Brainard Carey

Krolikowski Art

March 21, 2019 By Brainard Carey Leave a Comment

The Krolikowski Art Duo includes Alexander Krolikowski (1982, Donetsk) and Alexandra Krolikowska (1990, Donetsk). Since 2007, they both work exclusively in the format of duo.

They both live and work in exile (before 2014 in Sevastopol, Ukraine). At the moment they are based in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The duo Krolikowski Art is the Bonnie and Clyde in the world of art, who don’t separate even in bed, constantly overcoming the Universal laws and giving the world a new challenge. Art-works of the duo are what contemporary philosophy describes as the metamodernist art, ironic and naive, romantic and conceptual at the same time. The main techniques of the duo are visual arts, installation, new media and performance. Also the duo has research in contemporary visual arts, especially photography, and writes critical articles devoted to the newest philosophy and contemporary art. Beside, Krolikowski Art lecturing about the search of a new cultural dominant in 21st century.

Alexandra Krolikowska (1990, Donetsk) is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on the socio-psychological aspect of the modern mankind life. Psychologist, graduated from Cherkasy State University, based her science work on art therapy with using film photography. Inspired by transformational functions of art, and works with problems of gender identity, sexuality, youth culture and fashion.

Alexander Krolikowski (1982, Donetsk) is a conceptual artist whose interest focuses on the view of art as an instrument of social change, contemporary religious and political studies, the study of methods of information warfare, new media and performance. Lecturer, journalist and philosopher, studied media science at the Institute of Social Education in Donetsk. Inspired by the metamodern cultural paradigm, develops this cultural theory within themes of post-truth, advertising and public space, new sincerity and empathy.

The works of duo were exhibited at the Mystetskyi Arsenal, IZOLYATSIA, Dymchuk gallery, Odessa Museum of Contemporary Art (Ukraine), DOX (Prague, Czech republic), Galata Rum Okulu (Istanbul, Turkey), Summer Gallery (Toronto, Canada), Ukrainian House (Warsaw, Poland), Korea Foundation Gallery (Seoul, Republic of Korea) and others.

MONEYFESTO project, 2015, Odessa Biennale

Spring Opportunities Inside!

March 21, 2019 By Brainard Carey Leave a Comment

Spring has arrived and with it, we hope, a bloom of energy to sink into your artistic endeavors. It is critical for professional artists to spend time lining up opportunities throughout the year in order to continue gaining forward momentum. If you are still new to the submissions game, not to worry. We provide you with all the help you need to get it right and get noticed. Read on for some great opportunities with upcoming spring deadlines.

Touchstone Foundation for the Arts invites all artists to apply for their fellowship in downtown Washington, D.C. Selected artists receive a two year membership at Touchstone Foundation, monthly participation in group shows and a guaranteed solo show at the end of the fellowship duration as well as other perks. Artists are responsible for helping staff the gallery, attending gallery meetings and serving on at least one gallery committee. For complete details and to apply, visit the website. Deadline April 1.

Thermae Bath Spa seeks and artist to complete a commission of nine paintings to be hung in the busy restaurant on premises. The work must in some way be inspired by natural thermal waters and/or holistic well-being. This is a paid commission. Please note, this opportunity takes place in the UK and commission payment is in pounds sterling. Visit the website to learn more and apply. Deadline is April 2.

Shape Arts invites artists to apply for The Open, an annual exhibition of work by disabled and non-disabled artists. Exhibitions are held in high profile UK galleries and, according to the website, “The Open provides a space where disabled and non-disabled artists can discuss views and ideas about issues and topics which are often sidelined within artistic debate. This year’s theme is ‘In Circles’.” For full details, visit the website. Deadline is April 15.

Praxis Center is here for you. It’s what we do. We know the art world can be a thorny place sometimes and we want to do all we can to help smooth the path. Whether that means simply showing you where a few opportunities might be or holding your hand every step of the way throughout the application process, when you join for just $40/month you immediately have access to a suite of courses, experts in the field and a community of supportive colleagues. Make this Spring count.

