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Founded in 2015, by Amar A. Zahr and Nathalie Ackawi, the Beirut Art Residency is dedicated to supporting the production and dissemination of contemporary art. The program focuses on three main facets; residencies, local exhibitions and public interventions. BAR provides both emerging and mid-career artists with the time and space to work, encouraging artists to venture beyond their usual practice while laying the groundwork for future projects. BAR’s exhibition and public intervention programs enhance the approachability and dissemination of contemporary art. The work BAR presents is often experimental in nature, allowing artists to take a more conceptual approach with their practice. Ultimately, BAR’s activities strive to provide insight on the culturally rich Lebanese climate whilst creating a global network of meaningfully engaged artists.

Beirut Art Residency

Dan Nguyen is a New York-based physician, entrepreneur, and avid collector of contemporary art with a particular focus on artists of Asian descent and hands-on expertise in NFTs. As the co-founder of The Here and There Collective, his mission is to make space for narratives often overlooked in the Western art canon, through a programming focused on Asian diaspora artists, curators, and collectors.

Dan Nguyen

<div dir="ltr">The founder of renowned Instagram account She Curates (@she_curates_), Mollie E Barnes is an Independent Curator based in the UK, with a particular interest in the works of women and queer artists.</div>
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Mollie E Barnes

Collection

Curator's Picks

$1,000 and under

$1,000-$2,000

$2,000-$5,000

$5,000-$8,000

$8,000-$10,000

Granfiniland

Angry Girl

Untitled

Tangled Up In Blue

Tangled Up in Blue

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Editorial

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Carla Shen in her Brooklyn home. Photo by Ariel Rissman.

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The beauty of the art world resides in the encounters we make. Carla Shen is undeniably one of the most inspiring women in New York’s art world today. From <a href="https://www.instagram.com/carlapshen/?hl=en" rel="noopener" target="_blank">her colorful (instagram) profile</a> to her unbeatable eye for spotting talents, and ahead of the Brooklyn Museum&#8217;s much anticipated 200th anniversary, we chatted with Carla about her long-standing passion for the arts and for art patronage, stemming from her late mother’s love of ceramics to her own dedication to supporting the careers of up and coming artists. 
Carla, it’s a pleasure to connect again. You grew up surrounded by the art that your parents collected, and later on in life, you started collecting on your own. What has your collecting journey been like? 
I must have inherited the collecting bug from my parents. Growing up, I watched them build a few different art collections, first a collection of Chinese ceramics, followed by a collection of Pop art limited edition prints, and later their collection took a new direction, with a focus on American modernist paintings from the early 20th century. I was included on most of their art visits growing up, and took part in their art discussions and adventures. It was inspiring to observe them become increasingly focused on and passionate about researching, seeing and acquiring artworks, which eventually led them to build a cohesive collection. This hobby brought them so much joy, and that sense of joy left an indelible mark on me. 
It wasn&#8217;t until my husband, my daughter and I moved into our new home in Brooklyn that we started to collect seriously on our own. I had recently joined the board of the Brooklyn Museum, and had the opportunity to build friendships with the curators and my fellow board members, many of whom had wonderful art collections, which undeniably served as inspiration and role models to me. When I joined the Brooklyn Museum Contemporary Art Committee a couple years after that, I was introduced to many New York City-based artists; I began visiting artist studios and galleries on a regular basis. Slowly, I developed an eye for the kind of art I liked, and that is how I started buying works from emerging artists, usually from those I had met in person. At the early stage of my collecting journey, I didn&#8217;t really have an overarching theme or focus &#8211; I just wanted to acquire artworks that I fell in love with, and instinctively knew that I wanted to live with.
Beyond collecting, you’re equally committed to art patronage, which is crucial to the healthy state of the art world, centering your passion around the artists rather than the market. Your late mother, a ceramicist herself, was involved with the Brooklyn Museum for decades (we wish we had met her!). Now that you are a board member of the Museum, how do you aim to have a positive impact? 
I don’t know that I personally have had much of an impact on the Brooklyn Museum, but collectively, the Board has been crucial in helping the Museum’s director Anne Pasternak and her amazing team follow their bold vision for the Museum. I love how the Museum connects and uplifts the various communities in Brooklyn (and beyond). It relates the past to the present in exciting exhibitions, and it doesn’t shy away from serious or difficult discussions or shows. The Board is always working to help Anne and her team find the resources and support for the inspiring programs and exhibitions the Museum presents. I suppose one of the things I am most proud of as a board member is sitting on the search committee for the new director of the Brooklyn Museum in 2014/2015, and helping recruit Anne Pasternak. I am so glad we made that decision!
Anne Pasternak is definitely one of the most inspiring women in the art world! Aside from the Brooklyn Museum, you’re also actively involved with another great organization, the <a href="https://www.green-wood.com/art/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Green-Wood Cemetery</a> and their artist-in-residence program. The Green-Wood Cemetery is known for its dynamic programming in the visual and performing arts. Tell us more about that! 
I&#8217;ve been on the board of Green-Wood cemetery for about 17 years, and I am proud to have been part of the team behind the artist-in-residence program there with Harry Weil, Green-Wood&#8217;s phenomenal Vice President of Education and Public Programs at Green-Wood. The Green-Wood artist residency provides one artist in the visual and/or performing arts with a studio space and honorarium (some materials and a stipend) to create a site-specific installation or performance at the Cemetery. The residency is open to emerging artists living and working in New York City and ends with an exhibition of their work. Three artists have gone through the program so far, and they each had really incredible work come out of the residency.

