A flood of frogs (vinyl silhouttes adhered to walls and floor) escape down a fake drain in Brazilian artist Regina Silveira’s space-bending installation at Alexander Gray Associates. Referencing Biblical plagues and unexpected, underground activity, the frogs suggest that above-ground life is only half of the story. (In Chelsea through March 26th.)
It’s important to know but hard to guess how New York artist Lisa Oppenheim sources the materials she uses to make her images – in this case, swirling clouds or monstrous faces that emerge from book matched wood. Using a thin sheet of veneer from Eastern Red Cedar, the artist created a camera-less photogram, which she then framed in Eastern Red Cedar and in birch, a wood used to imitate cedar. (At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery through Feb 20th).
Lisa Oppenheim, Landscape Portraits (Eastern Red Cedar)(Version I), set of four silver gelatin photograms in Eastern Red Cedar and Birch frames, 51 5/8 x 55 inches, 2015.
The most understated Met Museum Roof Garden commission in recent memory, French artist Pierre Huyghe’s installation features a chunk of bedrock set on the museum’s stone tile roof within site of a tank populated with primordial-looking tadpole shrimp. In contrast to the spectacle of luxury condo growth seen just south of the park, the low-key intervention on the Met’s roof is almost disorienting. Weeds sprouting from removed floor tiles suggest a dereliction far from the norm, a crack in the Met’s perfect public face. (At the Metropolitan Museum of Art through Nov 11th).
Pierre Huyghe, Roof Garden commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015.
Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles creates an awkward space for viewers, who are invited to climb onto a platform of wooden eggs under a canopy of bullets. Titled ‘Amerikkka,’ the piece’s extra consonants suggest racial discord in a loaded and fragile environment. (At Chelsea’s Galerie Lelong through June 27th).
Cildo Meireles, Amerikkka, 20,050 painted wooden eggs and 31,695 bullets, 158 x 236 x 118 inches, 1991/2013.
Before she even set foot in Central Park to create a site-specific artwork commissioned by the Public Art Fund, Paris-based artist Tatiana Trouve poured over maps of the park’s utilities. Inspired by the many unseen arteries connecting the park’s lights, water supply and more, she measured all 212 pathways in the park, designating each with a separate spool on towering racks. (Through Aug 30th).
Tatiana Trouve, installation view of ‘Desire Lines,’ at Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park, 60th Street and 5th Ave, through Aug 30th.
