Follow Friday: A Global Mix, from Cairo, Istanbul, and Seoul to America’s East Coast
Cultural interchange is the word for these five galleries, with Egyptian and Bulgarian artists being shown in the U.S., an American artist conceiving works inspired by European cityscapes, and strongholds in Istanbul and Seoul promoting the Turkish and Korean art scenes on the international stage.
Based in Scarsdale, NY, Madelyn Jordon Fine Art represents a number of contemporary artists born in the U.S., while also bringing a range of international artists into the upstate area. The gallery’s collection of works by American artists includes the seemingly molten bronze sculptures of David Kimball Anderson, painter Linda Touby’s sparse but intense abstractions, DJ Leon’s multimedia pop-cultural collages, the abstract but referential paintings of Stanford Kay, and Susan Wides’s bright images of New York City scenes; among the gallery’s international artists are Japanese-French duo Minimiam, Dominican painter Antonio Carreno, and Chinese abstractionist Yangyang Pan. Madelyn Jordon’s current exhibition flips the direction of its global exchange, showing “An American in Paris,” Lawrence Kelsey’s oil paintings of the iconic city.
Founded in 2008, Galeri Zilberman works to foster an interchange between Turkish artists and the art scene at large, with two Istanbul gallery spaces dedicated to regular exhibitions of both local and international artists and a strong presence at art fairs around the world. The gallery also supports the Zed Grant, a €10,000 research fellowship and Istanbul-based residency. Galeri Zilberman is currently showing at Abu Dhabi Art, featuring a group of Turkish artists including experimental photographer Ahmet Elhan, multimedia innovator Azade Köker, painterly weaver Fırat Neziroǧlu, ceramicist Burçak Bingöl, and photorealist painter Alpin Arda Baǧcık, as well as Walid Siti, born in Iraqi Kurdistan and working from London, American Taravat Talepasand, and two Dubai-based artists, Canadian Janet Bellotto and the UK-born Patricia Millns.Many of these artists will also be featured in the gallery’s upcoming booth at Contemporary Istanbul, which opens Thursday, November 13th.
The founders of this Washington, D.C. gallery work from Cairo as well as the U.S. to promote the Middle East’s blossoming art scene. Syra Arts represents a multigenerational group of artists from a number of the region’s countries, foregrounding a strong roster of Egyptian artists, among them Essam Marouf, Armen Agop, Yasser Rostom, Essam Darwish, Mohamed Ardash, Nermine Hammam, Adel El Siwi, Khaled Hafez, Galila Nawar, and Reda Abdel Rahman, who co-curated “AMEN—A Prayer for the World,” a traveling exhibition co-organized by the gallery that wraps up in New York this month after stints in Cairo and D.C. Back at their home space, Syra Arts is currently exhibiting the richly hued abstract figural paintings of Baghdad-born, California-based artist Qais Al-Sindy, and will soon showcase works by Palestinian-American painter Manal Deeb.
Kwanhoon has been a mainstay in Seoul’s gallery district since 1979, promoting the works of contemporary Korean artists that cover a wide range of media and process. The gallery’s collection includes King Jongsook’s ornate, almost hallucinatory landscapes; painter Kim Hyo-Suk’s digital-seeming, fractured cityscapes; Kim Jinkey’s rich, muddled, mixed-media abstractions; Choi Jinhoon’s abstract, geometric paintings; the blueprint-esque but undone paintings of Han Ji Min; Jeongmee Yoon’s methodical, monochromatic documentations of the excessive belongings of children; Ryu Noah’s chaotic, apocalyptic scenes; Jung Bo Yoen’s hyperreal paintings of melting candy; Lim Kangsan’s abstract, architectural paintings; Lee Jang Hoon’s otherworldly oil paintings, Bahk Younghoon’s graphic sculptures and images; Lee Jeonglok’s fantastic photographs of trees and bodies of water; Kim Young Jin’s contorted, intricately constructed figural etchings; and Koo Seong Youn’s images of floral arrangements created from candy.
Since its opening this spring in NYC’s Lower East Side, Red Royalty Gallery has dedicated its space to showing works by Bulgarian artist Kremena Lefterova, currently highlighted in a Halloween-themed exhibition of her whimsical, sometimes frightening ceramic sculptures. The gallery has delved into many aspects of this multimedia artist’s imaginative practice over the course of the year, showing a range of Lefterova’s video works, drawings, and paintings. Her sculptures, which combine a magical, fairy-tale sensibility with a complex, intricate construction and rich color palette, were featured at ArtHamptons in July, and will travel uptown in January to the New York Ceramics & Glass Fair.
Follow Madelyn Jordon Fine Art, Galeri Zilberman, Syra Arts, Kwanhoon Gallery, and Red Royalty Gallery on Artsy.
