Black Mountain Came to Brooklyn! Artists Kyle Staver and Michael David—alongside guest critics Steven Harvey and Nino Mierled a spirited, rigorous, and open-ended edition of Symposia!, where conversation, critique, and community were at the heart of the experience. Over seven months of Zoom-based sessions, the salon created space for artists to deeply engage with their own work and that of their cohort, while also reflecting on what it truly meant to live as an artist: maintaining a practice, navigating challenges, and staying rooted in the formal and conceptual concerns of their art.
Kyle Staver and Michael David Cohorts
Ana Guzman
Elizabeth Nagel
Patricia Richards
Sam Shaffer
Morgane Richer La Fleche
Jennifer Mawby
Kyle Staver is an artist living and working in New York City. Her paintings and reliefs have been shown in galleries and museums around the world, including at the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Folk Art Museum. In 2015, she received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Kyle’s paintings combine myths and archetypes with lush color and dynamic compositions. She is a formidable painter and a gifted speaker on her work and the work of others.
Michael David: Guggenheim Fellow, recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, Yaddo and Edward Albee Fellow, Michael David has been exhibiting internationally since 1981, first with the historical Sidney Janis and then with M. Knoedler & Co. Exhibiting widely throughout the United States for 40 years, he has been the subject of much historical and curatorial acclaim. His most recent solo shows, “The Mirror Stage” and "Night Time with Dreams and Mirror," were held at Johnson Lowe Gallery in Atlanta, GA. His work is included in many prominent private collections and the permanent public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Margulies Collection in Miami and the Edward Albee Foundation in Montauk NY, and was the subject of a one-person exhibition at Aspen Museum of Art. Considered an inheritor of Abstract Expressionism, David’s abstract work primarily centers on the use of a densely layered surface to facilitate a direct and immediate spiritual experience. He often incorporates religious iconography and symbolism, art historical themes such as the nude, and contemporary politics into his paintings, resulting in a critical dialogue between the layered abstraction of the surface and the integrated representational imagery. Over the last decade, David established the Fine Arts Workshop in Atlanta and the Yellow Chair Salon, working with artists on an immersive one-on-one basis, helping to develop their voice and professional practices, finding exhibition opportunities, and taking their individual expressions to the next level. His mentorship practice expanded to include residencies and workshops in Atlanta, Dallas, TX, Truro, MA, and Brooklyn, NY. He has taught painting at Princeton, was head of the Graduate Painting Department at SCAD in Atlanta, and lectured and served as a keynote speaker at many universities and art centers across the United States. Over the last 12 years, David has established, directed, and curated two of the most successful galleries in Brooklyn: Life On Mars and M. David & Co.