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Now entering your personal collection, how do you typically choose the artists whose works you wish to acquire? 
The very first artwork I acquired was a large collage of sketches by the NY-based Cuban-American artist Ruben Toledo. They were all painted scenes of New York City that my husband and I acquired by using a good part of our wedding gift funds. To this day, it still has a prominent spot in our living room. Fast forward to today, my most recent acquisitions were two paintings by Olivia Jia, who had a stunning installation with Margot Samel Gallery at Independent NY back in May. I became obsessed with her beautiful, detailed and delicate paintings of objects that she considers self-portraits. I bought a small one for myself, and one that I plan to gift to the Brooklyn Museum. But I never really set out to have a theme for my collection. 
For years, I just acquired work I fell in love with, but I guess there were some common threads: most of the works I bought were by emerging artists, mostly female and NYC-based (although definitely not exclusively), and predominantly figurative painting, with a few accents of fiber art and ceramics mixed in. Since 2020, I also turned my focus towards collecting works by Asian American and Asian diasporic artists. In fact, I am helping the Brooklyn Museum build its collection of works by contemporary Asian female artists, and I have recently made promised gifts of paintings by Sasha Gordon and Susan Chen. 
Any dream acquisition? 
Any Martin Wong painting.

Sasha Gordon, My Friends Will Be Me, 2022. A promised gift to the Brooklyn Museum by Carla Shen. Courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch Gallery.

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Sasha Gordon_My Friends Will Be Me, 2022

Susan Chen, Chinatown Block Watch, 2022. A promised gift to the Brooklyn Museum by Carla Shen. Courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch Gallery.

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Susan Chen Chinatown BW

Do you get to live with all the artworks you’ve acquired? 
I live with as many works that I own as possible &#8211; which means my empty wall space is quickly disappearing, and the number of salon walls in my house is increasing. But I’m also always happy to accept loan requests. I love the idea that more people will be able to see the works from our collection, and if the loan helps round out an exhibition or puts an artist&#8217;s other work into context, that&#8217;s obviously great too! At the moment, we have seven works on loan: a Mickalene Thomas painting that will be on tour for over a year and a half, a Katherine Bradford painting, a Curtis Talwst Santiago miniature, a Maia Cruz Palileo sculpture, a Hangama Amiri textile that has been touring for the past year and a half, and the Sasha Gordon and Susan Chen paintings I was mentioning earlier that will be part of the Brooklyn Museum&#8217;s re-installation of its American galleries opening this fall. 
 
With your focus on collecting work by AAPI artists, are there particular artists you have your eye on or hope to collect?
There are so many artists I am excited about! To name a few &#8211; I have several small works by Melissa Joseph and a small painting by Anna Park, but I would love to have larger works by both of them. I&#8217;ve been so impressed with the direction their work has taken in the past few years. I also have a sculpture by Dominique Fung, but would love to own one of her gorgeous paintings. Also, since I am donating the Sasha Gordon painting I have to the Brooklyn Museum, I really would love to acquire one of her paintings for myself.
A few years ago, I got involved with the <a href="https://thehereandthere.co/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Here and There Collective (THAT)</a>, a not-for-profit that uplifts, connects, and supports arts practitioners from the Asian diaspora. It&#8217;s been a wonderful way to meet and learn about exciting up-and-coming artists, and also get to know other collectors and curators. The Collective also has an artists-in-residence program for emerging AAPI artists. I love how THAT has created such a strong sense of community and mutual support in the art world and I’m proud of what they’ve built. 
The Here and There Collective has been of newcube&#8217;s close allies since 2020. We are very fond of everything they’ve built since 2020. They launched a little after newcube, during the pandemic at a time when the art world shifted to the digital realm in a drastic way and many great new platforms appeared in the art world landscape. How do you feel about this new digital era in the art world?
The pandemic totally changed the way I buy art. Pre-pandemic, I would rarely buy art sight unseen, but post-pandemic, I find myself buying artworks from a pdf or online about a third of the time. Other than newcube, I also look at Artsy, and I always browse through the online viewing rooms of the art fairs. I&#8217;m most likely to buy a work from one of the smaller art fairs and their online platforms, like NADA, <a href="https://futurefairs.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Future Fairs</a> or Spring Break.

Carla Shen's Brooklyn home. Photo by Ariel Rissman.

