Elise Asher • Mel Casas • Sari Dienes • Martha Edelheit • Susan Fortgang • Mimi Gross • Colleen Herman • Huê Thi Hoffmaster • Matt Kleberg • David MacDonald • Christabel MacGreevy • Diane Marsh • Sana Musasama • Joe Overstreet • Pat Passlof • Lauren dela Roche • Bruce M. Sherman • Patrick Siler • Thomas Sills • Paul Waters
Eric Firestone Gallery is pleased to participate in The Armory Show 2025 at the Javits Center. The gallery’s presentation will combine historic and contemporary sculpture and painting, drawing connections between generations and highlighting the work of artists currently featured in museum exhibitions.
Martha Edelheit (b. 1931) and Mel Casas (1929–2014) will be represented in the Armory presentation with works from the 1960s, anticipating the Whitney Museum’s exhibition Sixties Surreal, opening September 24th. The booth will feature a 1967 painting from Casas’s consequential Humanscapes series, which uses Pop Art sensibilities and biting wit to address Chicano topics. Edelheit’s figurative work from this period is pioneering in its feminism and confronts dominant art historical paradigms, foregrounding agency and desire. Also on view will be a 1960s painting by Mimi Gross (b. 1940), who is currently spotlighted in the Brooklyn Museum with an exhibition of her legendary 1976 sculptural installation Ruckus Manhattan. Alongside these historic figurative paintings will be new works by Lauren dela Roche (b. 1983), a self-described queer punk feminist artist whose autodidactic approach integrates a broad range of references, including zines, European modernisms, and autobiography. Dela Roche is the recipient of a Great Rivers Biennial Award and will present an exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO, in September 2026.
Ceramic sculpture is another highlight of the presentation, with historic work by Patrick Siler (b. 1939) alongside contemporary vessels by Christabel MacGreevy (b. 1991). Siler, who began in the Bay Area funk scene of the late 1960s, and deals with the iconography of Americana is in dialogue with the London-based MacGreevy, as both blend humor, bold graphic imagery, and storytelling to transform their hand-thrown vessels. Additionally, the booth will include a major sculpture by Sana Musasama (b. 1951), who is the subject of a solo exhibition, Sana Musasama: Raised Earth, opening at the gallery’s Great Jones Street location on September 5th.
Abstract paintings by significant American post-war artists will be on view beside new works by their younger peers, drawing inspiration from the natural world. Pat Passlof (1928–2011) of the late 1990s and early 2000s refer loosely to her experiences in the Shawangunk Mountains of upstate New York, while contemporary paintings by Colleen Herman (b. 1982) reflect seasonal changes and time spent in the Hudson Valley and Oaxaca, Mexico. Huê Thi Hoffmaster’s (b. 1982) paintings are abstracted, calligraphic depictions of branches and thickets, growing amidst atmospheric grounds. They form a conversation with Elise Asher’s (1912–2004) 1960s paintings, which incorporate text from her own poetry into clouds of brushwork.
Geometry and experimental techniques feature heavily in the works of influential radical artists as well as contemporary artists on view. The gallery will introduce the work of Sari Dienes (1898–1992), the groundbreaking experimental artist whose career links European Surrealism, American Neo-Dada, and Pop art. The gallery’s representation of Dienes was announced this month. Joe Overstreet (1933–2019) and Thomas Sills (1914–2000) created new pathways in art. The mid-century paintings of Sills are often defined by a balance of two colors into compositions that radiate with optical sensation. Overstreet’s 1980s paintings continue his ongoing exploration of experimental paint techniques, prioritizing the combination of geometry and improvisation. Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight, a survey exhibition of his work organized by the Menil Collection, Houston, will travel to the Mississippi Museum of Art in October. Matt Kleberg’s (b. 1985) architectural vocabulary borrows from spatial and ornamental references; they are both doorways and barriers, realms humming with potential.