In 1977, Arte Povera artist Giuseppe Penone grew potatoes inside casts of his ear, mouth and nose. The resulting face-shaped potatoes were cast in bronze and are set among real potatoes in Hauser and Wirth Gallery’s huge showcase of the Italian art movement that embraced ‘poor’ materials and rethought what art could be. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 28th).
The late Canadian Inuk artist Annie Pootoogook’s domestic scenes are sometimes tranquil, sometimes violent, but this portrait drawing of her grandmother, the artist Pitseolak Ashoona, radiates calm. (On view at the National Museum of the American Indian through Jan 8th).
Eight large paintings of winter coats by Canadian super realist painter Karl Funk at 303 Gallery ostensibly deny the season; instead, isolated against icy white backgrounds and turned as if to ignore viewers, they’re as chilling as a blast of AC. Inspired by the negotiation between public and personal space on a crowded subway car, they’re a beautifully rendered insistence on privacy. (On view in Chelsea through August 18th).
Tariq’s multi-colored shirt and the explosion of lines on the wall behind him – not to mention his colorful crown – merge a man and an abstract artwork in young Chicago-based artist Alex Bradley Cohen’s painted portrait. (In ‘Elaine, Let’s Get the Hell Out of Here’ at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery through Aug 18th).
John Williams eschews the cutting edge by repurposing old technology, using overhead projectors to create a series of bold sculptures that recall the experimental quality of Man Ray’s photograms with an extra measure of playful inventiveness. Here, car parts affixed to the gallery wall become hair and a smile, a projected straw is a nose and a slinky funnels light upward into a bright white eye. The other eye must be winking at us as we share the joke. (At Brennan and Griffin on the Lower East Side through July 21st. )
