Detail of Joan Danziger’s Retro Beetle, metal wire and glass. by Photo courtesy of Amy Kaslow Gallery.
Event URL: https://amykaslowgallery.com/
Zany, peripatetic Joan Danziger just doesn’t stop. With her hands in an art form most of her 92 years, she moves through days at a frenetic pace, creating, showing, and above all, talking about her work. 2026 has been a celebration of this remarkable American artist; Danziger’s two-story blockbuster retrospective at American University’s Katzen Art Center showing her drawings, etchings, airborne animals on bicycles, birds and bugs, was accented by multi-page features in the Washington Post, Sculpture Magazine and more.
Joan Danziger hasn’t missed a step reaching her current goal making exquisite tabletop and wall beetles depicting their broad, powerful and beautiful spectrum. Indeed, she can be found seven days a week on her stool with tools in hand, focused on wings and antennae. Examining each piece, she chooses the wire bases to leave bare and bold and those to adorn with paint, baubles, even jewel-toned shards of glass she scores and cuts before sculpting.
The mighty beetle abounds. Making up an astounding quarter of our animal kingdom, they are essential purveyors of the environment, removing toxins and impurities from soil. As warriors, they are important predators of insects that would otherwise explode in the population. With 400,000 genuses, beetles are widely varied, some detailed and diminutive, others big and brightly colored. We humans eat a number of varieties; we often play with them (fireflies and ladybugs) and some of us even place bets on beetle fighting. Well-loved spiritually as the sacred Egyptian scarab and popularly as the original and retro Volkswagen Beetle, these creatures so important to the natural world are where we find divinity and delight. Massive and strategic, this order of bugs called Coleoptera, so essential to the world’s ecological balance is a pretty strong indicator of Mother Earth’s health.
Sharing many characteristics with the beetle, the indomitable artist breaks into a proud smile: “My sculptures combine an interplay of the animal strength and beauty of nature with the human spirit.”
Beginning as an abstract painter in New York, Danziger was soon confined by two-dimensional color on canvas and began to sculpt from her own fanciful imagination. Her fixation has always been on transformation. A massive eagle in the form of a chair with wings spread into comfortable arm support, a troupe of acrobatic animals (until quite recently installed at the Kennedy Center). Ornate, whimsical, and brilliantly colored, her installations can be found in private homes and public collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the DC Commission of Art and Humanities, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the New Jersey State Museum, and top corporate collections.
Join us Thursday, September 17th, 6pm – 7:30pm for the Opening with Joan Danziger and view sixteen different beetles.
Amy Kaslow Gallery
curate@amykaslowgallery.com
https://amykaslowgallery.com/
Open Tuesdays through Sundays 12pm – 6pm