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At newcube, we work with seasoned collectors who have been acquiring works for decades, but we also advise young collectors who look up to more seasoned collectors like yourself and who are just starting. We give them genuine advice and guide them in the best way we can. What advice would you give to a collector or an art lover who is just starting to collect art? 
I would tell them to take their time before diving in and spending any money on art. See and learn as much as you can &#8211; go to galleries, look at art online, attend art fairs, talk to other collectors, gallerists, curators or advisors. It takes a while to find what speaks to you, develop an eye and figure out what you ultimately want to collect. If possible, join a group or council for collectors. Many museums have collector committees or councils with different focuses and as you know, I co-chair the Brooklyn Museum Contemporary Art Committee. Through these committees, you can find a community of collectors with similar interests and visit artist studios and galleries together. You are exposed to different parts of the art world, you engage in great conversations, and it&#8217;s a great way to hone in on what types of art you are drawn to. There are also some great independent groups &#8211; like <a href="http://www.newcube.art" rel="noopener" target="_blank">newcube or </a><a href="https://www.rococoartadvisory.com/clubrococo" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Club Rococo</a> for instance &#8211; where you can attend events, talks and artist studio visits, and meet other like-minded collectors and artists to learn more about the art world. 
 
There are hundreds of advisors to collectors out there, and unfortunately very few advisors to artists. At newcube, a big part of what we are dedicated to is supporting, guiding and advising up and coming artists. What are the top 3 pieces of advice you would give to up-and-coming artists today? 
Maintain a strong presence on social media that highlights your work and have a professional looking and up-to-date website. Get out of your studio, go to openings. You never know whom you might meet. Try to find and build community with other artists, find “your people” to share resources, ideas and advice with.
That is really precious advice! With the fall quickly approaching, are there any exhibitions you are looking forward to? 
I&#8217;m most excited about the Brooklyn Museum&#8217;s 200th anniversary that we will be celebrating this fall. There will be lots of events and festivities, and some fabulous exhibitions, such as the Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, the largest group show of Brooklyn artists in the Museum&#8217;s history! It&#8217;s such a great way to celebrate the diversity and talent in Brooklyn and kick off the Museum&#8217;s anniversary. The exhibition will open on October 4th. I also cannot wait to see the transformative re-installation of the Museum&#8217;s American Art galleries, which will look at the American art collection through a Black feminist and BIPOC lens. 
I&#8217;m hoping to make it to LA soon, just to catch <a href="https://www.thebroad.org/art/special-exhibitions/mickalene-thomas-all-about-love" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Mickalene Thomas&#8217;s solo exhibition All About Love, at the Broad</a>. This is her first major international tour, and I&#8217;m so happy and honored to have loaned a work to the show. 
Thank you, Carla. We cannot wait for the fall season to pick up again in the art world and we’re excited to come see you at the Brooklyn Museum’s opening in October. We wish you the best of luck with the rest of your collecting journey and we’re really excited to see how it will evolve over the next few years!

As part of our Women in the Arts series and ahead of the Brooklyn Museum's 200th anniversary, we step into the colorful world - and home - of Brooklyn collector, patron and philanthropist Carla Shen. 

WOMEN IN THE ARTS: Step Inside Collector Carla Shen's Colorful Home

Jeanne Masel of Art for A Change, photographed by Weston Wells

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Jeanne Masel of Art for A Change photographed by Weston Wells

At newcube, we are strong believers that women in the art world should support each other. This is why we follow the path of inspiring women in the art world and it comes with no surprise that we came across Jeanne Masel, ART FOR CHANGE and her art collection. A few weeks ago, as New York was getting ready for a busy month of art fairs and auctions, we met with Jeanne, we talked about the many hats she wears, the values ART FOR CHANGE and newcube share, and we exchanged about our mutual passion for art, artists and community. 

WOMEN IN THE ARTS: Jeanne Masel, A Game Changer in the Art World

Kenneth Montague, Portrait by Wade Hudson 2021 headshot, courtesy of the artist and Dr
Kenneth Montague, Wedge Collection, Toronto

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Our founders at newcube first met Dr. Kenneth Montague and the team behind the Wedge Collection in 2021 as we were working closely with Canadian-Jamaican artist Shantel Miller. A Toronto-based dentist and the founder of the Wedge Curatorial Projects, Dr. Kenneth Montague speaks to newcube about his inspiration to begin collecting, his focus on Black artists and in particular Canadian-African artists, and his legacy as a Black collector looking to provide further public access to art. With a collection that includes works by 
Barkley L. Hendricks, Jordan Casteel, Renee Cox, Hank Willis Thomas, Jamel Shabbazz, Derrick Adams to name a few, The Wedge Collection is one of the most inspiring privately owned art collections in Canada. 
Hi Dr. Montague. A pleasure to be in touch with you. Let&#8217;s start at the beginning of your journey in the art world. How did you you come to enter the contemporary art world? What made you want to start collecting, and what was the first artwork you acquired?
Thanks for having me. My name is Kenneth Montague, I&#8217;m a dentist in Toronto, an art collector and the Director of the non-profit organization Wedge Curatorial Projects<a href="https://www.wedgecuratorialprojects.org/history-mandate" rel="noopener" target="_blank"></a>. I was born in Windsor Ontario, which is the southernmost Canadian city—directly across the border from Detroit, Michigan. My parents were immigrants from Jamaica and had three children. We grew up going to art exhibitions in Windsor and Detroit. The Detroit Institute of Arts is the place where I first saw an artwork that spoke to me on a personal level. This was the photograph Couple in Raccoon Coats by the Harlem Renaissance photographer James Van Der Zee. It was a very sophisticated portrait of an elegant couple in the Harlem Renaissance era in the 1930s. It really spoke to me about the beauty of Black life. I think that the love of that particular work never left me. Many years later when I was a dentist and could finally afford it, I acquired the work. It became part of an exhibition that I held in my home, which was a wedge-shaped space in an old knitting factory in Toronto, a space I then called the Wedge Gallery.

