January 4 - February 6, 2026
B. Wurtz | Marc Van Cauwenbergh - Connecting | Mary Bergs | Cynthia Reynolds - Not Everywhere Is a Place | Barry Canter - Between Us
OPENING RECEPTION, SUNDAY, JANUARY 4th, 2026, 1-4pm
AL’S OFFICE
B. Wurtz
“I feel like you look first and then the theoretical stuff happens. When I’m looking at an artist’s work, I want to look at it first and then I want to hear about it. Art is visual, however conceptual it is or political or however heavy the subject matter, it’s still a visual thing, and that’s the place to start.” B. Wurtz, June 2016, from In Conversation with Sara Roffino, The Brooklyn Rail
B. Wurtz was born in 1948 in Pasadena, California, and lives and works in New York. He opened a major solo exhibition This Has No Name at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2018 while simultaneously presenting his first public commission, Kitchen Trees, through the New York City Public Art Fund. In 2015 he was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom. In 2016 the exhibition traveled to La Casa Encendida, Madrid. He has had additional solo exhibitions at Kunstverein Freiburg; White Flag Projects, St. Louis; and Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago. His work has been included in group exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon.
WAITING ROOM
Marc Van Cauwenbergh - Connecting
These recent paintings explore the increasing fragmentation of human identity and communication within the chaos of the contemporary, urban world; the faceted emotions of physical and psychological relationships. The canvases are a theatrical space, onto which one can project life with its ever-changing combinations of people and environments.
In these works strokes of paint become details of larger, unseen forms in unseen environments. Whole sensual, organic shapes, applied in fluid, dynamic layers of paint on raw Belgian linen, are dissected to a more intimate level. Within the space, a balance is created between these shapes that seem to be floating or quietly suspended in time, other areas emphasize slow transitions or brusk shifts. Their specific colors connect, blend or simply pass by.
Marc Van Cauwenbergh is a Belgian-American artist who has lived and worked in New York since 1994. He moved to New Jersey in 2022 and currently spends part of the year working in the Ardeche region in France. Originally from Ninove, Belgium, he studied printmaking at the LUCA School of Arts in Ghent and holds an MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. He has exhibited internationally since 1984, including at Radial Art Contemporain (Strasbourg), 57W57arts (NY), Jason McCoy Gallery (NY, online), Alice Mogabgab Gallery (Beirut), Galerie Van Caelenberg (Aalst), the Belgian-American Chamber of Commerce (NY), Mathilde Hatzenberger Gallery (Brussels), Huize St-Bonaventura (Ghent), Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island (NY) and Galerij S 65, Aalst (BE). His work is in private, public and corporate collections such as the Collection of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Brussels, BE), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (NY), Centre de la Gravure et de l’Image Imprimée (La Louvière, BE), Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY), EBES (Ghent, BE). Awards include Grant Flemish Community, Belgium and a Fulbright-Hays Grant for Graduate Study in the USA.
AL’S OFFICE
Mary Bergs
Several years ago I moved from Minneapolis to a village of 943 people in southern WI. Living in this rural area has inspired me to reconsider my ideas about the landscape and location. This work is about place, our relationship to and perceptions of place. Place influences who we are and also how we are perceived by others. The space we inhabit determines what we see, what we experience and what we have access to. In this work I explore how the specifics of place can be generalized through abstraction. Repurposed found materials are used to construct the collages.
Mary Bergs is a visual artist and curator who works in a variety of media. Bergs received her BFA from the University of Minnesota, her MSSW from the University of Louisville and her BS from the University of WI. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, nationally and internationally. She has been the recipient of MN State Arts Board Grants, a Jerome Foundation Grant, and an Open Fund Grant. Her work has been exhibited at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, Madison Central Library, Madison WI, Museo de San Ramon, San Ramon Costa Rica, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago IL and at many colleges and universities. Bergs lives and works in Benton, WI. where she manages Benton Projects, an artist residency program and host of public art projects.
MELANIE’S OFFICE
Cynthia Reynolds - Not Everywhere Is a Place
Packing materials have been at the center of my practice since 1998. I relate to them on a deeply personal level, responding intuitively to their forms and spaces in ways that speak to comfort and discomfort - physical, emotional, and psychological. Since moving to New York City in late 2014, I have used only the discarded packaging I encounter by chance. This subtle choreography between my private movements and the public system of waste disposal offers a point of connection with another person and their satisfied desire, both of which are absent and unknown. The space of the packaging remains safe, and I feel a deep pathos toward these abandoned absences that once served to protect something fragile and are now stripped of purpose. The labor and care I bring to transforming them underscore the irony of treating what most consider garbage with such sustained attention.
Cynthia Reynolds (she/her) is a Kentucky-born, New York-based artist who works with discarded packaging she collects from the city streets. She holds an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle (Ceramics), a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute (Ceramics), and a BA from Centre College in Kentucky (English/Studio Art). Recent professional highlights include her solo residency at the Potato Farm Project on the North Fork of Long Island, her collaboration on a new ballet for Norte Maar’s CounterPointe 12, her first published review for Volume III of Peer Review, and her first social performance for Art in Odd Places 2024: CARE. Her work has been featured in exhibitions across the US, most recently with 4heads and 57W57 in New York and the Monira Foundation in Jersey City. She is the recipient of a 2026 NYSCA Support for Artists grant, an Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the KY Arts Council, and multiple grants from the KY Foundation for Women.
SHELF
Barry Canter - Between Us
My ceramic practice is grounded in a desire to create objects that don’t trigger familiar associations. My construction process isn’t so much about building as it is about taking away. I’m removing all visual clues that might be read as recognizable imagery. I want to create pieces that are quiet and more or less wordless, like a rock you pick up and take home. After creating an initial form, my attention is focused on the surface; scraping and paddling and texturing. This is a meditative process for which I don’t place limits on time or repetition. There is a point at which the sculpture evolves an internal coherence and autonomy. It’s ready for the kilns. The interior of a closed form is space unseen, but its presence may be felt. The invitation to touch is intentional. There is always a place for the hand. I’ve placed each piece on a plinth in order to draw attention to its restrained completeness. These are small works looking to draw the viewer into their presence.
Barry Canter was born in Jersey City where he attended public high school in the 1970’s. The pervasive anarchy of that time suited his sense of nonconformity. Canter moved to New York in 1980 to live in the East Village. It wasn’t until 2013 that Canter started working with clay at Togei Kyoshitsu in Midtown Manhattan. During that time he showed work at Situations Gallery in Chinatown, at Kosaka Gallery in the West Village, and at 57w57 Gallery in Midtown. For the past few years Canter has been working at Sculpture Space NYC in Long Island City. This is Canter’s second show at 57w57, the first one having been in 2017.
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