The Very Best of NYC Art (March 2010)

Charles Addams, Viola Frey, Ethelyn Honig and more!

Enjoy thousands of colorful orchids and the intrigue of Cuba at the 8th Annual Orchid Show: Cuba in Flowers now at the NY Botanical Gardens through Apr. 11. Celebrated landscape architecture firm Sánchez & Maddux brings the beauty of Cuba to NYC with iconic sites of Old Havana and the Cuban countryside, re-imagined to evoke the history of the island while engulfing visitors in radiant flowers. A not-to-be missed showcase for garden lovers, orchid fans, history buffs, and those in need of a one-day tropical retreat from winter.

Ethelyn Honig’s exhibition Small Murders Under the Sea opens at the Ceres Gallery starting Mar. 30 through Apr. 24. The exhibit addresses our present day human habits which are causing the destruction of marine life. Honig’s eccentric paintings depict her love of the unusual structures of biomorphic organisms, single cells mingling with crustaceans amid reefs. They huddle, they float, they hang out or are wounded and bleed. These are not pictures; they are studies of real and imagined forms. Her position as an artist is that of an anguished observer bearing witness to sea creatures as a community or government under siege.

The first major retrospective of Viola Frey’s work since her death in 2004, Bigger, Better, More: The Art of Viola Frey will feature the artist’s colossal clay figures, sculptures, ceramic plates as well as a selection of her paintings and works on paper. The installation at Museum of Arts and Design running now through May 2 will include works from the museum’s permanent collection and several private collections, examples of Frey’s collaboration with ceramicist Betty Woodman, and a selection of popular ceramics from Frey’s personal collection which served as inspiration for her “bricolage” sculptures.

Art by Mia introduces Femicide … at the Abrazo Interno Gallery, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center through Apr. 10. The exhibit’s focus is to bring awareness to the atrocity of female killing all over the world with particular attention to the horrifying increase of cases of mutilation, rape and murder of women along the US/Mexico border, Congo, Guatemala, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq.

The Museum of the City of New York presents Charles Addams’ New York now through May 16. The exhibit features original artworks by the legendary New Yorker cartoonist that capture Addams’ quintessentially idiosyncratic and slyly subversive view of the city, depicting his signature macabre characters, twisted situations, and distorted reimaginings of the cityscape. The subjects are gleefully varied, ranging from charming to creepy including depictions of life on New York’s subways and buses, in offices, department stores, museums, parks, streets, and homes. A special section looks at the evolution of the creepy assemblage of characters who were dubbed "the Addams Family".


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