James Van Der Zee, Couple in Raccoon Coats, 1932. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, NY and Dr Kenneth Montague, The Wedge Collection, Toronto

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James Van Der Zee, Couple in Raccoon Coats, 1932, Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY and Dr Kenneth Montague � The Wedge Collection, Toronto

A few years fast forward, you collection now includes over 400 works and focuses on exploring African Diasporic culture, the Black life and identity, and contemporary art. What is the legacy you want your collection to have?
There was a distinct under-representation of Black subjects in photography and in figurative painting when I started collecting and historically. I remember taking a history of art course at the University of Toronto when I was in dental school. It started with Greek civilization and early Roman artworks. There was nothing about the continent of Africa. It was very important to me, on a personal level, to showcase works that reflected my own family and community. It became a very personal project and a labor of love to acquire these images that would tell stories about my own culture, Black history and Black achievement. In a very organic way, it became a collection of images that spoke to each other. From there it evolved into other media beyond photography; such as painting, sculpture, video art and even design pieces.
The Wedge Collection legacy has always been about public access. Right from the start, the collection has been open to lending work. The idea is to promote the artists that exist in the collection and support their evolution. The Wedge Collection has always been about supporting the artists that exist within it. This is done via lending works to major exhibitions and allowing the collection to be re-examined through various curatorial projects, an example being the current touring exhibition from Aperture, entitled <a href="https://aperture.org/exhibitions/as-we-rise-photography-from-the-black-atlantic/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic</a>. The exhibition includes 108 works including one video and it focuses on Black photography within the collection from the Atlantic region and encourages the viewer to observe these works through the lenses of community, identity and power. The exhibition is currently stopping in Halifax, at the <a href="https://artgallery.dal.ca/sites/default/files/press_release_-_as_we_rise.pdf" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Dalhousie Art Gallery</a>, where it will be showing until early May 2024. 
Along with that touring exhibition is the <a href="https://aperture.org/books/as-we-rise-photography-from-the-black-atlantic/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Aperture photobook</a> that was its inspiration, as well as a vinyl record in which the music is inspired by the Black Atlantic. 
Another Wedge Collection exhibition recently closed at MOCA Toronto entitled <a href="https://moca.ca/exhibitions/the-wedge-collection-2023/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Dancing in the Light</a>. That show was co-curated by Kate Wong and Farida Abu-Bakare; some time ago, they both visited my home and recognized the importance of books and music as inspirations for my collection. They included some of my favorite novels and records which were available to the public within the exhibition in the form of a research table. These interventions made this show one of my favorites.

As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, Cover image, Aperture 2021. Image courtesy
of Dr Kenneth Montague, The Wedge Collection, Toronto

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As We Rise: Sounds from the Black Atlantic, LP cover image, Aperture 2023. Image courtesy of
Dr Kenneth Montague, The Wedge Collection, Toronto

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Bandcamp Vinyl 12" Template

Your collection originally began as the Wedge Gallery and has grown to include Wedge Curatorial Projects. Can you tell us what you enjoy about private and public art experiences? The recent exhibitions in Canada seem to be really significant in bringing light to artists that may have never been an institutional settings. We&#8217;d love to understand more about those exhibitions. 
Firstly, the gallery in my home was a very intimate place to showcase and see public art. The public viewing of art in a private home is not a very common thing. It wasn&#8217;t sustainable, and after a decade or so I had to move the gallery out of the house because it became popular and there were too many people going through my home. It was definitely a great place to start in terms of thinking about images of family and community in a setting like one&#8217;s own residence. It changed the context and made the works special in a way that would not have been possible in a major gallery or public institution.
The idea was to bring less celebrated artists into the same conversation as established artists. In the world that I lived in as a Black collector of Black artists’ work, there were so many stories that hadn’t been told. It became an important mission to balance these artists who needed exposure with the artists who already were being celebrated. When I started most of the arts community only knew about artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat. There were so few Black artists being celebrated. Today it’s become ubiquitous, particularly with Black figurative painters and portrait photographers. I&#8217;ve seen a lot of change in the thirty years that I&#8217;ve been doing this kind of work. It&#8217;s very gratifying but, also a part of me thinks, what took so long?
We couldn&#8217;t agree more. With a similar goal and hope in mind, newcube was born out of this idea of bringing into light the works of artists who have historically been under-represented, or mis-represented, if represented at all. And we&#8217;re happy that through newcube, we&#8217;ve come to meet like-minded collectors and curators who are working diligently towards making a long lasting change in the art world. You&#8217;re a perfect example of a collector with such a mission. Has your collection or choice of artists changed in the past few years?
I started with photography, in particular portraiture, and that changed as I realized that in painting you could tell the same stories. Also, there was only one of a kind in the world, which gave the work a specialness. Later I realized that there are ways of storytelling that work better in a motion picture format, like video work instead of straight photography.
I started with photography because that was the art form of my era but it really is an evolution. I was born in the 1960s, but really came into my own as a collector in the 1980s and 1990s when photography was the newest form of contemporary art being celebrated. Perhaps if I was coming into the fold today as a younger collector, I might think more about digital processes and performance art and other things that weren&#8217;t really a major part of the story of art when I was coming up. However, the collection has changed and broadened over the years as my vocabulary in the art world expanded. I think it&#8217;s very clear that the Wedge Collection will continue to expand and evolve as my interests and experience in the art world grow.

