Ceramics take centre stage at Spring Break’s 'secret' New York pop-up
Torey Akers, The Art Newspaper, May 19, 2023
The Spring Break Art Show, a curator-led fair that specialises in outlandish, do-it-yourself aesthetics, has returned to its original venue—a former Catholic school in Little Italy—for a pop-up iteration, Secret Show (until 20 May), during New York's Frieze Week. It features works by 100 artists who have been involved with the fair since it launched in 2009. Spanning four rooms over two floors, the show hits familiar notes for the fair’s brand, from wobbly figuration and untameable colour to off-kilter representations of everyday life. Small-scale ceramics are especially prevalent in the not-so-secret exhibition, infusing the busy installations with fresh injections of camp.
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Cigarettes are everywhere at Spring Break’s pop-up, a nod to the analogue days of creative counterculture that feel so distant in the age of the vape. Mary Gagler’s slumping ceramic butts, Thomas Martinez-Pilnik’s yarn and monkscloth Ciggys, all for sale for under $1,500, update Claes Oldenburg’s 1960s foam sculptures for the Millennial set. New York-based artist Taylor Lee Nicholson has contributed a winningly chunky installation of cigarette butts, beaten-up “dad hats” and de-skilled floral tableaux. The individual cigarette butts she made from a combination of papier-mâché and ceramic are available at the fair’s front desk for $35 a pop.