

Inneschi By Luciano Chessa

The Opening Gallery, Contra Mundum Press, and Eris Press are pleased to announce the event “Bleedings, Confessions and Other Sacred Stories”, an evening with poet Gabriele Tinti presenting his ekphrastic poetry series and books Bleedings (New York: Contra Mundum Press) and Confessions (London: Eris Press), in cooperation with Andres Serrano. The event takes place in conjunction with the live performance “Inneschi” by Luciano Chessa and the group exhibition “Spectral Senses” with participating artists Stella Ampazi, Daniel Firman, Nefeli Masia and Eleni Paridi curated by Sozita Goudouna on Wednesday July 12th at 42 Walker Street, with the participation of Andres Serrano, the actor Vincent Piazza, the publisher Rainer J. Hanshe, and the translator Nicholas Benson.

Tinti will introduce the screening of selected videos of readings by Abel Ferrara, Vincent Piazza, and Andres Serrano of his poems. Serrano and the author will then sign copies of the books.

Bleedings — Incipit Tragoedia is a series of poems Tinti composed in the spring of 2020. The epigraphic collections of the National Roman Museum, the Capitoline Museums, and the National Archæological Museum of Naples, as well as the most recent funerary inscriptions, were a spur for this work that aims to transfigure our fear of death, pain, and suffering. A writing that starts from ruins, crosses cemeteries, and smells wounds, the traces of what has disappeared. It is born of a memory of the ancient and a contempt for the contemporary. Artist cover by Andres Serrano.

Confessions is a highly distinctive artistic collaboration between Gabriele Tinti and Andres Serrano. They have produced a haunting meditation on religion, violence, and physicality. Tinti has produced a sequence of poems that are as remarkable for their lyrical expressiveness as for their forceful compactness.

Often disquieting and always uncompromising in their vision of the human capacity to do harm and be harmed, these poems are Tinti’s most impressive body of work to date. Tinti’s verses accompany a series of images composed by Serrano — one of the most highly regarded artists of our time. Serrano’s works engage provocatively with the visual legacy of the Christian and classical traditions, while also embodying a very particular kind of beauty. Both the poems and the images in this volume are a major achievement in their own right; together they make for an essential collection.

The films of Tinti’s poetry are the video documentation of a reading series inspired by ancient and modern myths, which has involved some of the best-known artists of our time, such as Abel Ferrara, Malcolm McDowell, Stephen Fry, Franco Nero, and major world museums such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the British Museum, the Capitoline Museums, the Ara Pacis Museum, the Colosseum and the National Roman Museum, amongst others.

Inneschi By Luciano Chessa

INNESCHI by Luciano Chessa

A Performance / Audiovisual Installation exploiting hearing aids’ micro-feedback, medical devices, brass bells, drums, and a megaphone. Commissioned by MUSICA SANAE and presented by La Digestion. Maschio Angioino Castle, Naples, May 3–4 and in Sokolowsko, Poland, on August 16, 2019.

A composer interested in hearing: now that’s not new: all composers in some ways or others, we surely hope, are interested in hearing. Much less seems to be the composers interested in the loss of hearing, unless it’s their own.

* * *

Reading about deafness, I eventually run into the work of British deaf scholar, author and activist Paddy Ladd, and I thus discovered “deafhood”, a term he coined in 1993 to describe a “positive” acceptance to the condition of deafness and hearing disabilities.

In his 2003 book Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, he writes: “Deafhood is not seen as a finite state but as a process by which deaf individuals come to actualize their deaf identity, positing that those individuals construct that identity around several differently ordered set of priorities and principles, which are affected by various factors such as nations, era and class being equally important”. As mentioned above, the usual response of deaf or partially deaf people to their condition is to isolate themselves, becoming depressed and paranoid. In stark contrasts with this reaction, Ladd’s positive affirmation made me wish his book was translated into Italian so that my dad could read it.

***

Short biographies:

Gabriele Tinti is an Italian poet. He has worked with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Roman Museum, the Capitoline Museums, the Archeological Museum in Naples, the Ara Pacis Museums, the Colosseum and the Glyptothek of Munich. His recent publications are Last Words (Milan: Skira Rizzoli, 2016), The Earth Will Come To Laugh and To Feast (New York: Powerhouse Books, 2020), Ruins (London: Eris Press; Milan: Libri Scheiwiller, 2021) and Bleedings (Milan: La Nave di Teseo, 2022; New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2023).

Andres Serrano is an American artist and photographer. Renowned for his ambitious and challenging installations, he has won acclaim for series of photographs including America (“the photographs give such vivid presence to their subjects that it is hard not to feel genuinely moved” — The New York Times) and Torture (“both a call for justice and a compassionate portrayal of the human plight” — The Guardian). The images featured in Confessions have grown out of Serrano’s profound engagement with the work of Michelangelo.

