Cage-based artworks from the ‘60s to the early ‘80s by late, Paris-based Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo at Andrea Rosen Gallery demonstrate human estrangement from nature. Despite the bright colors, a heart shape, plastic flowers and the label reading ‘Bonheur,’ happiness seems far from this abject couple’s experience. (In Chelsea through Nov 16th).
Does abstract art tap into a subconscious human understanding of the order of the universe? Curator and artist, Matthew Ronay asks this question in Andrea Rosen Gallery’s summer group show. His own colorful wooden sculptures explore forms recalling (in his words) ‘alien deep sea creatures, glandular secretions, vibrating fields of energy, and tongues and protrusions on scales indeterminable.’ (In Chelsea through August 5th).
Don’t be surprised if the smell of coffee and the sound of breaking ceramics greet you on a visit to Yoko Ono’s two-gallery show at Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery and Galerie Lelong. The artist entices audience participation with free coffee and abundant materials. ‘Mend Piece’ suggests that fixing crockery will ‘mend the earth at the same time.’ (In Chelsea through Jan 23rd).
Yoko Ono, Mend Piece (Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, 2015/2016), ceramic, glue, tape, scissors and twine, dimensions variable, 1966/2015.
A velociraptor and protoceratops replica skeleton watch over an exhibition at Andrea Rosen Gallery of thought-provoking objects dedicated to the idea of perpetual adaptation and change. On the floor, Anne De Vries pictures crowds on odd-shaped, organic forms. To the right, Tetsumi Kudo’s plastic and polyester flower, references growth post-nuclear contamination. (In Chelsea through January 23rd).
Installation view of Asdzaa Nadleehe at Andrea Rosen Gallery, December 2015.
Sara Cwynar’s photo of stacked images of Nefertiti comes at a moment when it’s possible to see images of the ancient Egyptian queen at both the Brooklyn Museum and another Chelsea gallery, reinforcing the idea that much of what we’re seeing in daily life is an oft repeated referent to a distant original. The words ‘ERROR: ioerror’ appear scattered throughout suggesting a corrupting effect to so much mediation. (At Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery through Oct 24th)
Sara Cwynar, 432 Photographs of Nefertiti, collaged UV coated archival pigment prints mounted to Plexiglas and Dibond, 54 x 43 x 7/8 inches, 2015.
Parker Ito’s riotous mess of an installation in Andrea Rosen Gallery’s summer group show epitomizes his collage art approach. A painting dangling from the ceiling brings together unconnected, sampled phrases like ‘I’m really creative’ and ‘One Love’ against a background of LED light strings, keeping meaning elusive on purpose. (In Chelsea through August 14th).
Parker Ito, One Love/Everyday people/tell me/jelly manhood I’m wearing those pants now/I’m pretty creative /Essay coming soon), oil on canvas, acrylic on aluminum strainers, artist frame, hanging hardware, LED lights, 122 x 96 x 2.5 inches, 2013-15
One of Matthew Ronay’s previous shows at Andrea Rosen Gallery involved entering a large, curtain-enclosed space filled with natural forms – trees, totems – that referred to transcendent experiences. In Rosen’s smaller Gallery II space, Ronay showcases his own journey in meditative daily drawings like this one. (In Chelsea through Aug 22nd).
Matthew Ronay, 12.16.13, gouache on 140lb arches watercolor paper, 15 x 11 inches, 2013.
Just inside the front door of Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery, the drip from an air conditioner hits a hotplate, creating a arresting sound that sets the tone for a show full of magical occurrences and mysterious processes…(Through June 14th).
Mika Rottenberg, installation view of Tsss Tsss Tsss, air conditioner, plant, hotplate, frying pan, water, 2014.
The rainbow and landscape paintings, blue carpet and cat towers bedecked with fake fruit in LA-based artist Friedrich Kunath’s latest solo show at Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery are an invitation to ponder what meaning can emerge from such disparate if colorful trappings. A gallery statement suggests Kunath is offering, ‘An invitation into a perpetual joke.’ (Through April 26th.)
Friedrich Kunath, installation view of at Andrea Rosen Gallery, March 2014 including ‘Meloncholy Towers’ and work from the series, ‘I was thinking about what a friend had said, I was hoping it was a lie,’ 2013-14.
Montreal-born, Long Island City based sculptor David Altmejd once again excites the senses by filling Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery with one of his trademark vitrine-like sculptures. Throughout the sculpture, hands appear to manipulate various materials, suggesting the act of creation, while fake fruits and armies of ants bring to mind decay. (Through March 8th).
David Altmejd, The Flux and the Puddle, installation view at Andrea Rosen Gallery, Feb 2014, mixed media, 2014.
In her large-scale vitrines, German artist Josephine Meckseper brings together a replica of Brancusi’s endless column, underwear modeling mannequins and more to question how appropriating historical and contemporary artifacts can create new meaning. (At Andrea Rosen Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 18th. Check website for holiday season opening hours.)
Josephine Meckseper, Title TBD, pigment prints on anodize aluminum, acrylic on wood, concrete, aluminum, bronze and stainless steel in stainless steel and glass vitrine, 2013.
Dutch artist Michael Raedecker’s latest solo show summons opulence and decay in equal measure with his signature, embroidered paintings depicting chandeliers, suburban homes and palm trees. All are painted in silver and blue colors that walk the line between elegant and dreary. (At Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery through Oct 5th).
