SPRING/BREAK Art Show and the Bobby Anspach Studios Foundation announce the launch of a ‘Secret Show’ for this September’s art fair season: a pop-up exhibition of the work of late artist Bobby Anspach. Featuring two of Anspach’s sculptures — immersive sound, light, and motion machines created with the aim of healing the world by expanding human awareness — as well as a series of his drawings, the show will provide an opportunity for viewers to experience Anspach’s work, which was a highlight of previous editions of the SPRING/BREAK Art Show and emblematic of its inquisitive, connective approach to contemporary art.

The Bobby Anspach Studios Foundation is presenting one of his series of Continuous Eye Contact works at this year’s fair—and at Spring Break’s upcoming “Secret Show,” which will be on view at Little West 12th Street on weekends September 29 through November 10. The work, meant to induce a deep, meditative state, involves lying down on a hospital bed and staring up at reflection of your eye amid a curtain of LED lights and pom-poms.

The fair’s Artist Spotlight platform shines with new endeavors this year, such as an opportunity for creatives to submit their work sans curator in order to participate in either a solo booth or a salon presentation. In addition, a new Open Studios project is ushered in for the 2024 SPRING/BREAK Art Show with Office Hours, a spirited concept that allows access to artist studios at 75 Varick Street free of charge. 

Beloved, former fair exhibitor Bobby Anspach will be honored with a memorial presentation. Deftly curated by Bobby Anspach Studio Foundation, and spearheaded by David Goodman, Sara Griffin, and Saul Ostrow, the exhibit will be a sneak peek for an upcoming “SECRET SHOW” presentation opening September 19. 

Join us as we explore the intersection of art, technology, and mental health with Jonathan Chia, co-founder of the Reality Center, and Saul Ostrow, consultant to the Bobby Anspach Studios Foundation. Discover the innovative legacy of Bobby Anspach, an artist who combined sound, light, and immersive experiences to create therapeutic machines that are now being reimagined for broader wellness applications.

From notions of “the troubled artist” to categories of “outsider art,” the relationship between mental health and artistic practice continued to be both fraught and fruitful. This discussion focused on how rethinking ideas of mental illness, wellness, and community can impact contemporary art and its makers.

During this NADA Presents panel, Jesse Dorris had a conversation with Rachel Weisman from Fountain House Gallery, a Manhattan-based art gallery that aims to support the careers and perspectives of contemporary artists living with mental illness. Also joining the conversation was Saul Ostrow from the Bobby Anspach Studios Foundation, which is committed to promoting discussions on how meditation, psychology, and creativity can contribute to connectivity, harmony, and well-being.

Inside the Brooklyn studio of the late artist Bobby Anspach, four multi-sensory, immersive art machines open pathways to wondrously psychedelic worlds—sometimes bringing the entire universe into your own eye, sometimes requesting that you sustain an intimate connection, amidst a blanket of rainbow orbs, for a few seconds longer.

Bobby Anspach’s Place for Continuous Eye Contact machine-sculpture hybrids consist of air mattresses, hospital beds and easy chairs topped with funky fleece blankets, surrounded by radiating halos of multicolored neon pom-poms and blown-glass orbs affixed to suspended frames. These interactive apparatuses seem precarious, almost unsafe, with dubious-looking wires and LED strips unceremoniously protruding from cardboard boxes and fabric tents, resembling frat house decor reimagined by Yayoi Kusama.