Our Artists in New York

This month, our artists are presenting work at numerous institutions in and around New York City. New quotations from Torkwase Dyson, Sonia Gomes, Alicja Kwade, Beatriz Milhazes, and Whitney Museum Chief Curator Kim Conaty offer a deeper look at what’s on in New York this season. Dive into our artists’ practices and recent work through their insights below.

“I wanted to take the idea of the frame, or framing Black life, and use it as a force multiplier. Some shapes think about volume, others about open air or enclosure. It was important that each structure could serve the curators’ needs but also tell a story on its own. … I wanted people to feel held by a thoughtful system—not confined by it.”

—Torkwase Dyson tells (opens in a new window) Vogue

“For my exhibition at Storm King, the inspiration to hang the sculptures from a tree came from two primary motivations: first, I consider trees natural sculptures that change with the weather, temperature, and other environmental conditions that completely alter their appearance. I thought that my work, hanging from a tree, would also go through visual transformations of its own, and I'm interested to see the changes that will emerge in the sculptures at the end of the exhibition. Second, since I previously worked on the project Sinfonias das Cores (2023), an installation composed of hanging elements suspended from the ceiling of an indoor space, I decided to bring similar sculptures to this new environment, considering the specific features of this outdoor setting.

The natural environment at Storm King has had a profound impact on me, and it was essential to consider the particularities of such a vast, open space. It's not the first time I’ve worked in a vegetated open area, but Storm King is different due to its scale and its much taller, lusher trees. Because of this, I chose to create sculptures that would both integrate with a tree and remain visible from a distance. My primary concern was choosing one of the tallest trees so that, as visitors approach, the sculptures would be at a human scale. I didn’t want people to have to look up to see my work. So, even though they’re suspended, the sculptures are still close to the ground and the public.”

—Sonia Gomes

“In my work, I try to understand the circumstances—the social conditions and structures—in which we live. LinienLand, my sculpture at Storm King, features natural round stones within a systematic grid—for me, this represents a combination of the man-made structure of society with the random, coincidental events of other worlds, beings, or existences in our universe.

I took the title of the work from a book called Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott, a priest who lived in the early 20th century. It’s a critique of British society, and it’s the story of the world seen from the view of a square—so it’s also about mathematics, or rather, it’s actually about the explanation of dimensions—and about thinking beyond them, beyond the ones we already know. In the book, Linien Land is the ‘line land,’ and the king of that land is only able to experience the world in linear terms, to the left or to the right.

LinienLand is quite a big sculpture, and it was always meant to be outdoors. Depending on your position to it, you can see those spheres against the sky, creating the illusion of them being part of the sky. And that leads your thoughts towards the universe—the planets and the stars. It’s also surrounded by this beautiful high grass, so it kind of looks like it’s grown out of this green area. We specifically conceived and created a small path, together with the curator, to generate a holistic experience of the work through the movement of the viewers as a permanent part of the park. You have to walk through that pass to get close, and you meet these very heavy, natural stones, which, at a distance, appear just as little dots in the landscape.”

—Alicja Kwade

“The five paintings from the Guggenheim’s collection represent my start in New York City and the international art scene, which happened in the 1990s. The exhibition space at Guggenheim—where these five paintings are currently on view—creates a special confrontation between the past and the present, as these works are presented in dialogue with a strong group of recent paintings and collages, including some from the last Venice Biennale, offering a wonderful journey through my work. The Guggenheim is a temple of modern and contemporary art, and my exhibition Rigor and Beauty at the museum brings my art to a wide audience. Rigor and Beauty at the Guggenheim tells a story—a beautiful one. It's a moment to celebrate.”

—Beatriz Milhazes

“Louise Nevelson had a special relationship with the Whitney, which organized her first retrospective in 1967 and numerous shows thereafter. The Whitney first acquired her work in 1956, and today the museum is one of the largest repositories of her work, with over ninety sculptures, drawings, and prints in the collection, many of them gifts of the artist. Collection View: Louise Nevelson features Black Majesty (1955), the first work by Nevelson to enter the Whitney's collection, along with a group of sculptures from her early series of Moving-Static-Moving Figures (ca.1945) that anticipate the movable, stacked forms of her signature wall works.

Collection View: Louise Nevelson focuses on the relationship between Nevelson's sculptures and New York City. The assemblages on view evoke the towers and grids of the city while also calling attention to the endless building cycles that yielded the detritus from which they are composed. The natural light in the windowed gallery allows visitors to appreciate the intricate details of her assemblages and to perceive the play of light and shadow across their richly textured surfaces. Nevelson's work encourages viewers to appreciate the aesthetic possibilities of discarded materials and to view New York City itself, in her words, ‘as a great big sculpture.’”

— Kim Conaty, Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator at the Whitney Museum