A Trip to Spring Break Art Show Yields a Touching Encounter With Steve Buscemi, a Racy Call Center, and Much, Much More
Steve Buscemi with the work of his late wife, Jo Andres, at Spring Break Art Show New York, 2023. Photo by Matthew Cascone.
You never know what you’re going to get at Spring Break Art Show—and the fair’s 2023 New York edition is more unpredictable than ever. The curator-led fair, beloved for installing cutting-edge contemporary art in unconventional venues, has even adopted the title “Wild Card!” this year. Instead of shaping a proposal around a new theme, potential curators were free to pitch proposals based on any one of the event’s previous themes from the past 11 years.
The cubicles and office spaces of 625 Madison Avenue, the former Ralph Lauren headquarters that Spring Break has called home since 2020, were, as always, bursting at the seams. An astounding 110 exhibitions, organized by some 150 curators, were on hand.
There was also a sprinkle of celebrity star dust courtesy of Steve Buscemi, there to support a solo presentation of work by his late wife and frequent collaborator, Jo Andres, a choreographer, filmmaker, and photographer. (He was also spotted gamely posing for selfies with fans.)
The two met back in 1983, when they were both part of New York’s downtown experimental performance scene. “We lived across the street from each other in the East Village,” Buscemi told Artnet News. He became a regular participant in Andres’s projects, which began in the dance world and soon branched out into film, using video projections on tulle hung across the stage to create a holographic effect during her performances.
A 1990 film featuring Buscemi, in which Andres is visibly pregnant with the couple’s only child, Lucian Buscemi, is among the works on view at the fair. There is also a large selection of her later work in photography, including an array of delightfully creepy, hauntingly beautiful cyanotypes documenting her collection of vintage ceramic dolls, some with double exposures of industrial-looking structures.
Curator Taylor Lee Nicholson and artist Janet Loren Hill with “Lickety-Split, All in Jest!,” at Spring Break Art Show 2023, New York. Photo by Matthew Cascone.
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Artnet News spotted both regular Spring Break curator Maureen Sullivan and artist Alexandria Deters (showing $250 to $700 embroidered works with curator and artist Katrina Majkut) triumphantly sporting the purple crown sculptures they had won by smashing plaster teeth sculptures by Janet Loren Hill.
The game, a highlight of “Lickety-Split, All in Jest!,” curated by Taylor Lee Nicholson (returning the favor after Hill included their work in the 2023 L.A. fair), “is about the allure of belonging,” Hill told Artnet News. “It gets people to participate in violence that they would not normally!”