As We Rise: Photography from the Black Atlantic, Installation view at Dalhousie Art Gallery,
Halifax, 2024. Image courtesy of Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax

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As We Rise Photography from the Black Atlantic_installation_Dalhousie Art Gallery_2

On that note, what has been your most recent acquisition, and what is your dream acquisition that you may have not attained just yet? Do you have any artists on your radar at the moment?
The most recent acquisition would be a large-scale photograph from the Accra, Ghana-based photographer Carlos Idun-Tawiah. The work was featured on the cover of Aperture magazine in their ACCRA issue. He is a photographer that fits into the mold of what the curator and writer Antwaun Sargent calls &#8220;The New Black Vanguard&#8221;. Idun-Tawiah does a lot of fashion work, but his photography is informed by his own identity and background. It hints at the things that he as the artist finds particularly important. A sense of community and a kind of dialogue between the photographer and the subject is very evident in the intimacy of his photography.
A dream acquisition might be work by the Afro-Portuguese photographer and installation artist Mónica de Miranda. She is an amazing visual storyteller, and I find her art practice’s evolution to be quite interesting as she creates work from her experience as a second-generation Black artist in Europe. She explores various colonial histories that mirror the stories that I can relate to as a second-generation Black Canadian. There is a parallel of cultural references that I find compelling in her work.
There are many artists on my radar at any given moment. Currently, I&#8217;m concentrating on the dynamic emerging Black art scene here in Canada. I have been following the art collective <a href="https://www.instagram.com/baucollective/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Black Artists Union</a> (BAU)—including artists such as Aaron Jones, Timothy Yanick Hunter, Oreka James, among many others. They are now inspiring a new generation of Toronto-based Black artists who are doing experimental work that I find very fascinating.

Timothy Yanick Hunter, Untitled (Loop 1), Voile fabric print, 156” x 21.6”, 2021. Image courtesy
of the artist, Cooper Cole Gallery and Dr Kenneth Montague, The Wedge Collection, Toronto

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Timothy Yanick Hunter, Untitled (Loop 1), Voile fabric print, 156” x 21.6”, 2021, Image courtesy of the artist, Cooper Cole Gallery and Dr Kenneth Montague � The Wedge Collection, Toronto

We&#8217;re proud to have contributed to the growth of your collection, when we placed one of Shantel Miller&#8217;s best works in your collection back in 2021. The work entitled <a href="https://www.newcube.art/artwork/khanya" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Khanya</a> was recently included in the MOCA exhibition in Toronto. Both newcube and Shantel were so thrilled to follow the journey of this work, and to see again after all these years. How do you typically find and research the artists that you add to your collection?
Shantel&#8217;s work really appealed to me when I first discovered her, first and foremost because of her technical brilliance. Sometimes I&#8217;m attracted to work that I find challenging in its production. She&#8217;s an exquisite social observer and her ability to translate the finest details about her subjects is a pleasure in aesthetics that is less about concept than realization. I am continually impressed with Shantel’s evolution as a painter and love the fact that she focuses on friends and family as subjects. This gives the work a certain personal touch and palpable intimacy.
I discovered Shantel in a show that was curated by Emilie Croning, a young curator in Toronto who did a group show that featured some of her work about four or five years ago. Following this Shantel gave a talk with Jorian Charlton, another artist in the Wedge Collection. The talk was part of the programming around the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) exhibition <a href="https://ago.ca/exhibitions/mickalene-thomas-femmes-noires" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires</a>. From there she was on my radar and the work from newcube became something that I wanted to spend a longer time with, so it entered the Wedge Collection.
Generally, I find works in art journals that I subscribe to, art fairs and openings that I attend, and most commonly through recommendations by artists that already exist in my collection.