Brainard Carey is an author, artist and educator. He is the director of Praxis Center for Aesthetics. He has written six books for artists; Making it in the Art World, New Markets for Artists, The Art World Demystified, Fund Your Dreams Like a Creative Genius, Sell Online Like a Creative Genius and the forthcoming Succeed with Social Media Like a Creative Genius.

Signed and doodled copies of these books can be purchased from Praxis Center.

Golden Artist Colors began publishing the Just Paint newsletter in 1989, a source for information about painting techniques, product information, and the latest research in art materials. Now online, JustPaint.org has become one of the most exhaustive resources for technical information in fine art. With the new Just Paint Experience, GOLDEN is expanding the concept to provide artists with quick-reading, studio-oriented content to help bring their visions to life.

When you subscribe to Just Paint Experience (free), you’ll receive access to exclusive content. GOLDEN will also notify you whenever there is new content added to the site.

Diego Leclery

March 20, 2019 By Brainard Carey Leave a Comment

My decision to “become an artist” can be broken down into two dimensions: “I was born to make art,” and “I have to do something with my life.” The first is an expression of some innate identity—that I have an artistic disposition and that making art is a manifestation of who I am—and the second is about finding a solution to a problem—that I ought to spend my life doing what I am good at and what brings me fulfillment, and that making art is how I am somehow trying to solve that problem.

I think much of my earlier work had to do with working out the first dimension: what identifies my artistic decisions as apart from any of my other decisions?; how can I reify the creative thought processes and structures and biases and attitudes that shape my own work?

The last five years, however, things have shifted to the second dimension. The show “Mom” that I did in 2013 at Kirk’s Apartment in Chicago was a bridge between the two dimensions: it started with wondering about the ways my mother has played a role in shaping my visual experience of the world, or my sense of style and taste, by the kinds of visual and sensory experiences I was conditioned to appreciate growing up, but it also was trying to make explicit the ways in which using the source material of maternal influence could in effect help work through—in real life—issues with my actual mother (to simplify: if the show was beautiful, she would feel honored, and it would bring us closer together).

Since that show, this slightly buffoonish and hyperbolic instrumentalization of the avant grade project (that art be joined into life to make it better) to make my life better by, for example, making me feel better about my use of time, exposing me to more interesting people, helping me mature and accept myself, making my parents feel proud, giving me more to offer my friends or my daughter, turning me into an honorable participant in society, helping me find meaning or rent money or a sense of direction, yadda yadda yadda—this somewhat jokey reduction—bad life + good art = good life—has been central to every new work I’ve put out there. – Diego Leclery

Me Playing Civilization, 2014, Performance at the Whitney Biennial

Proboscis Monkey 2017 unfired clay 10 x 11 x 13 inches

Anna Bitkina

March 20, 2019 By Brainard Carey Leave a Comment

Anna Bitkina is an independent curator, director and co-founder of The Creative Association of Curators TOK, an art organization founded in 2010 together with Maria Veits.

Anna lives and works between St Petersburg and The Netherlands, she curates projects in Russian, different countries in Europe as well as in the US. She sees the curatorial practice as a multidisciplinary process that connects theory, social science, philosophy and politics in order to generate knowledge about contemporary reality where art has an agency to articulate its socio-political conditions and foster social changes.

For the last 10 years she’s been interested in exploring post-Soviet conditions in contemporary Russia and remnants of Soviet past in different social spheres as well as in local and global implications caused by the accelerated capitalism in the region. An ongoing public art project ‘Critical Mass’ that she initiated and curates in St Petersburg since 2010 became a platform for conducting such a research and developing knowledge on post-socialist conditions. The projects breaks into seasons, so far four season with focus of different problematics were conducted 2011, 2013, 2015 and in 2016-2017.

Development of speculative scenarios about possible political horizons in Russia and in the world have been central interests for her projects and projects of TOK. ‘Design Platform’ (2012-2014) and ‘School Museum:Creating History Together’ (2014-2017) conducted in one of the schools in St Petersburg aim at researching on pedagogic conditions of the Russian system of education, its spatial and architectural structures and governmental strategies in shaping up young citizens.

