BEFORE / AFTER THOUGHT OPENS TOMORROW · CAMP Z AT AAF, ONE WEEK OUT ·
GIANTS AT SPRING/BREAK · NEW YORK
Hi {{first_name|there}},
The paintings are on the walls. Before / After Thought opens tomorrow, Thursday, 6–8 PM — seven surrealists, twenty works, and the artists in the room. Then the calendar tightens: Camp Z hangs its first fair booth at the Affordable Art Fair next Wednesday as its newest official fellow, and the week after that, Collective Z takes Jim Radakovich's Giants to SPRING/BREAK on 57th Street. Three things, three weeks, in order.
OPENS TOMORROW · THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 6–8 PM
Before / After Thought
A surrealism group exhibition · seven painters · September 10–26
Last week we gave you the argument: surrealism never settled whether the unconscious is reached by letting go or by building it on purpose. Tomorrow you can walk the line yourself.
Amy Swartelé, Angel and Cookie Monster, 2023, Oil and mixed media on canvas, 48 × 36 in, $4,200
Amy Swartelé lets go. A blue fur monster in peacock feathers; an eye that opens into a face that opens into a body — creatures that surface out of oil, collage and mixed media and read as found rather than made. You do not decode them so much as recognise them, the way you recognise a figure in a cloud a second before it dissolves.
James Stamboni, Some Brave Apollo, 2012, Oil on brass, 32 × 24 in, $6,000
James Stamboni, Apotheosis, with Kittens, 2011, Oil on hardboard with aluminium leaf, 32 × 24 in, $6,000
James Stamboni builds. Oil on brass, oil on hardboard over aluminium leaf, in the finish of an old altarpiece — a guitarist haloed in spikes, a woman on a stool with a kitten — every impossible thing reasoned out and rendered until it holds still. The metal ground does the rest: the paintings change as you move, and the light in the room tomorrow will do half the work.
Amy Swartelé, Tell Me I'm Pretty, 2021, Oil and mixed media on PVC board, 32 × 47 in, $3,800
The other five — Robert Zurer, Anya Rosen, Jocelyn Tsaih, Claire Hashman and Jim Radakovich — you met last week. Twenty works in all, hung so the two methods have to answer to each other. Come stand in front of a painting, notice what surfaces before you can name it, then try to tell which door the painter came through. You will be wrong about half the time. That is the show.
The opening is tomorrow, Thursday, September 10, 6–8 PM. Wine, and the artists will be there. Free — but please RSVP; the room is intimate and it fills.
On view September 10–26 · Wednesday–Saturday, 1–6 PM, and by appointment · the run carries straight through fair week
SEPTEMBER 16–20 · STARRETT-LEHIGH BUILDING · 601 WEST 26TH STREET · BOOTH F1
Camp Z at Affordable Art Fair NYC
One week out · five artists on the walls · original works from $425 to $5,000 · plus a browsing rack
One week from today, Camp Z hangs its first booth as the fair's newest Fellowship Gallery. The whole booth is online now: every work on the walls, every price, and a Buy button that reserves a piece at list. Save a shortlist, ask a question, make an offer, or split a purchase into installments. If you cannot get to 26th Street, everything can be reserved remotely.
On the walls: John Hayduk's Shift oils, Tanner Bosma's rain-washed cityscapes in acrylic and resin, Vivian Cavalieri's shadow-box assemblages, Patti Jordan's works on paper, and the Fair Weather skies of Alex Z. Wang. And the browsing rack now has its names: works on paper by Roberta Fineberg, Cécile Roberfroid, Alise Loebelsohn, Robbie Piper and Kevin Andrew — the lowest prices on the stand, and the easiest to carry home.
First Look, the fair's opening night, is Wednesday, September 16, 5–9 PM. We are still holding VIP passes for readers of this letter — each pass admits two. One tip: the entry line at First Look gets long, so arrive a little before five.
General admission Thursday–Sunday · tickets at affordableartfair.com
SEPTEMBER 23–28 · SPRING/BREAK ART SHOW · 555 WEST 57TH STREET
Giants
Jim Radakovich · a solo presentation by Collective Z · Special Project
Jim Radakovich, Founding Fathers, 2026, Oil on canvas, 60 × 48 in
Collective Z takes a room at SPRING/BREAK for the first time. The curator-run fair accepted Giants as a Special Project: Jim Radakovich, alone, with the 60 × 48 oils — Founding Fathers, Antoinette's Dream, and more — in a room of their own.
Radakovich paints like the nineteenth century — layered oil, mountain light, deep atmospheric distance — and then sets something impossible down in the landscape and renders it with exactly the same care. In Founding Fathers, two men in velvet come upon a hot dog the size of a chapel and do what anyone would: stop, and look up. In Before / After Thought he is one of seven. At SPRING/BREAK he gets the whole room, and the paintings get the scale they were made for.
Collectors First Look and Press Preview: Wednesday, September 23, 12–5 PM. Opening Night: the same evening, 5–8 PM. Public days Thursday through Monday, September 24–28, noon–7 PM.
555 West 57th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh · tickets on Eventbrite
The week at a glance
Before / After Thought — surrealism group exhibition
Opens tomorrow, Thursday, September 10, 6–8 PM · RSVP here
On view through September 26 · Wednesday–Saturday, 1–6 PM, and by appointment
Collective Z, 325 Broome Street, 1W, New York, NY 10002
Back to School — Roberta Fineberg · Collective Z on Artsy
On view now through October 24 · see the show
Camp Z at Affordable Art Fair NYC — our accessible art program debut
September 16–20 · Starrett-Lehigh Building, 601 West 26th Street · Booth F1 · First Look Wednesday, September 16, 5–9 PM
Browse the booth · Request VIP passes · general tickets at affordableartfair.com
Giants — Jim Radakovich · Collective Z at SPRING/BREAK
September 23–28 · 555 West 57th Street · Opening Night Wednesday, September 23, 5–8 PM · tickets
See you tomorrow,
Alex Z. Wang
Founder & Director, Collective Z
Collective Z · 325 Broome Street, 1W, New York, NY 10002