Oreka James, Untitled (detail), Oil paint, oil stick and acrylic gouache on unstretched canvas, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist and Dr Kenneth Montague, The Wedge Collection,
Toronto

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Oreka James, Untitled (detail), 2017

Any future projects you can share with us?
As the Executive Director of Wedge Curatorial Projects, I’m always thinking about how to bring the local and the global together. It&#8217;s been a mantra of the organization and the next logical step. After many years of programming exhibitions and workshops around both Toronto-based and international artists, we have decided to create an annual lecture series entitled The Wedge Lecture. It will feature an international guest in conversation with a local one. These conversations should resonate with our Toronto audiences because they will recognize the connections in art movements happening both here and abroad.
We hope to be back in Toronto soon and to follow more of your journey in the art world, through exhibitions, lectures and other related events. Thank you, Dr. Montague for your time and generosity, it&#8217;s been an honor knowing you and getting to learn more about your dedicated passion for the arts. We wish you and the entire team at the Wedge Collection all the best!

Dancing in the Light from The Wedge Collection, Installation view at Museum Of Contemporary
Art, Toronto, 2023. Image courtesy of Dr Kenneth Montague, The Wedge Collection, Toronto,
Photos By Laura Findlay

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Dancing in the Light_intallation image

newcube spoke with Dr. Kenneth Montague about the under-representation of Black subjects in modern and contemporary art. Discover more about the Wedge Collection and the Wedge Curatorial Projects, and its legacy in the art world. 

Dr. Kenneth Montague: on Art Collecting & Building Legacy in the Art World

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Born in 1992 in Seoul, South Korea, Arang Choi lives and works in Vienna, Austria.

Born in 1992 in Seoul, South Korea, Arang Choi lives and works in Vienna, Austria. A recent graduate of Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts under famed professors such as Daniel Richter, Choi’s body of work interrogates our understanding of existence. Her signature anthropomorphic and mythical creature, called Emulb (meaning "Flower" in reverse German) appears in a variety of forms throughout Choi’s work. This hybrid alter ego invokes a metaphysical notion of animism that positions humans, animals and nature on equal planes. Otherworldly and fantastical, Choi’s compositions bring together the definable and undefinable in a narrative of mystical fiction inspired by her infinite dream stage. Choi's works are featured in collections internationally, and were recently acquired by the permanent collection of a leading art institution in Vienna, Austria.

Arang Choi

Born in 2001 in Ulaan Ude, Buriad-Mongolia, Yuma Radne lives and works in London, UK.

Born in 2001 in Ulaan Ude, Buriad-Mongolia, Yuma Radne currently lives and works in London, UK where she is completing her degree at Slade School of Art. Radne previously studied in Saint Petersburg and Vienna. Her work explores the relationship between humans and nature, and narrates the connection between the two. Mythological, fantastical, energetic and incredibly unique, Radne creates her own myths to explore, and operates with the idea that nothing is supposed to have an answer and anything can be any color you want it to be.

Yuma Radne

Born in 1997 in Shenzhen, China Baoying Huang lives and works in Long Island City, NY.

Born in 1997 in Shenzhen, China, Baoying Huang lives and works in Long Island City, NY. Huang uses art as a portal to tell her story of living between two cultures: being a citizen of China, and a resident of the U.S. Living in the ongoing pandemic and the antagonism between the two nations, Huang’s paintings depict the compartmentalized environments that she lives in, and her emotional connection with domestic themes as she raises questions about the meaning of home.

Huang considers her paintings as containers of “nomad” thoughts. The aspiration of wanting to express herself through language and conversation is compromised and compressed into painting materials and visual forms. Colors in these paintings are filtered and dimmed, which points to a sense of coldness she observes in her repetitive living patterns during the pandemic– being trapped in a humanless land and only able to see the traces she left in a space. The distinction between the air-tight surface and scratchy brush marks represents the paradox between hyperrealism and a gauzy, blurred romanticism. Huang believes in the power of painting because of its open-endedness communication. She is pointing at the mundane which all human beings can perceive, and hopes the spark in the dark can eventually make a good blaze. Painting is a practice to process the melancholy that comes from the present disconnect and allergy to the past; painting is Huang’s reconciliation to the outside world and the reflection of the internal mind.

Baoying Huang

Born in 1988 in Tehran, Iran, Reihaneh Hosseini lives and works in Vienna, Austria.

Born in 1988 in Tehran, Iran, Reihaneh Hosseini lives and works in Vienna.

Born and raised in Tehran, Hosseini studied philosophy before emigrating to Vienna in 2014, where she currently resides. Trained under Austrian abstract artists including Christian Schwarzwald and Gunter Damisch, Reihaneh soon returned to figurative painting, her favored style for reflecting on the world that surrounds her. As a storyteller, she is inspired by her friends and her everyday life experiences, yet she portrays them with a dysmorphic rendition, exaggerated proportions, grotesque, and distorted features, and an incongruous palette. Her strong sense of corporeality coupled with the absurdity of the scenes that she depicts reveal a psycho-emotional approach to life and painting. The figures that populate her works oscillate between beauty and ugliness, they have a cartoonish appearance that adds a glimpse of humor and playfulness to her compositions, yet they are imbued with philosophical subtleties. Hosseini’s paintings take us to a dreamlike world where each of her characters evokes our unconscious thoughts, our inner child, as well as our mental and social imagery.