Such projects by TOK like ‘States of Control’ (2017, HIAP Gallery, Helsinki) and ‘Propaganda News Machine: Creating Multiple Realities in the Media’ (2016 Flux Gallery, New York City) aim at stimulating critical thinking around the topics of information manipulation, the history of propaganda, post-truth and constructing news during times of political unrest. A new ply of ‘States of Control’ is scheduled to be presented at the Weisman Museum of Art in March 2020.

A research-based project ‘The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approaches to neighborliness and interchange’ (2018-2019, series of events in various locations in Helsinki) is analyzing the conditions of global migration with a close focus on the ‘new wave’ of emigration of Russians to Finland that is since 2011 was formed due to radical changes of political conditions in Russia.

In 2014 Anna was a local contributor for the public program of Manifesta 10 with with a Jeremy Deller’s project ‘The Battle of Orgreave’. and with a new performance ‘Debates on Division: When the Private Becomes Public’ by artist Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya). During 2015-2019 the performance ‘Debates on Division’ was conduced at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam – SMBA, at the Creative Time Summit in Washington DC at the Lincoln Theater (the Summit was curated by Nato Thompson) and at RAM Gallery and Deichmanske Bibliotek in Grünerløkka in Oslo. In March 2019 the project was be presented for the 5th time in the Center for Fine Arts BOZAR.

Anna was a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Berlin in 2013 -2014 and a finalist of the EUNIC competition for Russian curators with a curatorial placement was in London at Artangel in 2014. Among other projects she curated exhibitions for the 3-rd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2009) and for the 2-nd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. She was an initiator and co-curator of a major exhibition in Russia of artists from Nordiс region: ‘Nordic Art Today: Conceptual Debts, Broken Dreams, New Horizons’ (2011, St Petersburg), co-curated with Kari Brandtzaeg, Birta Gudjonsdottir, Power Ekroth, Aura Seikkula and Simon Sheikh. She co-curated with Ryszard W Kluszczyński and Sinziana Ravini the ‘United States of Europe’ (2011-2013), an exhibition about European identity that traveled to 10 different locations in Europe, ‘Towards the Other’ with participation of Mieke Bal and “Chto Delat?” (2011, St Petersburg).

Public art installation by Hrafnkell Sigurdson, ‘Lucid States’, 2011. 27 flags, synthetic fabrics, aluminum, wood, plastic. As a part of ‘Critical Mass’ project (season 1), at the bridge of the Yelagin Island, St Petersburg

Performance ‘Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public’, created by Gluklya (Natalya Pershina-Yakimanskaya), curated by Anna Bitkina. Center for Fine Arts BOZAR, Brussels, 2019

Make Your Dream Come True Like Joan’s Did

March 19, 2019 By Brainard Carey Leave a Comment

The fact of the matter is, Praxis students see results. They learn the skills they need to advance their careers and gain confidence to get their work out into the world and take chances. When this pays off with an extraordinary opportunity, we sure love hearing about it and celebrating. Recently, Praxis student Joan shared her wonderful achievement in an email. In her own words:

“…the Transit Museum show was **WONDERFUL**, a dream come true! never could have believed my work would be in a museum! (okay, it’s not MOMA, but ya gotta start somewhere)

they were kind enough to frame 5 huge double-paintings for me…at no charge..would have cost me many thousands. and i sold 2 right off the wall!

later that year, a student put me in touch with Metropolitan College of New York in the financial district…brand new building, beautiful gallery area…my work never looked better. had no idea how important good lighting is! sold another there as well.“

So what’s the trick? The catch? Does Joan have something that you don’t? Well, the answer is maybe yes and maybe no. Of course it’s important for your art to be in front of the right person trying to fill the right venue, but in order to get your art in front of any person, you have to know how.

At Praxis Center, we show you the ropes. We unlock the doors to the art world so that you can venture inside and start making your mark. You’ll learn how to communicate with gallery owners, find patrons and sponsors to support your artistic endeavors, get your art on the walls and so much more. And when you join for just $40/month you also have access to our virtual classroom community where you’ll find experts to guide you as well as colleagues to support you. Joan made a dream come true. There’s no reason in the world you can’t, too.

Signed and doodled copies of these books can be purchased from Praxis Center.

When you subscribe to Just Paint Experience (free), you’ll receive access to exclusive content. GOLDEN will also notify you whenever there is new content added to the site.