Vincent Piazza is an American film, television and stage actor best known for his roles in the television series Boardwalk Empire, the 2007 film Rocket Science, and as Tommy DeVito in the film adaptation of Jersey Boys.

Abel Ferrara is an American filmmaker, known for the provocative and controversial content in his movies. A long-time independent filmmaker, some of his best-known movies include Ms. 45 (1981), King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant (1992), and The Funeral (1996).

Nicholas Benson, the recipient of an NEA Translation Fellowship, holds a PhD in Italian from NYU and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. He is the translator of Attilio Bertolucci’s Winter Journey (Viaggio d’inverno, 1971; Parlor Press/Free Verse Editions, 2005) and Aldo Palazzeschi’s The Arsonist(L’incendiario, 1910; Otis Books/Seismicity Editions, 2013).

Luciano Chessa is a composer, conductor, audiovisual and performance artist, music historian. Chessa’s compositions include A Heavenly Act, an opera commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, with original video by Kalup Linzy; Piombo, a piece for 2bows cello written for Frances-Marie Uitti, and the opera Cena oltranzista nel castelletto al lago, a work merging experimental theater with reality TV which required from the cast over 55 hours of fasting. Chessa has been commissioned multiple times by the Performa Biennial, and in 2014 he presented three events at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as part of the exhibition Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe. In 2009, his Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners (OFNI) was hailed by the New York Times as one of the best events of the year.

Rainer J. Hanshe is a writer and the founder of Contra Mundum Press and Hyperion: On the Future of Aesthetics. He is the author of two novels, The Acolytes (2010) and The Abdication (2012), and the editor of Richard Foreman’s Plays with Films (2013) and Wordsworth’s Fragments (2014). He is also the author of the hybrid book Shattering the Muses (2016), a collaboration with Italian artist Federico Gori, and Beyond Sense (forthcoming 2024), a vatic exploration of the aphasiac disintegration of Hölderlin, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, and Artaud. His translations include Charles Baudelaire’s My Heart Laid Bare (2017; 2020), Belgium Stripped Bare (2019), and Paris Spleen (2021), as well as longer and shorter works by other authors. Work of his has appeared in Caesura, Sinn und Form, ChrisMarker.org, Asymptote, Black Sun Lit’s Vestiges, and elsewhere. His translations of Évelyne Grossman’s The Creativity of the Crisis and Léon-Paul Fargue’s High Solitude are due out later this year, as is his own book, Closing Melodies, a phantomatic encounter between Nietzsche and Van Gogh. Hanshe’s new work in progress is called Dionysos Speed.

The Opening Gallery was launched as an initiative that supports contemporary art and international artists beyond the confines of the art market, while it fosters cultural engagement and exchanges between the US and the globe. This alternative art ecosystem attempts to go beyond prevalent gallery models and to showcase global underrepresented artists, performances and live events, and the work of women artists and artists of color. Proceeds support neurodiversity, charitable causes, and the non-profit Luv Michael, which is committed to enriching the lives of autistic adults.

The Opening Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Lydia Venieri and curated by Sozita Goudouna, Ph.D. Opening Thursday, June 8th at 42 Walker Street, this will be the artist’s showing of her Thirteenth Month project.

Following the opening, The Opening Gallery will host The Celebration of the Thirteen Moons on Tuesday, June 13th, from 6 to 8 PM.

In her new project Lydia Venieri asks the question:

What happened to the Thirteenth Month?

At the core of "THE THIRTEENTH MONTH" lies the revelation of the hidden thirteenth month—a month sacrificed and shared among its twelve brothers. With thirteen moons in a year, the artist invites us to ponder the significance of this hidden realm, where the absent God, Dionysus, resides even beyond the Twelve Gods. Dionysus, the twin god- man, takes on various forms such as Orpheus, Zagreas, Christ, Krishna, and Prometheus, representing the eternal cycle of transformation and rebirth.

Persephone of the Annunciation

Drawing inspiration from the mystical realm of time and spirituality, Lydia Venieri's artworks transcend conventional boundaries and immerse viewers in a world where introspection and contemplation intertwine. Within her intricate pieces, Venieri masterfully weaves narratives that challenge perceptions and evoke deep emotions.

Lydia Venieri (born in Athens, Greece) lives and works in New York City. She studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and won the Academie Francaise de Paris MedalforSculpturein2000.Her work has been shown in manysolo and group exhibitions at prestigious venues worldwide including the Centre George Pompidou in Paris, Circulo de Bellas Artes Madrid, Cultural Centre of Stockholm, Gallery AsbaekCopenhagen, Manifesta Rotterdam, the National Gallery of Greece, the Ancien Musee Archeologique Municipalite de Thessalonique, the Centre for Contemporary Art in Dordrecht, Netherlands and the Athens Olympics, Palais de Tokyo.

