“Spring Break Art Show” opens in New York: more than 100 projects under the “Hide ‘n Seek” theme

The “Spring Break Art Show” is open through September 28 on the ninth floor of a former CBS News building in New York, at the corner of West 57th Street and 11th Avenue. This edition’s theme is “Hide ‘n Seek” — an idea previously tested on a smaller scale in Los Angeles in February.

More than 100 projects by dozens of artists across different media are on display, many of them with childhood references. Curator Todd Bienvenu gathered over 60 artists who created works with childhood materials — colored pencils, markers and cardboard — priced from $100 to $8,000.

Among the installations, writer Cara Sheffler and artist Johannah Herr’s “Scorched Earth Tiki” stands out: a transformed “tiki bar” selling $12 mocktails and $400 ceramic tiki mugs — but behind the bright colors hide tragic histories of war and colonialism in Hawaii, the Marshall Islands and Vietnam, with mushroom clouds from Cold War-era U.S. nuclear tests.

Self-taught stone carver Louis Sarowsky presents “Rock with me” — food sculptures carved in natural stone (a $1,300 ice-cream sandwich, a $4,500 breakfast plate) — as well as “Rock Basel” ($2,600), his take on Maurizio Cattelan’s famous “Comedian.”

Also on show: Slow Factory turned a space into a live “news studio” titled “Everything Is Political Live” with a vintage “60 Minutes” desk, inviting visitors to sit behind the news desk; while Pam Korman’s “Beyond Lip Service” ($30,000) explores maternal heritage through a bedroom with wallpaper decorated with lip photos — as USA Art News reports (via The Art Newspaper).