Another new gallery space for me this trip was Amanita on Bowery. I had been to their other NYC space on Crosby Street, where I saw the wonderful show The Loneliest Sport last year.

Eva Beresin’s show, Aktenkundig (On Record) was full of colorful acrylic paintings, as well as corresponding 3D printed acrylic on resin floor pieces. Resin is my favorite medium, and I asked how the pieces were made. They originated in clay, and then were scanned and 3D printed. I have been slow to the 3D printing bandwagon, but I loved these pieces. The acrylic on resin are fantastic in person, and I always like when sculpture is paired with paintings.

“In her formative years of development attending art school in early 1970s communist Hungary, Eva Beresin’s generation was forced to conjure a parallel reality, hiding and integrating whatever outside information and imagery she and her friends could scavenge. The music and ideas that managed to seep in, including disruptive changes in artistic life abroad, did so through a narrow and distorted lens which nevertheless provided a critical framework to address the struggles of living in such a prophylactically censored society.

The normative search for adolescent identity that we most assuredly take for granted in the democratic west—hard as that is in the best of times—was much more difficult and hard fought under an oppressive and repressed regime. This incomplete and slanted world view has colored, literally and figuratively, the unsettling, melancholic, comic content of Beresin’s magical body of works.” (Kenny Schachter)

I’ve spent a lot of time in New York City, living there when I was young, visiting a bunch, and now living there part time again. Sometimes you have the feeling you’ve been in a space before, but don’t quite remember why. I got home and looked up the address and lo and behold, this gallery space at 313 Bowery was part of CBGBs at 315 Bowery, which I spent a fair number of nights at in my younger days. Last time I was at CBGBs I remember being pregnant. I vividly remember that! It’s a whole different vibe now of course, but I enjoyed being back.

Having spent time in Budapest several years ago, I really connected with Beresin. The exhibition runs through December 11, 2022.