THE March Break Art Exhibitiona curator-run fair that specializes in extravagant do-it-yourself aesthetics, has returned to its original location – a former Catholic school in Little Italy – for a pop-up iteration, secret show (until May 20), during New York’s Friesland Week. It features works by 100 artists who have participated in the fair since its launch in 2009. Spanning four rooms over two floors, the show strikes familiar notes for the fair’s brand of wobbly figuration and color indomitable to quirky representations of everyday life. . Small-scale ceramics are particularly prevalent in the not-so-secret exhibit, infusing the busy facilities with new injections of camp.
Megan Bogonovitch, Untitled piece 42023 Courtesy of the artist
Two large tables offer a real garden of charming and strange botanical vases by Vermont artist Megan Bogonovich. Each piece, priced at or below $1,800, straddles the boundary between flora and fauna, seemingly ready to wiggle or boil at any moment. Motorized ceramic bonsai trees by Takashi Horisaki spin in the window a few feet away, shimmering in a plethora of glazed pastels. Brazenly titled the #InstaBonsai series, Horisaki’s sculptures cost between $700 and $9,550.
Perched on another windowsill is a miniature trash bag-shaped planter by Brazilian-American artist and educator Marianna Peragallo. It is placed in front of a suite of irreverent clay sculptures depicting debauched spa mavens and laptops themed in the art of New York-based Russian artist Dasha Bazanova. A satirical food pyramid by multidisciplinary artist Johannah Herr, displayed on a sea-foam green plinth, inspires viewers to reflect on the scourge of industrial agriculture. The object rubs shoulders with the faux propagandist collages and educational didactics that are part of Herr’s larger project. I saw the future project, which reinvents the New York World’s Fair of 1964 with the hindsight of 2023.
Marianna Pergallo, 4 gallon heavy2022 Courtesy of the artist
Cigarettes are everywhere at the Spring Break pop-up, a nod to the analog days of creative counterculture that seem so distant in the age of vaping. The collapsed ceramic butts of Mary Gagler, the thread and the monk’s canvas of Thomas Martinez-Pilnik ciggysall for sale for less than $1,500, update Claes Oldenburg1960s foam sculptures for the Millennial set. New York artist Taylor Lee Nicholson contributed a winning installation of cigarette butts, battered “dad hats” and downgraded floral paintings. The individual cigarette butts she made from a combination of papier-mache and ceramic are available at the fair’s reception for $35 a pop.
- Spring Break secret showuntil May 20, The Old School, 233 Mott Street, New York