Reihaneh Hosseini

Born in 1993 in Lisbon, Portugal, Pedro Ruxa lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Born in 1993 in Lisbon, Portugal, Pedro Ruxa lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Ruxa is enamored with painting and inspired by words. It is through painting, but also through objects and bits and pieces of poems that Ruxa attempts to communicate with his senses and sensibility. His works create an intimate dialogue, be it actually between himself and the paint, or us and the words. Through a reconstructed language that is his own, shapes, colors, letters, and sentences become his subject matter. Ruxa constantly creates ever-changing clouds of words and imagery and sticks them on his studio walls, making them the starting point to his oeuvre. Yet, he simultaneously explores the restraints of this same language: what is happening before or after what we see? The more Ruxa tends to take control over his words, his sight, and his emotions, the more he is unable to contain it within the realm of comprehension. But all this is exactly at the core of his aesthetic language and it is undeniably touching, both visually and emotionally.

Pedro Ruxa

Born in 1992 in Seattle, Washington, Brandon Elijah Johnson lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Born in 1992 in Seattle, Washington, Brandon Elijah Johnson lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

As we step into Johnson's world, somewhere between imagination and reality, we become a part of his visual diary. A collector of images, from photographs found on the internet to snapshots taken with his phone, Johnson reinterprets familiar ordinary scenes in his paintings and drawings, perhaps in an attempt to freeze a moment in time. He takes reference images from his direct environment and intentionally - or not - offers a representative picture of today’s world. His vivid compositions draw from pop culture, embrace pastiche, and remain attached to the here and now. As part of a generation willingly returning to figurative painting, Johnson moves away from pure representation, at times infusing a touch of playfulness, and distancing himself from painterly conventions. Between fiction and documentary reality, Johnson’s works reveal a part of our collective memory.

Brandon Elijah Johnson

Born in 1977 in Helsinki, Finland, Elina Salminen lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Born in 1977 in Helsinki, Finland, Elina Salminen lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Salminen’s works are hybrid. They are both paintings and objects, sculptures and installations, light and shadow, floating and barely palpable, yet we are drawn to unveil what lies behind them or else, within the color itself. Salminen surprises us as viewers and we question what we see. Her works play with space and time, they move beyond the surface and reflect on her fascination with color as an intangible source of light. With her paintings, Salminen delicately applies monochromatic hues on edges and corners, then covers the emptiness with translucent materials such as cloth or glass. There is no paint on the surface of the painting, only a reflection of the color that hides behind. Utterly romantic, her works engage us in a conversation about protection and warmth. They are abstracted minimalist compositions that entail infinite meanings, each altered with time and space.

Elina Salminen

Born in 1987, Nick Farhi lives and works in New York, NY.

Nick Farhi (b. 1987, New York) is an artist, poet, and theorist. 

Developing a wonky and uniquely a-skewed visual grammar through the labor of painting, Farhi's works are often large scale representational oil paintings that depict everyday objects and reflect on the rhythm of life. Through an interplay between visual research, spanning from found imagery and autobiographical photography, to an internal intuition for cinematic figuration, Farhi makes his painterly mark by elevating ordinary objects to the status of memento mori. A piano, a glass or a coffee machine become symbolic tropes that act as a reminder of the inevitability of nostalgia.

 

Nick Farhi

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Artworks by Price

Glazed stoneware 
2024
Czech-born Eva Yurková now lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Trained in traditional printmaking, her aesthetic ideas always stem from an imaginary printing press. Working in layers, in fields of color and shapes, the bodies often at the center of her works are a matrix made of oil, wood, paper, linoleum or clay, or a mix of these materials. With Touché, Yurková works with sharp materials and heavy metals such as steel. Inspired by the hellenistic sculpture "Boy with Thorn", the artist reflects on the sense of discomfort that can be found beyond beauty, like a moment of itch, where there is an urge to stop and pull the thorn out of the heel, or in this case out of various parts of the female body, perhaps her own. Ordinary pain comes to stand next to the ideal beauty of God and Goddesses. The sharp stars are purposefully glazed within the body of the figure to enhance this sense of discomfort, however a corporeal or spiritual feeling known to many.

Description 

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With a certificate of authenticity signed by the Artist.

Authentication 

Born in 1996 in Svitavy, Czech Republic, Eva Yurková lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Yurková graduated from Painting and Printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig and later on, from Vienna’s University of Applied Arts where she studied Graphics and Printmaking. Known for her multifaceted work with collaging linocut, woodcut, colored papers and oil, she creates figurative landscapes, with both realistic and fantastical environments into which she sets her characters. With streamlined body forms, her figures are often female identifying, who are either alone or seen interacting with bodies similar to themselves. Set against surreal scenes with overlapping  floral and environmental elements, Yurková's dream-like landscapes evoke enraptured fantasy. In this way, Yurková portrays moments of public intimacy, but also a rejection of the systematic norms in which the gaze towards the female body is embedded.

Eva Yurková

Sculpture

Touché

Oil on canvas 
2023
A pseudo-self portrait, Radne depicts her inner emotions as she’s on the cusp of exciting life changes and challenges whilst feeling exhausted from waiting for the future.

