I have always wanted to visit The Hole gallery in NYC. They have two sites, one on the Bowery and one on Walker. My daughter and I made plans to visit the Bowery location to see a fantastic group exhibition, Nature Morte. The gallery design and excellent curation drew us in, and we ended up staying far longer than we had planned.

I love building art connections, such as the way you might have never even heard of a particular artist, only to end up seeing their work twice in two different settings in the same city. Adam Parker Smith had a cool outdoor piece in the NADA House show on Governors Island, and currently has a solo exhibition featuring work similar to his NADA House sarcophagus. I’m fascinated by Smith’s construction process, and it’s no secret that I like most anything with resin.

The walls are beautiful, aren’t they?

“For our yearly thematic group exhibition we present “Nature Morte”, a 60-artist still life show with an environmental edge. Using the entire exhibition space and both showroom and office, this mega-show includes a total transformation of the gallery space into a dark concrete and forest environment.” (The Hole)

“Including painting, sculpture, works on paper and photography, Nature Morte features 60 artists from renowned to unknown whose works challenge the traditional elements of still life, leading viewers into the uncharted territory of our dark concrete forest. In 2021 the still life genre is impacted by not just the transience of life but by the impending global catastrophe that promises the end of all life.” (The Hole)

“When pondering death in the 17th century, audiences looked at skulls, blown out candles, dead animals, flowers and fruits—and bubbles for some reason. Today we gaze upon much of the same, plus melting mini-fridges, sliced up butterflies, flooding, cigarette butts and mylar balloons. Collectively, the works in Nature Morte contemplate death at a time when humanity’s doom is realistically into view; life is fleeting as you see a blown out candle or life is fleeting as you see melting ice sheet chunks the size of Manhattan. All these artists have one eye on the death of the natural world—the extinction of the human race, even—whether painting a shoe or a skull.” (The Hole)

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