Exhibitions
Current Exhibition
Vital Impetus
February 23 – April 15, 2023
Azure Arts is pleased to announce Vital Impetus, an exciting group exhibition of photographic and mixed media works by all NYC-based artists: Alice Garik, Gina Kropf, and jdx. Vital Impetus will open on February 23rd at 5 Rivington Street, New York, NY.
The exhibition derives its title and curatorial theme from a concept élan vital (vital impetus), a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson. Rather than simply adhering to a set of mechanistic laws, Bergson contended that life has an inherent drive or impulse towards creativity, growth, and innovation. While his philosophy emphasizes the role of individual experience, i.e. consciousness, and creativity in this process, it also sees the ‘self’ as fundamentally connected to others. The ‘self’, for Bergson, stands in dynamic relation to others. It is not static and unchanging, but rather is evolving constantly through its interactions with others.
Moving within and between photographic genres, Vital Impetus explores this relationship between the creative self and its dynamic relationship to others. The works featured in this exhibition indicate some of the near infinite ways to communicate who one is and how we seek to connect–or not connect–with others.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
March 24th: Experimental performance piece by Butoh artist Azumi Oe accompanied by multi-instrumentalists, Sean Ali & Flin van Hemmen
Past Exhibitions
ESPERANZE CORTÉS: PURITY OF BLOOD
ARTSY EXCLUSIVE
Purity of Blood or “Limpieza de Sangre” refers to a concept of racial ideology with its origins in Early Modern Spain. In this historical context, the concern for “purity” was predicated on the biased belief that the unfaithfulness of the “deicide Jews,” (god-killing Jews) had not only endured in those who converted to Catholicism but also had been transmitted by blood to their Christian descendants. Consequently, Old Christians “of pure blood” were demarcated from the New Christians and their Jewish antecedents, who were deemed morally inadequate. This judgment of purity was primarily applied to the politically and economically influential group of Iberian conversos (Catholics of Jewish origins) but was extended also to moriscos (Catholics of Muslim lineage). “Limpieza de Sangre” also came to form part of the ideological basis of the caste system in colonized Colombia and New Spain.
Nature Has a Way
Group Show
December, 2022
Williamsburg, NY
A four-person exhibition including the works of Jaynie Crimmins, Jeanne Heifetz, Nina Picon and Andra Samelson. Ranging from painting and drawing to woven silk textiles to both paper and ceramic sculpture, all artists featured are acutely aware of the environment in which they inhabit.
The work of the artists in this exhibition all engage with the current ability to listen and answer nature’s calling. In exploring the role of artistic expression when arriving at these questions, the scientific means by which we have come to understand much of the natural world are both utilized and expanded on.
Close Your Eyes and Think of There
Jaynie Crimmins and Maureen Krinsley
June 16th – July 3rd, 2022
Brooklyn Heights, NY
From oil painting to collage to paper sculpture by Maureen Krinsley & Jaynie Crimmins, “Close Your Eyes and Think of There” explores the concept of perception and what it means to “see.” What we choose to see, either consciously or subconsciously, is arguably a choice based on experience, memory and innate senses, as well as our current mental and emotional condition that are unique to each individual.
Maureen Fleming: Dances From Home
Winter, 2021
Nolita, NYC
A gallery installation/performance art series by 2021 Guggenheim choreographer/performance artist Maureen Fleming. This unique series featured intimate live studio performances, as well as Fleming’s new and retrospective photography and video spanning her 40 years as an artist working in her Lower East Side studio since 1981.
“…a wonderous choreographic metamorphosis.” – NY Times
Memory Mapping: Works by Linda Cunningham, Karin Waskiwicz and Lilian Kreutzberger
Winter, 2018
Chelsea, NYC
Linda Cunningham’s mixed media painting and sculpture fashioned from “urban mined” materials is presented in conversation with the 2007-2012 drawing and painting series of Lilian Kreutzberger, as well as with Karin Waskiewicz’s layered and carved painting. In distinctive yet harmonious ways, all artists explore issues of time, transience and memory as they gravitate toward architectural structures of previously existing societies and ever-evolving landscape. Our “memory maps,” born from particular places and characterized by their own architectures and landscapes, must perpetually adapt and transform as those places transform over time.
Contact Hours
Sunday - Friday: 10am – 6pm