Contemporary Art, Sculpture

Tanel Veenre: BeforeAfter

Ornamentum, Hudson New York. June 24 – July 16, 2023

Tanel Veenre is an Estonian artist focusing on jewelry and wearables that he crafts from wooden organ pipe components, reconfigured into sculptural form. According to wikipedia he is a “jewelry artist,” an awkward phrase trying to describe the in-betweenness of his work. This show at Ornamentum in Hudson mixes elements of craft, jewelry, art, and even a bit of musicianship — apparently the pipes all still produce tone if you blow through them.

He comes from a family of artists and musicians, and if I have the story correctly these pieces are reconfigurations of a wooden organ that his father gave him as a gift.

I am pleased with Veenre’s choices to forgo emphasizing or fetishizing the joinery of the pieces, which is a notorious tempation when working with wood. Instead, the pipe components are reworked with collisional butt-joints and moments of hinging. The effect gives a feel of accidental form and beauty.

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Contemporary Art, Painting, Sculpture

Diana Al-Hadid: “Women, Bronze, and Dangerous Things

Kasmin Gallery, New York, November 2 – December 22, 2023

A sculpture by Diana Al-Hadid

Al-Hadid is a Brooklyn based artist. Born in Aleppo, Syria, Diana Al-Hadid emigrated to the United States when she was five years old, growing up in Ohio. There she received a BA at Kent State and then went on to earn an MFA at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The exhibition work spans a number of media, including rigid board, styrene, bronze, and wax. Commenting on the mythological content of the subject matter, the gallery writes:

“Across Al-Hadid’s use of motifs in this exhibition—which includes figures from Greek mythology alongside protagonists in Islamic and Christian narratives—the artist’s contemporary interpretations intuitively navigate different attempts of reading the future through our past. Constructions in nature such as mountains and caves reappear as emblematic elements of landscape tied to the social, psychological, and religious narratives that have been absorbed into dominant culture over the centuries. Indifferent to where these narratives find their origin in theology, Al-Hadid’s method of retrieving stories both communicate with history and imagine them anew. At once prophetic and autobiographical, Al-Hadid’s sensitive installation across two sites of the gallery’s architecture articulates a realm that manifests, both physically and metaphorically, above ground and below.”

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