JoAnn Verburg’s recent photos at Pace Gallery of olive groves were taken in California, Israel and Italy, but it’s not always easy to guess which location is which. Calling the images a ‘contemplative respite’ from the demands of everyday city life, Verburg steps outside of the specifics of place and time to present a meditation on time and beauty in nature. (On view in Chelsea through Aug 20th).
Titled ‘Tradewinds,’ Paul Anthony Smith’s latest show of hand-worked photos at Jack Shainman Gallery celebrates home, memory and the act of celebration itself. More contemplative than some of the artist’s images of parties and get-togethers, this image suggests thoughts as a kind of cloud-cover or camouflage around this young man. Here, Smith’s signature picotage technique – involving a series of tiny rips on the surface of the image – becomes a kind of simultaneous damage and decoration. (On view in Chelsea through April 3rd).
Late South African photographer David Goldblatt didn’t leave it to chance that his photos would be read without context, titling them with notes on their circumstances. Currently on view at Pace Gallery in an exhibition curated by South African photographer Zanele Muholi, who worked and trained in Goldblatt’s studio, the photos consider visibility of women, segregation, privilege, labor conditions and more. Here, Goldblatt records the forced removal of Black families from land designated by the government as ‘white.’ (On view in Chelsea through March 27th).
Ethereal forms appear to rise up in this photograph printed on satin by Turin-based artist Elisa Sighicelli, currently part of her two-artist show at Tribeca’s 55 Walker/Kaufmann Repetto. Created by hanging sheets of plastic in front of her window and photographing them, Sighicelli’s images are clearly representational yet appear abstract as they invite shifting perceptions of space. Printed on sheets of synthetic satin and hung in the gallery, they ripple slightly – just enough to create additional, 3D spatial depth. (On view through Jan 23rd).
It’s not hard to slip from male to female in Cindy Sherman’s reckoning. A bit of makeup and a change of clothing, and the iconic photographer became both halves of jet-set couples who are the subjects of her latest body of work at Metro Pictures Gallery in Chelsea. With exceptions, Sherman has shied away from portraying male figures in the past; her current characters embrace gender fluidity in colorful or opulent clothing from Stella McCartney’s archive. Placing them against backgrounds that Sherman shot in Bavaria, Shanghai and, here, Sissinghurst Castle Garden in England, the artist tempts viewers to read the identities of these eccentric characters. (On view through Oct 31st. Masks and social distancing are required.)