Michael Raedecker, Blink, acrylic and thread on canvas, 2012.
Berlin-based artist Simon Fujiwara created this gender-reversing picture as part of a meandering investigation into a now-lost photo of his globe trotting, show-girl mother in the arms of a stranger on a beach in Beirut. With very little information to go on, Fujiwara goes on, casting actors to reconstruct the old photo while musing on family history. (At Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery through Aug 9th).
Detail from Simon Fujiwara’s exhibition ‘Studio Pieta (King Kong Komplex),’ at Andrea Rosen Gallery, July 2013.
Mika Rottenberg’s acclaimed films evoke fascination and repulsion in equal measure as we watch eccentric characters labor to create ambiguous products in claustrophobic, factory-like settings. With jagged, candy-colored sheets of polyurethane resin propped against the wall at Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery, Rottenberg transforms her signature mix of sweet and grotesque into sculpture. (through June 22nd).
Mika Rottenberg, ‘Texture 1 & 3, Texture 2, part a, Texture 3 & 4,’ polyurethane resin, acrylic paint, installed dimensions variable, 2013.
For a recent four year project titled ‘Neue Welt,’ Berlin and London-based photographer Wolfgang Tillmans traveled off the beaten track in what he called an ‘aimless’ journey to “…find subject matter that in some way or other speaks about the time I’m in.” A sampling from the resulting book is at Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery, offering disorientingly diverse glimpses of people and places around the planet. (through June 22nd).
Wolfgang Tillmans, ‘young man, Jeddah, b,’ inkjet print on paper, clips, 2012.
Detail: Elliott Hundley, The Sun Goes Down, sound board, wood, inkjet print on kitakata, paper, string, plastic, photographs, pins, glass, 2013.
Elliott Hundley has toned down his extravagant bricolage in many of his recent artworks at Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery, but not in this 20ft tour de force in the back gallery. Hung with a curtain of colorful string and featuring dozens of tiny photos of the artist’s friends acting out scenes from black and white films, it’s a dramatic Hollywood homage. (Through April 27th).
Elliott Hundley, The Sun Goes Down, sound board, wood, inkjet print on kitakata, paper, string, plastic, photographs, pins, glass, 2013.
For her last Chelsea solo show in the fall, Andrea Zittel’s carpet, garments, and wall hangings asked how many ways a rectangle can be manipulated to create art & design. In MoMA’s 53rd Street windows, her quasi-minimalism object/humanoid characters sport coverings that could be dress or artwork.
Lizzie Fitch’s ‘Title TBD’ begs a few suggestions. ‘Man power?’ ‘Guy stuff?’ The central panel’s car/power tool/DIY theme and a pile of spike-ended lumber that looks like its destined for fencing tries hard to conjure masculinity. The piece tries so hard to look manly, it looks nothing like usual gallery fare (though it recalls Josephine Meckseper’s hot rod imagery). ‘Feminine’ artwork abounds in New York galleries, so why so little that’s blatantly male? (At Andrea Rosen Gallery, Chelsea, through August 21st).
41 years ago today, LA-based artist and graphic designer Robert Overby created ‘Long wall, third floor (From the Barclay House Series), 4 August, 1971,’ a nineteen foot long cast of an abandoned building made of latex and cheesecloth. Its dirt, holes and grubby material make it a powerful symbol of entropy and decay. It’s both kin and contrast to Lizzi Bougatsos’ more delicate cracked eggshells on white bathmat – discards arranged into a fragile and pristine grid. (At Andrea Rosen Gallery, Chelsea, through August 21st.)
Four years after Matthew Ronay overhauled his style from comic grotesque to soberly spiritual, his ambitious new installation feels like an apotheosis. Dramatically veiled behind a huge black curtain, an enchanted forest populated by birds of prey, totemic figures and fertility symbols invites pleasurable discovery and even a sense of wonder at the level of detail, imagination and effort involved. A lingering question remains, however, as to what you’re supposed to do with this otherworldly space.
Considering that Ronay’s previous pieces have included sculptures of hamburgers alongside delicately arching penises with bites taken out of them, it’s hard to believe that the artist is being entirely straight-faced here. In the gallery handout, he suggests that he wants to give gallerygoers an opportunity to transcend the quotidian by offering them a genuine spiritual experience. Yet with all the papier-mâché volcanoes, trees made of Ikea-like prints, diminutive beings and the cutest owls this side of Disney lying about, they’ll have to stop chuckling first.
Abundant mushroom imagery (growing on felled trees, hanging in chains) suggests some sort of transport of the mind. But it’s the commanding Masculine Pillar—a robed column with a giant eyelike symbol—that grabs attention by virtue of appearing to conceal someone inside, as it did on the show’s opening night, when Ronay occupied it. Which is a reminder that while forests are classic settings for fantastical tales, characters are what make a story, so Ronay’s installation feels a little hollow when it’s empty. Without the presence of a person, the installation is like a stage set, and all the totems simply props with no ritual significance to add to their relevance. Thus, the piece’s potential to achieve the artist’s hoped-for transcendence is diminished.
Originally published in Time Out New York, issue 823, August 4-10, 2011.