The Opening Gallery was launched as an initiative that supports contemporary art and international artists be- yond the confines of the art market, while it fosters cul- tural engagement and exchanges between the US and the globe. This alternative art ecosystem attempts to go beyond prevalent gallery models and to showcase global underrep-resented artists, and the work of women artists and artists of color. 50% of the proceeds support neurodiversity and charitable causes, and 25% of the proceeds are donated to the non-profit Luv Michael, which is committed to enrich-ing the lives of autistic adults.

The Procession

Opening reception: Thursday, June 8th, 6–8pm

The Celebration of the Thirteen Moons: Tuesday, June 13th, 6–8pm

Press Contact: Adam Brown openinggallery@gmail.com

the concept

FUNERAL PARTY

An event laboratory focusing on design and climate change Death: /deTH/

The action or fact of dying or being killed; The permanent ending of biological functions, the end of the life of a person or organism; A process of regeneration.

Climate change is inextricably connected with the concept of death as more and more places become uninhabitable, and a lot of species are threatened with extinction. Due to the carbon-intensive infrastructure of human’s activity on the planet, landscapes are under constant transformations; glaciers are melting, oceans are rising, fertile lands are turned into deserts, food systems and species interactions are disrupted. Survival is under threat and the exploitative human’s behavior towards nature accelerates hunger, violence, mass migration, and produces inequalities and diseases.

The planet faces countless, unstoppable losses of species, ecosystems, and landscapes. A loss always contains stress, sadness, and fear of the unknown after the separation but it is also a dynamic point, a crossing, to discover something new, to resurrect. People with the technology they create, can control all aspects of life. They seek to fight decay and death and they manage the production of life, yet they seem incapable of abandoning their extractive, consumerist habits and reconnect with the soil. Life starts and ends from the soil. Society today tends to neglect this vital connection and avoid death as a marginal procedure while hoping for immortality. However, death as a reminder of our fragility gives us the chance to practice life at its finest.

In many funeral rituals, traditional practices include mourning the deceased, celebrating their life and offering compression and support. They are opportunities for self- reflection and critical approach towards the values that people live. In the wake of the world’s ecological destruction, how can we reimagine the human we want to preserve in the future to recreate the world?

Funeral Party is a series of curated events, conversations over art, tea or dinner that bring together people from the arts, architecture, science and policy to explore environmental degradation through the lens of materiality and decomposition, reuse and recycle, extractivism, climate disasters, environmental justice, digital remains and afterlife. In each party people from different disciplines are invited to have a conversation around a wider audience, testing the possibilities of imagination that gatherings of people in an artistic setting provide.

The first Funeral Party: Regenerative Bodies will be held at The Opening Gallery in the form of a dinner party and will explore the power of the bodies to resist climate change. Food, as a connector of people and culture will be prepared by the team.

The conversations will be audio recorded to create a collection of memories and thoughts, a guidebook for a more resilient and caring way of living.

 curators:

Eva Lavranou

Eva Lavranou is an architect and curator. She holds a Master in Design Studies: Art, Design and the Public Domain at Harvard Graduate School of Design (2022) with Distinction. She has previously studied architecture at the University of Thessaly (2018) and at the Politecnico di Milano (2014-15). Her work focuses on design research, curation, activism, and public space interventions that promote social change with a particular interest in the body’s agency in the era of ecological, political, and technological unrest.

While at Harvard she was the teaching assistant for many interdisciplinary design classes, curatorial assistant for the Department of Exhibitions and curator at the GSD Kirkland Gallery. She participated also in the Venice Biennale 2021. Her thesis, “Bodies of Earth: Abduction-Death-Grief- Rebirth” (2022), explores the body’s agency in establishing a partnership with Earth in the era of climate destruction by recognizing human kinship with plants, animals, and machines and establishing an ethics of eco-responsibility.

Last year she joined the Ambasz Institute at the Architecture and Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York where she organizes exhibitions, events and publications and researches the history of ecological design.

Sofia Sofianou

Sofia Sofianou is an architect from Athens (Greece) holding a graduate degree from Harvard Graduate School of De- sign, Master in Architecture II (2021) and University of Patras, Greece (2018).

She is currently working as a designer at Gensler in Boston (since 2021). Having worked in Copenhagen at Bjarke Ingels Group, and in architectural offices in Athens, she partici- pated in international competitions and projects mainly in Greece, Denmark, and USA. She was involved in workshops around Greece and Europe, as well as in the exhibition of the Greek Pavilion of the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016.

Her research interest focuses on investigating the need for urban structures that explore self-sufficiency in glob- al cities. Her research thesis, “The Entelecheia of Urban Form” (2018), analyzes ways of managing population densities and infrastructural networks in cities that function in multiple scales simultaneously.

