Romare Bearden & Nancy Grossman at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York, New York, USA through 2 November 2024. “Romare Bearden & Nancy Grossman: Collage in Dialogue” is an exhibition focused on the artistic exchange between two leading innovators of the medium. Though Bearden was a generation older than Grossman, the artists initiated their collage practices within a year of each other—Grossman in 1962 and Bearden in 1963—and shared crucial developments in their technique through a continuous dialogue. Brought together through the cultural milieu fostered by their dealer at the time, Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, the two artists remained close friends until Bearden’s death, forging a vital rapport that shaped their practices and lives.

Thursday, September 26, 2024, 6-8PM | Kolaj institute Gallery | $30 fee

In New Orleans, we love our costumes. Madera E. Rogers-Henry of The Recycle Challenge will lead a workshop during which participants will repurpose trash to make wearable items.The Recycle Challenge is "a multinational initiative that celebrates the richness of diversity and is committed to fostering an inclusive environment that respects and values individuals of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Locally based in New Orleans, we reach global partners from Nigeria to the Congo." The organization offers hands-on experiences that fuse cultural art with upcycling. Their crafting sessions foster creativity, teach collaboration, and leave participants with a sense of accomplishment. Working as a team, participants fold, layer paper, infuse cardboard and shape each hat, they showcase their creativity and learn new crafting techniques. The end result is a display of individual and collective craftsmanship. This session promotes inclusivity, enhances communication, and problem-solving skills, and instills a sense of pride and unity among participants. "Take the green journey step to celebrate effective and fun solutions to reducing the trash that would ultimately go to landfills."

at Gravers Lane Gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA through 20 September 2024. This exhibition is an ongoing in-print, online and brick-and-mortar exhibition designed to showcase new and exciting works of art using innovative and alternative materials and processes. Conceived of and juried by Fiber Art Now‘s creative team, there are no geographic boundaries as artists are challenged to interpret what constitutes “Fiber Reimagined”. The staff at Fiber Art Now were the first round judges and chose the works accepted for the in-print and online showcase. Gravers Lane Gallery approached the selected works from the perspective of curating as a physical installation, which is a much different mindset, approaching the physicality, materiality and creative design.

Collage Philadelphia at The Athenaeum of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA through 26 October 2024. “Paper Trails”, presented in collaboration between Collage Philadelphia and The Athenaeum, is an exhibition that explores, expands, and complicates understandings of collage art. Curated from an open call submission process, the exhibit features over sixty artworks. “Paper Trails” presents collage not simply as a fixed artform, but as a flexible and ever-evolving practice of familiarizing everyday imagery to radically new ends. By juxtaposing figures and objects, cityscapes and animals, abstractions and gestures, many of the works on view derive their power from the emergence of surprising visual combinations, whether chance or planned.

Erika Lawlor Schmidt at The Hesterly Black in Waterbury, Vermont, USA through 20 December 2024. Erika Lawlor Schmidt's work is about the assimilation of observation and experience of the body, psyche and spiritual life force, and finding connections with the world around us. She most often works in "series" arriving through a collage sensibility where fragments, images and symbolic elements are integrated, fused, and layered in order to capture a momentary glimpse, thought or view. A view that originates in a belief she shares with Eastern philosophies, in that the world is made up of a complex web of interrelating parts, where the division of nature into separate objects is not fundamental, rather fluid and ever-changing in character, a view that contains time and change as essential features. Curated by Joseph Pensak.

At Kolaj Institute, our philosophy is that if we bring artists together, explore ideas and concepts, share knowledge, we can stretch and develop as artists. When we bring that knowledge and skill into our communities, we raise the standing of collage and contribute to the civic discourse. Kolaj Institute's Artist Development Program is a collection of three core workshops for self-motivated artists, at any stage in their career, who want to develop and expand their collage-based artist practice and work towards professional goals, particularly in the areas of exhibitions and publishing.

NEXT SESSION: Curating Collage Workshop

starts Sundays, 29 September 

DEADLINE TO APPLY

Friday, 20 September 2024

Next Deadline: 29 September 2024 (for Spring 2025 dates). Residents stay in Kolaj Institute’s space in the New Orleans Healing Center, where they will have their own bedroom, and access to a shared kitchen and bathroom with shower. Residents work in Kolaj Institute’s Gallery that includes access to collage making supplies and a printer. The Gallery and Resident space is located on the second floor of a building in the Marigny neighborhood. The wrap-around balcony overlooks St. Roch Market. Residents work independently to complete their plan. At the end of the residency, we meet with the artist to review their progress with them and discuss next steps. Submissions are reviewed on an ongoing basis.