Visual Arts Alums Exhibit at Friday Arts Nomadic Gallery, Founded by Alums

Visual Arts alums Jamie Isenstein '04 and Fabienne Lasserre '04 feature prominently in Body / Body / Body, the newest exhibit at Friday Arts nomadic gallery. The gallery, which hosts pop-up exhibits and has a virtual collection permanently on view on their website, was founded in 2025 by Visual Arts alums Laura Kleger '04 and Justin Schwarz '02. The exhibit runs from November 13 to December 19, 2025 at the Upper West Side's Art on the Block.

Body / Body / Body was curated with the central principle of intimate rebellion against forces that seek to control our bodies. The works on view, which range from mixed material painting to video art, play with and reclaim the body as form, creating sites of autonomy, performance, and pleasure. 

Multimedia is central to the philosophy of Friday Arts. "By harnessing film and digital storytelling, we hope to slow down the art experience, creating a more intimate relationship with the viewer and the work that deepens understanding," said Kleger.

Isenstein contributed three series to the exhibit: the playful photo collection Body of Mirrors, where limbs are distorted to form surreal images; Mood Clocks, where the artist transposes limbs onto the arms of an analog clock; and an art video, Thingamajig, where a dancer performs a vaudeville act with funhouse mirrors.

In Body of Mirrors, Isenstein teases at the political boundaries between object and subject by putting her body on the line. "When I use my own body, or now other people’s—sometimes it's a hand or feet or a leg—there's this question of subject and object," she said. "Am I the subject or have I become an object? There are questions of power. Am I going to be the object and be the thing that power is acted upon, or am I making an object into a subject that has some sort of agency?"

Lasserre created paintings that are also sculptures with her Pitchables series, featured in the exhibit. In Pitchables, three-dimensional arcs burst out of the canvas, populated with fun, bright colors and skin-like textures. 

Feminist theory comes to life in these multimedia works. With Pitchables, Lasserre said her aim is to "[make] things that are between categories and that don't quite fit. Making a work that is not a painting and not a sculpture—that is a mix of the two, not easy to pinpoint—is akin to contesting the definitions of a female body or a male body or another body. And why would you accept these definitions? That has always been a thread."

Between Kleger and Schwarz, the married couple has won awards for filmmaking and directed the digital wing of the Guggenheim Museum. They incorporated their experiences as curators and artists themselves into Friday Arts, a gallery that is both always open and everywhere, as well as spontaneous and intimate.

"With Friday Arts, we set out to create the art experience we always wished existed: a nomadic gallery combining the depth of a museum, the intimacy of a studio visit, and the immersive storytelling of film," said Kleger. "A place where artists lead the conversation, and audiences engage deeply with the stories, ideas, and process behind the work—accessible to everyone, anywhere.”

Body / Body / Body is available for viewing at Art on the Block through December 19, 2025. Lasserre will give an artist talk at the venue with co-exhibitor Sophy Naess at 6 PM on December 17.