Apollinaria Broche at Marianne Boesky Gallery

To a soundtrack featuring readings from Charles Baudelaire’s ‘Flowers of Evil,’ Apollinaria Broche’s ceramic and bronze flowers strike gangly poses in her solo show at Marianne Boesky Gallery, exuding both wonky charm and maleficence.  Like an insect to nectar, viewers are drawn into the center of colorful ceramic flowers that feature tiny bronze sculptures – a winged horse, a contented-looking cat – of cavorting magical creatures.  More ominous figures – snakes, flies – appear as well, suggesting that the flowers inhabit a garden less welcoming than it first appears.  In this detail image of ‘I hid my tracks Spit out all my hair,’ skulls and daggers mingle with the seeds of this lush blossoming plant, summoning a specter of death and violence where it might least be expected.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 24th.)

Apollinaria Broche, (detail) I hid my tracks Spit out all my air, glazed ceramic, bronze, 63 x 21 x 18 inches, 2023.

Laure Prouvost at Lisson Gallery

When female octopi guard their eggs, they stop feeding themselves, dying as their babies mature.  Multimedia artist Laure Prouvost’s latest solo show at Lisson Gallery celebrates this selfless participation in the cycle of life and connects it with human nurturing via combined imagery of human breasts and octopus arms.  Huge cephalopod limbs emerge from a layer of sand scattered on the floor, inviting gallery visitors into a tactile underfoot experience while observing suction cups that occasionally resemble breasts or in one case, end in a breast-shaped lamp.  Prouvost’s surreal mix of animal and human bodies foregrounds the importance of touch, feeling and sensuous enjoyment.  (On view in Chelsea through Oct 14th).

Laure Prouvost, installation view of ‘Laure Prouvost: Stranded By Your Side,’ at Lisson Gallery, Sept 2023.

Deborah Butterfield at Marlborough Gallery

Though told as a student that horses weren’t ‘serious’ subjects for contemporary art, Deborah Butterfield persevered to become renowned for sensitive and powerful sculptures of horses created in materials from salvaged metal to sea plastics.  Best-known are her bronze pieces that still appear to be made of the wood from which they were cast, an enticing illusion.  In a show of new work at Chelsea’s Marlborough Gallery, Butterfield sourced wood from near her home/working horse ranch in Montana and property in Hawaii to create towering horses like this one titled ‘Sweetgrass,’ which, though its assembled form is light like a sketch created in wood, has a powerful presence in keeping with its weighty bronze manufacture.  (On view through Jan 14th).

Deborah Butterfield, Sweetgrass, cast bronze, unique, 90 x 108 x 33 inches, 2021 – 22.

ASMA at Deli Gallery

In Greek mythology, Narcissus broke hearts and in turn had his own heart broken by falling in love with his reflection in a pool of water.  Related imagery appears throughout Mexico City-based duo ASMA’s current show at Deli Gallery in Tribeca, along with a sculpture of the flower that Narcissus was said to have turned into upon his death.  Working in a variety of materials including platinum silicon and cast bronze, the artists ponder this posthumous transformative act, considering life between fixed states.  Here, a wall-mounted bronze bust of a male torso skews upward and to the side, as if being tugged out of conventional space and time.  (On view through Feb 19th).

ASMA, It seeks, is sought, it burns and it is burnt, cast bronze, 27 ½ x 24 ½ x 2 inches, 2021.

Elmgreen and Dragset at Pace Gallery

Titled ‘The Painter, Fig. 1,’ this lacquered bronze sculpture by Berlin-based duo Elmgreen and Dragset appears to be offered as an illustration of an artist in action and is prominently displayed in the window of Pace Gallery’s Chelsea building.  In the adjoining gallery, other sculptures hint at themes of regret, loneliness and the will to dominate; nearby, this artist responds.  It’s unclear if he’s laying down black paint or scraping off white paint to reveal the darkness beneath; either way, he appears to be putting a dramatic end to his monochrome existence.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 18th).

Elmgreen and Dragset, The Painter, Fig. 1, bronze, lacquer, linen, paint, 98 7/16 x 100 3/8 x 23 5/8 inches, 2021.