Tiles influenced by Moorish design and imported from Portugal to Brazil have long inspired Brazilian artist Adriana Varejao’s meditations on cultural and ethnic hybridity. Now focusing on Mexican Talavera tiles, Varejao’s new work at Chelsea’s Gagosian Gallery considers how the tiles relate to indigenous, Hispanic, Italian and Chinese ceramic production. At the center of the gallery, columns covered in tile are revealed to have meat-like cores that recall the white veined, red marble columns of Baroque architecture. For Varejao, Baroque culture – and the ‘chaotic pulsing matter’ of the columns – is predicated on accepting difference and embracing multiple identities. (On view in Chelsea through June 26th. Masks and social distancing required.)
Tag: baroque
Susan Siegel in the ‘New York Academy of Art Annual Exhibition’ at Flowers Gallery
The New York Academy of Art’s annual summer exhibition brings together a variety of artwork for sale at accessible prices – a rare proposition in Chelsea’s booming mega-gallery scene. Susan Siegel’s ‘Big Hair’ is a tiny painting at eight by eight inches, but it packs a humorous punch. Substituting a cow for one of the delicate creatures normally populating Baroque painting, Siegel subverts our pleasure in consuming images of excess. (At Flowers Gallery through July 15th).
Karen Kilimnik at 303 Gallery
Inspired by late Renaissance and Baroque landscape painting, tapestry and stage scenery, Karen Kilimnik’s latest body of work showcases interiors with canopied beds and manicured landscapes, stage-like in their perfection. The exception is this expressionist tropical landscape with its sumptuous, glittery tent, as lush as the greenery. (At 303 Gallery in Chelsea through March 26th).