Painting

Waiting

Ceramic and glaze in artist frame 
2022

Description

Authentication

Born in 1994 in St. Louis, Missouri where she currently lives and works, Palestinian-American artist Saj Issa explores vital topics, including cultural erasure, dispute, displacement, capitalism and climate change. The regional transition between Palestine, Los Angeles and St. Louis, Missouri where she is currently based, has had a significant influence on her practice, fueling her exploration of the current social context and the contrasting realities between these places. A standout of Issa’s works are the incorporation of Western languages, brands and logos – each a highly commercial aspect – layered before ornate ceramic tiles that have traditionally been tools to represent less atheist concepts. Saj Issa's commitment to documenting the social context and her surroundings remains steadfast, creating art that resonates with audiences worldwide.

Saj Issa

Installation

Bleachscape #4

Oil on Canvas 
2021
Baoying Huang is a citizen of China who has been living in the US for over 7 years. Through painting, she tells her story as a young woman living between two cultures. Her paintings depict the compartmentalized environments she lives in, and they reveal her emotional connection to domestic themes as she asks herself what the meaning of home is. With a play on reflection, on inside/outside and a depiction of the normal objects that surround her, Huang builds herself an aesthetic universe that has become her home.

6 P.M.

Oil on linen mounted on panel 
2022
In found midcentury photographs, clichés like suburban cowboys appear as American kitsch, almost comforting in their familiarity. Artist Meghan Murray examines these motifs, parsing out Kodachrome color cast, pouring over the 35 mm slide memories of a stranger with both nostalgia and a cold disaffection. Murray finds herself complicit in a history written by the figures in these photos. In this work, Murray reimagines the humor and warmth of the Christmas season, and the obsession with the western television genre, especially during the 1960s and 1970s. In elevating a discarded snapshot to the historical context of painting and by engaging with the snapshot as both archival object and image, Murray encourages critical viewing of emblematic themes. The titles Murray uses for her works are found in the New York Times archives, from the same year that the original photo was printed, in a way to challenge the temporality - or lack thereof - in the image.

With a certificate of authenticity signed by the Artist.

Born in 1994 in Massachussets, Waltham-based Meghan Murray received her BS in Studio Art from Skidmore College in 2016 and her MFA in Painting from Boston University in 2022. Her representational painting practice embodies and simultaneously intervenes upon historical tradition. Murray’s oeuvre is a continued investigation into intergenerational American ideals and clichés as viewed in the mid-century family photo album. Her paintings examine her preoccupation with nostalgia as she finds inspiration in midcentury photographs that she collects. She is a recipient of the 2022 Blanche E. Colman award for New England artists and was awarded second place in the 2023 Miami University Young Painters competition by juror John Yau. Murray currently lives and works in Waltham, MA.



Meghan Murray

President and Family Spend Quiet Christmas in Capital (December 26, 1968)

Oil on canvas 
2022
A collector of images, from photographs found on the internet to snapshots taken with his phone, Brandon Elijah Johnson typically reinterprets a familiar or an ordinary scene, perhaps in an attempt to freeze a moment in time.

Claire's Knee

Oil on canvas 
2022
In Three Women, Reihaneh Hosseini once again pushes boundaries forward, tainted with humor and cynicism. A selfportrait, Hosseini stands proud alongside two of her closest friends from the LBGTQ community back in her native Iran. Their somewhat deranged and melancholic appearance is a reflection of how the conservative society in which they live - or rather survive - perceives them. There's something purposefully disturbing, yet a peaceful and tender affection between the figures seems obvious. These figures are not erotic objects, rather Hosseini speaks against genderism, and in favor of humanity. A contemporary take on The Three Graces, the artist and her friends - like Euphrosyne, Aglaia and Thalia - each bestow a particular gift on humanity, but with a twist. They become a metaphor for a complex approach to gender identity: the artist herself is heterosexual, yet still on a journey exploring her sexual identity, while her friends are respectively lesbian and transexual. How do they fit - as human beings - in their contemporary society, and in particular within the restrained and overly restricted Iranian community?

Three Women

Acrylic on wood and Cotton cloth 
2020
In Finnish, Kangastus means 'mirage' or 'illusion' and Kangas refers to the 'cloth'. The title of the painting, therefore, brings together two defining aspects of Salminen’s work, the illusion and perception of color with the delicate cloth that reflects light. As part of an intimate series created by Salminen, this work epitomises how the artist plays around with both the visible and the invisible.

Arang Choi

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Waiting

Bleachscape #4

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Our Artists

Arang Choi

Artist from Vienna, Austria

Yuma Radne

Artist from London, UK

Baoying Huang

Artist from Long Island City, New York

Reihaneh Hosseini

Artist from Vienna, Austria

Pedro Ruxa

Artist from Brussels, Belgium

Brandon Elijah Johnson

Artist from Brooklyn, NY

Elina Salminen

Artist from Brussels, Belgium

Nick Farhi

Artist from New York, NY

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