A Multi-Generational Art Exhibit Dazzles at DT Show
“Generations: Street Art to Classical Masters” brings an eclectic, free-spirited show to a Seaport office tower that is curated by Maxine Hoover who runs the Chelsea-based studio Landmark Art Space.
| 26 Feb 2024 | 10:12
Maxine Hoover, curator of “Generations: Street Art to Classical Masters,” with her works at Anderson Contemporary. (
)
Artist Emma Hapner entitles this painting, “I’m not really a waitress.” Photo by Keith J.Kelly of Art by Emma Hapner
The art exhibit on display at 180 Maiden Lane runs through March 15 and features this Emma Hapner painting entitled “Melusine.” Keith J Kelly photo of Art by Emma Hapner
Reid Stowe, in addition to being the romantic and business partner of Maxine Hoover, is an artist as well as a seafaring adventurer who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest solo sea voyage that lasted 1,152 days. Many of his works are done on a sail canvas. Photo: Keith J. Kelly
In the airy, sleek atrium plaza of a Seaport office tower, a new art exhibit featuring the works of 11 artists spanning five generations hopes to inspire gallerygoers and desk workers on lunch break alike.
“Generations: Street Art to Classical Masters,” on show with Anderson Contemporary at 180 Maiden Lane, features works including playful, fossil-inspired mixed-media works from 26-year-old Keion Kopper, and pensive, enigmatic oil portraits by 91-year-old Westbeth artist Sheila Schwid.
The group show’s broad age range is matched by its diversity of styles. Don Perlis’ large-scale oil paintings depict dramatic scenes in settings both mythological and mundane. Rifka Milder’s paintings, on the other hand, consist of organic, abstract forms “inspired by nature, music, and her travels” in vibrant color.
Other artists’ works reflect the zeitgeist: In Rachel Van der Nacht’s painting “LOVE HANGOVER,” the experience of “dating in New York’’ takes the form of an octopus that has snarled a nude figure in each of its multicolored tentacles. In two of Emma Hapner’s self-portraits, saturated with hues of Barbie pink, she stares down her viewer while wearing a cowboy hat adorned with hearts.
Maxine Hoover, the exhibit’s curator and one of the featured artists, hopes visitors will “feel uplifted, inspired, and drawn in,” she said. Her own work is inspired by self-transcendence, which she has explored in a lifelong yoga and meditation practice. “Piercing the Golden Ring” is her life-sized, galaxy-hued self-portrait, created by tracing Hoover’s body onto a sail.
Hoover says the large-scale hanging is inspired by her partner in art, business, and romance—Reid Stowe, who in addition to being an artist is also a seafaring adventurer who broke the record for the longest continuous sea voyage in recorded history in 2010, at 1,152 days. The two share a studio in Chelsea called the Landmark Art Space, where Hoover has curated weekly shows since the last week of December, through which she met many of the artists featured in “Generations.”
Stowe’s geometric, abstract works carry motifs from his ocean journeys, and many are created on repurposed sails. “Mars Diamond,” like Hoover’s work, is located in an extraterrestrial place. “We have a really lucky bond,” said Hoover of their artistic partnership. The couple also works together on Mars Ocean Analogs, a program intended to prepare astronauts for Mars with training at sea.
Marina Chisty, Arnold Brooks, and Michael Sadowsky’s works are also featured in the show, which will run at Anderson Contemporary, 180 Maiden Lane, until March 12.