 

Shoplifter/ Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir

The Callas / Lakis & Aris Ionas

Misha Milovanovich

Tula Plumi

Leah Singer 

PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

OPENING: Tuesday May 16 • 6 – 8pm

LIVE PERFORMANCE BY THE CALLAS AND THE CALLASETTES: 

Dance by Daphne Kyriakidou with Irene Zografou and Dionisia Bosmi presenting their hand woven wearable tapestries 

Exhibition run dates: May 16 - June 12, 2023 • 12 – 6pm 

 Curation & main text: Sozita Goudouna, PhD 

The Opening Gallery is pleased to present the Group Exhibition Chromocommons featuring Fathom a selection of new works by Shoplifter/Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir and works by the artist collective The Callas, Misha Milovanovich, Leah Singer and Tula Plumi curated by Sozita Goudouna.

The exhibition coincides with the release of a unique publication by Leah Singer and a signed limited edition, as well as a series of numbered prints. The history of art is inseparable from the history of color and this history is a also. shared history. Chromocommons presents and puts on display sculptures, two-dimensional pieces, and live acts that explore the ways colors can be commons that enable us to create and live differently.

Visual perception is one of the most important mediums for our acquisition of knowledge and for our experience of our environment, of the physical world including our own bodies and others, while color is one of the most dominant components of our perception. Nevertheless, the physical world and the world of objects do not contain color and aren’t colored as we experience them. Color isn’t a physical property of objects; thus, our blood is not red, the sea isn’t blue, the trees aren’t green.

By definition, color suggests and implies connectivity and commonality since it exists only through connectivity.As Maurice Merleau- Ponty states ‘Claudel has a phrase saying that a certain blue of the sea is so blue that only blood would be more red. The color is yet a variant in another dimension of variation, that of its relations with the surroundings: this red is what it is only by connecting up from its place with other reds about it, with which it forms a constellation, or with other colors it dominates or that dominate it, that it attracts or that attract it, that it repels or that repel it. In short, it is a certain node in the woof of the simultaneous and the successive. It is a concretion of visibility, it is not an atom.’[1]

The color appearance of an object can be changed by changing the color of light that shines on it and the color of visible light depends on its wavelength. White light is composed of all of the colors of the rainbow, because it contains all wavelengths, and it is described as polychromatic light. Color glows with the light of the radiant sun and creates a relentless spectacle of sheer visibility, of an intense luminosity that can even be blinding. Drawing from our different perceptions of color, color vision deficiency and even “achromatopsia” (total color blindness), the participating artists trace common interpretations of the notion of color as sensation, visual and sensorial experience, psychological property of visual experiences, mental property, representation, construction of the brain, but most importantly the formulation of commons through color perception.

 

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[1] [Originally from The Visible and the Invisible, pp. 130-55 in the 1968 translation. This version from Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings, ed. Thomas Baldwin, Routledge (2004).] 

Synthetic and natural hair has become the signature art material of the Icelandic artist Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, also known as Shoplifter. Each strand of hair is a drawing, the gestures of lines on a paper that have come to life existing as sculpture and colorful suspended three-dimensional paintings made with fibers.  The fibers are tamed and transformed from their original intent into various artwork from braided and tufted wall work to her large-scale installations and small, microscopic curiosities mixed with other materials like handblown organically shaped glass capsules entrapping the fibers in her most recent series of work Phantoms. The Fathoms seem to sprout and grow of their own accord from the gallery ceiling, a floating forest. The hair is divided between the human-made and natural and within this installation that dichotomy seems to have completely dissolved. This world of Fathoms feels both universal and microscopic, you could be walking through nebulae or through synapses within your own mind. “Fathom” in English means to grasp or be able to dream or imagine something and is an old unit for measuring, from one palm of your hand the other. That same word, Faðmur in Icelandic, means to embrace or hug. The artist’s inspiration lies deep within her fascination with fibers, the texture, and colors that the artist selects, entangles and tames. The results a wild and brilliant chromatic ecstasy that makes you feel comforted, joyous, and embraced on a multi-sensory level. The colors penetrate the retina and trigger the neurons in the brain that automatically start producing oxytocin, the body's feel-good hormones, and together with its alluring and familiar texture we can be affected by the maximalism of her creativity.

 Artist Bio:

Shoplifter / Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir is one of Iceland’s leading contemporary artists, based in New York. Working with both synthetic and natural hair, her sculptures, wall murals and site-specific installations explore themes of vanity, self-image, fashion, beauty and popular myth. For Shoplifter hair is the ultimate thread that grows from our body. Hair is an original, creative fiber, a way for people to distinguish themselves as individuals, and often an art form. Humor plays a large role in her life and work, sometimes subtly, but at other times taking over. Shoplifter represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale in 2019 and her installation Chromo Sapiens opened at the Icelandic Pavilion in May 2019 in Venice, Italy. The installation later traveled to Iceland opening at the Reykjavik Art Museum in January 2020. Other recent work includes solo exhibitions at Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm, Sweden (2020), The Savannah Collage of Art and Design in Georgia (2020), Kiasma, the Finnish National Gallery (2019), the National Gallery of Iceland (2017), the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2017) and the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art in Australia (2016). Notable projects and awards include her large window installation created in collaboration with art collective assume vivid astro focus (avaf) for MoMA, Museum of Modern Art in New York (2008), The Nordic Award in Textiles and The Prince Eugen Medal for artistic achievement from the King and Royal Crown of Sweden (2011). 

