About the Works

Michael Assiff’s indoor/outdoor hybrid sculptures are the culmination of a series of work that documents and depicts the native and invasive plants of New York City and the their relationship to real estate development and infrastructure. The sculptures are made out of cast concrete with traffic marking paint (the paint used to mark stripes on roads). The forms of the sculptures create a kind of blank generic Asteraceae plant - a large family that includes sunflowers, daisy and chicory. Assiff makes the leaf “blanks” into more specific shapes by selectively removing parts of the concrete. The height of the sculptures relate to roughly the height of the artist. The stylized designs of the panels are meant to evoke Art Deco, Empire style architecture, while the face of the flower resembles manhole covers or subway platform non-skid surfaces. The artist uses a mix of homemade concrete and ready mix, giving the sculpture a variety of surfaces and colors, reminiscent of the ad hoc nature of sidewalks and building repairs.

Biography

Michael Assiff (b. 1983, St. Petersburg, FL) is a painter and sculptor based in Queens, New York. He earned his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. He has presented solo exhibitions at Post Times, New York; The Valley, Taos; Katia David Rosenthal, Miami; Ashes/Ashes, New York; Chez Valentin, Paris; Galería Mascota, Mexico City; Shoot the Lobster, New York; Good Weather, Little Rock. He has been included in group exhibitions at Night Gallery, Matthew Brown, Magenta Plains, Salon 94, Jack Barrett, Arsenal Contemporary, the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art, and others. His work has been written about in The New York Times, e-flux and BOMB Magazine. He is the recent recipient of a 2024 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellowship, 2024 Dreamers in Residence grant, and 2025 NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs Queen Arts Fund grant. His work is in public collections such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Haute-Vienne, France; University Health, San Antonio; and Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles.

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