Los Angeles-based curator and contemporary writer Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy is the creative mind behind Funk you too! Humor and irreverence in ceramic sculpture, a radical exhibition of ceramics presented at the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, her steady uplifting of marginalized artists informs her fresh curatorial gaze, which sheds light on voices and aesthetics often sidelined by the mainstream art world.
Vizcarrando-Laboy organized The inner universe at the Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami, an exhibition celebrating diasporic black subjectivity; And Belongingthe 2022 annual NCECA exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California, which explored the notion of true inclusion in the American mythos. The arts journal met Vizcarrondo-Laboy to discover his favorite works at Frieze New York.
Kelly Akashi, Cultivator (earthly solitude) (2022), Tonya Bonakdar Gallery, $20,000-$50,000
“I think glass is a very hard material; it’s really technically difficult. There is sometimes an expectation of virtuosity that I find too traditional, but with Kelly, the combination of hard and soft, the juxtaposition is incredible. It’s also remarkable that bare hands can’t touch the glass during the manufacturing process, so it’s really cool that they’re placed together like this.
Sahar Khouri, Untitled (Scaffolded tree column with two Persian lime trees) (2022), Canada, $16,000
“I love how it’s structured, how there’s all this negative space in this tower that feels a bit flimsy, and there’s the mixed media moment happening at the top. But the palm trees always grab me. It’s a very abstract piece overall, but the artist has included these super recognizable elements. It’s weird, in a way, there’s humor in it. Even if it’s not his place, it’s my favorite part of the room.
Naudlin Pierre, Resolved (2023), James Cohan, Sold
“Painting for me is difficult, as I come from a more dimensional background, but his work feels so mythical that I really love its transcendent quality. It seems very millennial to me. I feel like there’s something going on in the way the bodies and the elements are rendered that feels very now and of the moment, also very young. I like to think of how fire is interpreted in paintings, it’s really beautiful.
Matthew Ronay, The crack, the swell, a land, an ode (2022), Casey Kaplan, $300,000
“Being from a craft background, I love it. It’s all wood – he carves these pieces of wood into such crazy shapes, especially the really thin bits. It must not be easy to do. I think there’s something moody and bodily about it, it sounds very guttural, but really beautiful, especially with the tones he chooses He took so many pieces and created such a long exhibition – I’ve seen his work before, and it’s usually smaller one-off pieces.
Madeleine Abakanowicz, Kolo I (Orchid I) (1973), Michael Rosenfeld, $250,000-$500,000
“This woman is an icon. You know how children say ‘mother’? She is “mother”. She’s an icon of the Craft movement in the United States, so it’s cool to see her working in that context. Basically, she makes giant fiber vaginas! She was part of Woven shapes, the 1963 exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, right next to MoMA, which was a big historic deal. This piece is a vintage; it’s so cool to see older work recontextualized in this framework which is generally about what’s newer and newer. His work deserves attention.
Cherif Farrag, moving panther (2023), Francois Ghebaly
“I’ve worked with Sharif before; I have seen his career grow since he was doing his BFA in California. It’s actually from his MFA show that he just did. I love his work, it’s fun and it really tells me about California. It’s funny, but also technically incredible. I feel like during his MFA his work really crystallized, you can see it in the little details throughout.
Lauren Halsey, Untitled (2023), David Kordansky Gallery
“She’s from California, so her work is very focused on her community, her people. She just completed the commission on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, so she takes these old images and transforms them into a contemporary moment. It’s like a mixture of Egyptian information from the 1990s and today’s hieroglyphics as a form of graffiti. I love the idea of creating artifacts for the future, especially from a black perspective. »
Jagdeep Raina, She travels softly through the seven gates as her garden sings to her (2022), Cooper Cole, $8,000
“I like the way he plays with the supposed neutrality of the yarn. It’s embroidered in a very loose way, so it kind of paints, there’s a lot of vibrancy to it. I like the way it uses color, and I like how there’s a more traditionally embroidered piece at the bottom, and the rarer, stunning narrative representation at the top. I love textiles, so it’s great to see them represented in this way.