At "Chromocommons," The Callas / Lakis & Aris Ionas, present a new and older body of hand embroidered tapestries. The pieces are designed by Lakis & Aris and crafted by their mother Ioanna and their aunt Anastasia, who are mostly based and work at The Callas farm (a DIY lab / studio / festival space / warehouse among olive and orange trees) in Thermissia, Peloponnese. Their influences ranging from Thomas Pynchon's helter skelter structures to Cycladic architecture, and from the No Wave scene to Rebetiko DIY recordings alluding to a freak-out blend of Mediteranean Psychladic collective creativity. During the opening night the open collective will present a new series of hand woven wearable tapestries and a live gig/performance by The Callas featuring The Callasettes. Embroiderism Now!

Artist Bio: The Callas / Lakis & Aris Ionas

The Callas is the tip of an open art collective that produces artworks, films and music initiated by the brothers Lakis & Aris Ionas. Selected art shows and collaborations include: Onassis Stegi (Athens, 2022), New Museum (NYC) - DESTE foundation (Athens) / Benaki Museum, Documenta 14, Palais de Tokyo (Paris), The Opening Gallery (New York), Family Business (NY), Athens Biennial (Athens), Andreas Melas Projects (Athens), State Of Concept (Athens), The Breeder (Athens), Kustera Projects (New York), Atopos CVC (Athens), Yinka Shonibare Space (London) among others. The collective has collaborated with Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) and Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds) on music albums and live performances. In 2013 The Callas produced the film “LUSTLANDS” (HAOS film) that premiered at the 7th Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival. Their feature film "The Great Eastern” premiered at Onassis foundation – Stegi and Documenta 14."The Great Eastern," shot at DESTE’s foundation project space - Slaughterhouse in Hydra,  premiered at Onassis foundation – Stegi and was screened at Documenta 14. Their recent film "SICK" was selected and premiered at Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Live performances include: Liverpool Psychedelic Festival (Liverpool), The Great Escape Festival (Brighton), Reeperbhan Festival (Hamburg), Indietracks Festival (Derby), Indigenes Festival (Nantes, France), Scala (London), The Lexington (London), Sala Apolo (Barcelona) and with the Thurston Moore band, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Ty Segall, Television Personalities, Ian F. Svenonius and Grinderman. “Velvet Room” was established by The Callas in 2005 as one of the most active D.I.Y. cultural spaces/collectives in the center of Athens. The open collective curated some of the most seminal artzines in Athens (Velvet magazine, LUST magazine). They have also curated 5 bus tours/events throughout Greece with bands, artists, and filmmakers (Velvet Bus 2008 - 2011). According to OCULA Art and Stephanie Bailey "So many things have shaped the landscape of contemporary art in Greece since the 2000s, from the Athens Biennale's agitprop and Dakis Joannou's DESTE Foundation's summertime slaughterhouse shows on Hydra, to Gregory Markopoulos' unfolding magnum opus in Arcadia, Eniaios. Then there's The Callas."  in https://ocula.com/magazine/features/the-callas-drop-lsd-in-athens/

At "Chromocommons," The Callas / Lakis & Aris Ionas, present a new and older body of hand embroidered tapestries. The pieces are designed by Lakis & Aris and crafted by their mother Ioanna and their aunt Anastasia, who are mostly based and work at The Callas farm (a DIY lab / studio / festival space / warehouse among olive and orange trees) in Thermissia, Peloponnese. Their influences ranging from Thomas Pynchon's helter skelter structures to Cycladic architecture, and from the No Wave scene to Rebetiko DIY recordings alluding to a freak-out blend of Mediteranean Psychladic collective creativity. During the opening night the open collective will present a new series of hand woven wearable tapestries and a live gig/performance by The Callas featuring The Callasettes. Embroiderism Now!

