Susan Breyer

Susan Breyer is a Latina art historian and writer based in Brooklyn.
Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary’s inaugural exhibition at its East 64th Street gallery space, Freddy Rodríguez: Early Paintings 1970–1990, features a selection of paintings and collages by the Dominican York artist.
Freddy Rodríguez, Un Año de Soledad, 1972. 64 x 56 inches. Courtesy Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary, New York.
By obscuring, reframing, and multiplying representations of her body, the artist disrupts our gazes and deductions. According to Osterloh, her experiences as a mixed-race Filipino American have shaped her photographic explorations around observers’ perception of different identities
Gina Osterloh, left to right: Shutter Vision, 2020, Mirror Woman, 2020, Obliterate, 2019. Courtesy Higher Pictures Generation, New York.
Together Forever gathers more than 30 self-portraits—predominantly works on paper—that Hurtado created between 1960 and 2020. Viewed in succession, they read as pages in a diary, with each drawing or painting suggesting a single entry, an assessment of physical and emotional states, made along an extensive timeline.
Luchita Hurtado, Untitled, ca. 1960s. Graphite and charcoal on paper, 18 x 24 inches. © Luchita Hurtado. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Thomas Barratt.
Now, with vacant pedestals dotting the country, citizens have the physical and psychological space to reconsider how our diverse and complex histories are memorialized. Which individuals, groups, or historic junctures merit monuments? Which lessons should be relayed to following generations? Are there particular formal devices or motifs new monuments can employ to better captivate and communicate with the public?
Jeffrey Gibson, Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House, 2020. Courtesy the artist; Socrates Sculpture Park; Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York; Kavi Gupta, Chicago; Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. Photo: Scott Lynch.
Momm’s artistic practice—which blends poetry, sculpture from found materials, and photographs of nature—delights in revaluation and recycling.
Installation view: Alice Momm: The Gleaner's Song, Arsenal Gallery, New York. Courtesy Arsenal Gallery. Photo: Daniel Avila / NYC Parks.
One work in the final gallery contains the image of a small pink cross, above which Centurión embroidered the phrase, “renazco a cada instante,” “I am reborn at every moment” (1995). To feel renewed in deep crisis by faith, creation, and love. To be carried forward by small joys, to allow these joys the fullness and purity of our appreciation. This is art, personified.
Feliciano Centurión, Mi casa es mi templo (My house is my temple), 1996. Embroidery on fabric, 13 x 26 inches. © Estate of the Artist, Familia Feliciano Centurión
Landscapes of the South, a group exhibition on view at Mendes Wood DM, presents 27 compositions in which creators respond to natural settings. Diversity is found not only in artists’ origins, eras, and intents, but in their formal choices; the landscapes exhibited are nostalgic and deadpan, impasto and serenely smooth.
Giovanni Battista Castagneto, Marinha com pedras, undated. Oil on wood, 8 x 10 1/2 cm. Courtesy Mendes Wood, DM.
Originally from Culiacán in Sinaloa, Mexico, Margolles developed an intimate relationship with death while working as a mortician in Mexico City. There, in the early 1990s, she began making work that centered upon the human cost of drug-trafficking violence in Mexico. Her performances and installations employed post-mortem material such as blood and surgical threads to make tangible this shocking and generally unseen human loss.
Teresa Margolles, El Brillo: One homicide can change the world (Un homicidio puede cambiar el mundo), 2020. Garment hand-embroidered in goldwork bullion style with glass shards from a site where violent acts occurred in El Paso, TX, U.S.A., 2019, 24K gold thread, bullion, tulle, lochrose crystals, display form. © Teresa Margolles 2020. Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo: Phoebe d'Heurle.
The magnetism of Florencia Escudero’s new soft sculptures, exhibited in her first New York solo exhibition at Kristen Lorello, is felt at first glimpse. Her seductive materials—lustrous velvet, black pleather, jewel-toned satin, and spandex—are at once sumptuous and garish; they are the fabric of every storied, fast-fashion night out.
Installation view: Florencia Escudero, Kristen Lorello, New York.   Courtesy the artist and Kristen Lorello, NY.  Photo: Jeffrey Sturges.

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