Artist Bio: The Callas / Lakis & Aris Ionas

The Callas is the tip of an open art collective that produces artworks, films and music initiated by the brothers Lakis & Aris Ionas. Selected art shows and collaborations include: Onassis Stegi (Athens, 2022), New Museum (NYC) - DESTE foundation (Athens) / Benaki Museum, Documenta 14, Palais de Tokyo (Paris), The Opening Gallery (New York), Family Business (NY), Athens Biennial (Athens), Andreas Melas Projects (Athens), State Of Concept (Athens), The Breeder (Athens), Kustera Projects (New York), Atopos CVC (Athens), Yinka Shonibare Space (London) among others. The collective has collaborated with Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) and Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds) on music albums and live performances. In 2013 The Callas produced the film “LUSTLANDS” (HAOS film) that premiered at the 7th Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival. Their feature film "The Great Eastern” premiered at Onassis foundation – Stegi and Documenta 14."The Great Eastern," shot at DESTE’s foundation project space - Slaughterhouse in Hydra,  premiered at Onassis foundation – Stegi and was screened at Documenta 14. Their recent film "SICK" was selected and premiered at Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Live performances include: Liverpool Psychedelic Festival (Liverpool), The Great Escape Festival (Brighton), Reeperbhan Festival (Hamburg), Indietracks Festival (Derby), Indigenes Festival (Nantes, France), Scala (London), The Lexington (London), Sala Apolo (Barcelona) and with the Thurston Moore band, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Ty Segall, Television Personalities, Ian F. Svenonius and Grinderman. “Velvet Room” was established by The Callas in 2005 as one of the most active D.I.Y. cultural spaces/collectives in the center of Athens. The open collective curated some of the most seminal artzines in Athens (Velvet magazine, LUST magazine). They have also curated 5 bus tours/events throughout Greece with bands, artists, and filmmakers (Velvet Bus 2008 - 2011). According to OCULA Art and Stephanie Bailey "So many things have shaped the landscape of contemporary art in Greece since the 2000s, from the Athens Biennale's agitprop and Dakis Joannou's DESTE Foundation's summertime slaughterhouse shows on Hydra, to Gregory Markopoulos' unfolding magnum opus in Arcadia, Eniaios. Then there's The Callas."  in https://ocula.com/magazine/features/the-callas-drop-lsd-in-athens/

Misha Milovanovich’s new work for the Opening Gallery comprise of a one-of-a-kind sculpture. The sculpture is a fusion of fragmented cubism, biomorphic surrealism, and dynamic visual humor, and infused with shamanic force, which pays homage to the natural world. "The artist's latest work, crafted from Finnish Baltic Birch plywood and shellack, is a playful exploration of historical references that reimagines their antecedents, unleashing new prospects for the interpretation and significance of abstract forms in space." These Noir sculptures often embody organic contours and textures, evocative of natural shapes such as animals and plants. In addition to these influences, Misha's work draws inspiration from Japanese aesthetics and design principles, exemplified through simplicity, asymmetry, and the use of negative space and use of angle in joints. The new sculptures possess a unique quality of reflection, almost as if they were shadows cast by a hidden light source. This aspect of the sculptures adds an extra layer of depth and intrigue to their already captivating design, drawing the viewer's attention and encouraging a closer examination of the pieces. The interplay of light and shadow on the organic forms of the sculptures creates a dynamic visual experience that is sure to leave a lasting impression on anyone who sees them.

Artist Bio:

Misha Milovanovich

Misha Milovanovic is a Belgrade-born artist based in London. She works across several mediums, from sculpture to painting and digital art. Characterized by vivid color, optical movement and energetic visual cadences, Misha's visual work fuses a diverse repertoire of images and forms. Misha's work is often a symphonic abstraction. Her colorful, densely layered works are held in a state of tension between order and chaos, rational structure and spontaneity. She combines depth and surface relief, orchestrating bold contrasts of form, texture, and space in her pictures. An intimate color palette of bodily fluids - red, pink, white, black, yellow, and brown - animate the writhing forms and the refracted memories of cartoonish cultural production. A cultural polymath, the artist is constantly engaged in observing society and it’s distortions of desire, lust and attitudes to the body. Traditional techniques have been studied and absorbed and although her work is partly conceptual, it's execution always reflects these hard-won technical abilities. 

In 1915 the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin wrote a groundbreaking paper on form perception and introduced the study of figure/ground relationships. Rubin’s widely known black and white profile and vase illustration, used in the study, tricks the viewer into a back and forth of seeing either two profiles facing each other, or the shape of a vase formed in the center. Rubin discovered that in ambiguous drawings like this, the figure always dominates over ground and its what we see first. Willem De Kooning, although a pioneer of abstract expressionism, did not forsake the figure in his work and was criticized in his time for depicting women as harsh and unflattering. He said, “Beauty becomes petulant to me. I like the grotesque. It’s more joyous.” The Ruby Drawings are a mash up of silhouettes cut from rubylith — a masking film resistant to UV light used in the printing process to isolate parts of a photograph. The rubyliths were byproducts of newspaper production and were collected when I worked as a photographic archivist at the New York Daily News. The cut silhouettes have been scanned and used in groups to build enigmatic forms. The introduction of intersecting color further distorts the figure to ground connection. The amassed library of rubylith images has served in many of my projects including my copy newspapers—all graphic silhouettes with no text—produced at small printing presses across the country. As much as there is a formality to these works, a concern with form and color, figure and ground and a suggestion of the figurative inside the abstract, they were done quickly without too much deliberation to maintain a sense of play and spontaneity.

Artist Bio: Leah Singer

Leah Singer’s ever-evolving body of work includes film, sculpture, photography, printmaking, book publishing, product design, illustration, and jewelry. Her experiments with 16mm film provided her with a signature style that further evolved through her use of modified projectors during live musical performances. An interest in the silhouette grew from a self-published newspaper she made called copy. The paper was critically acclaimed; it is in the artist book collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. A limited collection of tote bags under the copy label sold at: Colette (Paris), A.P.C. (Paris, New York, Tokyo), Printed Matter (New York), and The New Museum Bookstore (New York). The newspapers popularity led to invitations from Nike to work on a New York City Runner’s Map followed by other projects such as the holiday visuals for a department store in Tokyo, the windows of Barneys New York’s flagship store, and t-shirt graphics for the Beijing Olympics. Her artwork has shown worldwide at such institutions as: Magasin3, Stockholm; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MACBA, Barcelona; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She lives in New York City with her husband and frequent collaborator Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) and their two sons. 

Tula Plumi’s Light in January and Light in March are made of thin bamboo sticks glued together, creating surfaces that are painted with different colors and forms. A light is attached to each piece, creating a play on shadows and references to visual phenomena such as eclipses. The titles refer to W. Faulkner's novel Light in August.

Artist Bio: Tula Plumi was born in 1980 in Heraklion, Crete and currently lives and works in Berlin. She has studied at Athens School of Fine Arts. Recent shows include: Overturned at Art Geneve, Weavings at Museum Benaki 2019 Athens, Bed Manners at Kunstpunkt, Berlin 2019; Jelato for all, Jelato gallery, Mallorca 2019, A Museum – A History of 100 Years – Museum of Modern Greek Culture, Athens 2018. Her work has been shown at Musee national d’art modern Centre Pompidou, Emst National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin; Kunsthalle Athena, Athens Biennale 3.

The Opening Gallery was launched as an initiative that supports contemporary art and international artists beyond the confines of the art market, while it fosters cultural engagement and exchanges between the US and the globe. This alternative art ecosystem attempts to go beyond prevalent gallery models and to showcase global underrepresented artists, and the work of women artists and artists of color. Proceeds support neurodiversity and charitable causes, and are donated to the non-profit Luv Michael, which is committed to enriching the lives of autistic adults.

Press Contact: Adam Brown adamdb95@gmail.com

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The Opening Gallery and ERIS ART are pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Andres Serrano. Opening Saturday, April 22 at 42 Walker Street, this will be the artist’s first significant foray into painting. The exhibition celebrates the release of Confessions: a highly distinctive artistic collaboration between Serrano and the acclaimed poet Gabriele Tinti.

Serrano is one of the world’s most renowned artists. His new works mark a departure from the medium with which he is most closely associated, while also exemplifying the imagination and critical intelligence that he has always brought to bear upon it. They originated as oil pastel drawings that Serrano made over black and white photographs of sculptures by Michelangelo, in a process that he likens to automatic writing: “The resulting images are different from the pictures that inspired them,” he writes, “but I hope the spirit of Michelangelo is there.”

Serrano’s Confessions images amount to a formidable engagement not only with an artistic predecessor, but also, like so much of his work, with Christian iconography. Embodying a very particular kind of beauty, they lend a new emotional force to ostensibly familiar artistic depictions of religious narratives.

Serrano’s collaboration with Gabriele Tinti has led to a haunting meditation on religion, violence, and physicality. Tinti, author of the Montale Prize-winning collection Ruins, has produced a sequence of poems that are as remarkable for their lyrical expressiveness as for their forceful compactness. Often disquieting and always uncompromising in their vision of the human capacity to do harm and be harmed, these poems are Tinti’s most impressive body of work to date.

A deluxe, signed, numbered special edition will be available for sale at the exhibition, and the launch event will feature a reading of selected poems from Confessions by the actor Vincent Piazza (Boardwalk Empire, Jersey Boys).

Andres Serrano is an American artist. Renowned for his ambitious and challenging installations, he has won acclaim for series of photographs including America (“the photographs give such vivid presence to their sub- jects that it is hard not to feel genuinely moved”—The New York Times) and Torture (“both a call for justice and a compassionate portrayal of the human plight”— The Guardian).

Gabriele Tinti is an Italian poet and writer. He has worked with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropoli- tan Museum of Art, and the British Museum (among many other institutions), and his poems have been performed by actors including Abel Ferrara, Malcolm McDowell, Robert Davi, Marton Csokas, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Fry, James Cosmo, Michael Imperioli, Franco Nero, Burt Young, Michele Placido, Alessandro Haber, Jamie McShane and Joe Mantegna. In 2018 his ekphras- tic poetry project Ruins was awarded the Premio Mon- tale with a ceremony at the Museo Nazionale Romano in Palazzo Altemps.

The Opening Gallery was launched as an initiative that supports contemporary art and international artists beyond the confines of the art market, while it fosters cultural engagement and exchanges between the US and the globe. This alternative art ecosystem attempts to go beyond prevalent gallery models and to showcase global underrep- resented artists, and the work of women artists and artists of color. 50% of the proceeds support neurodiversity and charitable causes, and 25% of the proceeds are donated to the non-profit Luv Michael, which is committed to enrich- ing the lives of autistic adults.

ERIS ART is the art branch of independent publisher ERIS PRESS, based in London and New York. The press publish- es art, literature, and nonfiction, with a particular emphasis on politics and philosophy. Recent and forthcoming titles include Maurice Saatchi’s memoir Do Not Resuscitate: The Life and Afterlife of Maurice Saatchi, Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos’s short story collection Book of Water, Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed, Jr.’s No Politics but Class Politics, Kenneth Goldsmith’s I Declare a Permanent State of Happiness, and Thomas Schlesser’s biography of the artist Anna-Eva Bergman, Luminous Lives.

ANCIENT FUTURES - A Contemporary Visual Art Exhibition by NEW YORK ARAB FESTIVAL (NYAF) at the Opening Gallery

April 10-21, Opening Reception Monday, April 10, 6-8pm

New York, NY, April 7, 2022 – New York Arab Festival (NYAF), in partnership with The Opening Gallery, presents “Ancient Futures" an exhibition of painting, digital, performance and video art by Ahaad Alamoudy, Obaid Al Safi, Mariam Sadik, and Manar Abdelmaaboud, curated by Adham Hafez, taking place at The Opening Gallery on 42 Walker Street in TriBeCa from April 10-21, 2023. The exhibition is powered by Wizara, and is supported by the non-profit organisation Greece in USA.

The opening reception is Monday, April 10 from 6-8pm. Talks and events are scheduled throughout the exhibition’s run (April 10-21).

The exhibition explores tradition, mythology, and recurring symbolism, as it looks at icons and narratives in today’s changing Arab world. Saudi Arabian artist Ahaad Alamoudy’s videos utilize underground pop-Saudi songs as scaffolding to build contemporary artworks that look at consumerism and investigate economic and aesthetic change across a shifting class system.

Saudi Arabian Obaid Al Safi uses artificial intelligence and code to reinterpret ancient Arabian poems. Through a complex process that shuttles back and forth between art and technology, he turns visuals into sound and turns sound into an elusive and fleeting moving image.

Egyptian American painter and performance artist Mariam Sadik takes the female Arab body as a terrain of investigation. She looks at the impact of dating apps on marriage and love in what she describes as the marriage market as she grapples with her self-image as a careful social construct.

Manar Abdelmaaboud, a New York Egyptian visual artist, working out of Brooklyn, uses painting, drawing, and collage to address issues of power, control, liberty, and agency. Her painterly interventions disrupt and mock the norms and normality of dominant socio-political systems, push or challenge their rigid absurd boundaries, and represent their influence on and intervention in every aspect of private domestic life.

An unconventional survey of artistic positions and change in the Arabic-speaking region and its diaspora, this exhibition invites us to journey, question, doubt and laugh through the work of four incredible artists.

Join us tonight, Monday April 10th, at the opening reception, on 42 Walker Street, 6pm-8pm

About New York Arab Festival (NYAF)

New York Arab Festival (NYAF) was established in 2022 to celebrate Arab American Heritage Month, and to fight the erasure of Arab and Arab American identities from New York City, a place that Arabs have called home for over three centuries. NYAF is a multidisciplinary festival of art, culture, design, food, philosophy, and intersecting industries. It programs artists from the entire Arabic-speaking region, the Arab diaspora, and Arab American artists, particularly artists working and living in New York City. Founded by Arab, American and Arab American artists, curators and cultural producers Adham Hafez, Adam Kucharski, Cindy Sibilsky, Marwa Seoudi and partners.

The second annual New York Arab Festival (NYAF) 2023 Edition takes place in venues across NYC from April 7 through early May to honor and celebrate Arab American Heritage Month, which coincides with Ramadan this year. New York Arab Festival (NYAF) is programming multiple live in-person events in partnership with several pioneering institutions across NYC, the USA, and internationally.

About The Opening Gallery

The Opening Gallery (42 Walker Street, Manhattan) was launched as an initiative that supports contemporary art and international artists beyond the confines of the art market while it fosters cultural engagement and exchanges between the US and the globe. This alternative art ecosystem attempts to go beyond prevalent gallery models and to showcase globally underrepresented artists and the work of women artists and artists of color. In addition, 50% of the proceeds support neurodiversity and charitable causes, and 25% of the proceeds are donated to the non-profit Luv Michael, which is committed to enriching the lives of autistic adults.