Richard Mosse pictures European refugee camps like you’ve never seen them in monumental new photos taken with a military grade telephoto camera. Normally used for combat and border surveillance, the camera detects thermal radiation, turning individuals into ghost-like presences. (At Jack Shainman Gallery’s 20th Street location in Chelsea through March 11th).
Inspired by the light in her adopted home-city of LA and by the still life arrangements of Italian painter Giorgio Morandi, Uta Barth employs everyday glassware as lenses. Transparent objects in various shapes, colors and combinations shift light to harness the properties of nature in service of art. (At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea through March 11th).
A woman calmly looks out from a storm of activity in this detail from a new collage by Elliott Hundley at Andrea Rosen Gallery, suggesting that she is uniquely adapted to life in an environment of overload. Countless masks, eyes and assorted circular shapes – from lotus slices to flowers – are equal parts portal to another world and big brother. (In Chelsea through March 11th).
This well-worn tome isn’t a book at all but a meticulous painting by the artist Steve Wolfe. Not only does it memorialize a classic novel but serves as a tribute to Wolfe himself, who passed away last year. Well-known for creating trompe l’oeil paintings of favorite books and records, Wolfe indirectly created a portrait of himself and his era. (At Luhring Augustine Gallery through March 11th).
Jaume Plensa’s latest exhibition at Galerie Lelong continues his investigation of portraiture, featuring several of his signature, elongated heads with closed eyes that suggest unseen inner lives. In Chelsea, they are arranged on wooden beams and are joined by spectral faces on the wall that transform the gallery into a contemplative space. (On view through March 11th).
Comparing Elise Ansel’s remake of Northern Renaissance master Hugo van der Goes’ Portinari altarpiece with the original isn’t the point. Ansel distills the main characters from the 15th century Adoration and enlivens them with a dynamic quality that doesn’t exist in the still and measured quality of the original, positing that color, not extreme detail carries the emotion of the scene. (At Danese Corey Gallery through March 11th).
One stone is real, the other is a replica. Vija Celmins entices viewers to ponder which one came from the earth and which from the artist’s hand in this pairing at Matthew Marks Gallery’s 22nd Street space in Chelsea. In other works, Celmins turns her hand to the skies and the seas with meticulous realist paintings that celebrate the creative powers of the artist. (On view through April 15th).
Green Caribbean waters turn menacing under steely grey skies, their currents outlined in rows of fishhooks in this meditation on isolation by Cuban artist Yoan Capote. (At Jack Shainman Gallery’s 24th Street location in Chelsea through March 11th).
Are children born in Rwanda after the genocide freer, having not had their lives disrupted by that violence? How will their understanding of history impact their lives? South African photographer Pieter Hugo asked these questions while also questioning the post-Apartheid legacy of his own children and their generation in a series of photos at Chelsea’s Yossi Milo Gallery. Here, the landscape and its histories act as backdrop to a portrait of a self-possessed young person. (On view through March 4th).
Leila Heller Gallery compliments the Guggenheim’s current ‘Visionaries’ exhibition with a show featuring artworks by early 20th century ‘non-objective’ painters, including mature works by German avant-gardist Rudolf Bauer. Though this painting from the ‘30s brings to mind a planet on the left and the built environment to the right, Bauer’s focus was art as expression of the spirit. (In Chelsea through March 4th).
Minnesota-based nonagenarian ceramic artist Warren MacKenzie means for his creations to be used. A selection of work at Driscoll Babcock Galleries, including this attractive arrangement of cups and bowls, holds out the idea of living with beautiful things. (In Chelsea through Feb 25th).
Paul Kasmin Gallery and Sotheby’s Gallery team up this month to bring the vanitas still life and memento mori up to date in an impressive exhibition of Dutch genre painting and contemporary art touching on the theme of life’s brevity. Columbian artist Rafael Gomezbarros’ smarm of ants – constructed with cast human skulls – opens the show with a bang. (At Paul Kasmin Gallery in Chelsea through March 4th).
Paul Sharits’ painting ‘Infected Foot III’ doesn’t regard the pain of others; we’re looking down at the purple, throbbing mass as if it’s our own. Beads and glistening cords of paint look as if they’d be part of a cheerier composition; instead, they add to the surprise of a rogue body part that threatens to bring down the whole. (At Greene Naftali Gallery through Feb 25th).
Sohei Nishino’s charmingly idiosyncratic maps of cities around the world track the Japanese globetrotter’s exploration of metropolitan architecture and populations. Each bricolage results from hundreds of images shot at various vantage points around a given city. In this detail from Nishino’s New Delhi diorama map, the crowds and traffic encroach on the India Gate war memorial, though it retains a space and aura of its own. (At Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in Chelsea through March 4th).
Maybe it’s the descending pattern of dots or the black rainbow shape in Diedrick Brackens’ tapestry but the text, ‘everything is lovely now’ isn’t quite believable. Instead, this shaggy banner seems to announce a still transitory state. (At Thomas Erben Gallery in Chelsea through Feb 18th).
From the depths of Katharina Grosse’s huge abstractions, shapes materialize and invite interpretation. The Berlin-based artist describes her new works as “portals to a small room, where all the color has been crammed into a tiny space.” Peering into these openings is an intense optical experience. (At Gagosian Gallery’s 24th Street Chelsea location through March 11th).
Collectors might metaphorically salivate after coveted artworks, but the feeling turns literal in sight of Kay Kurt’s intense, realist renderings of candy. At six feet high and eleven feet long, this assortment of hard candies brings to mind the flavors of childhood while treating each piece as its own perfectly formed sculptural object. (At Albertz Benda in Chelsea through Feb 16th).
Female hands, eyes, mouths and other body parts transferred onto stones by Anh Thuy Nguyen resemble a smashed frieze, carefully reassembled on the floor. Titled ‘Burden,’ the sculpture grapples with the difficulties of representation and with the pressures placed on the female body. (At Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery through Feb 18th).
‘Rest During The Flight Into Egypt’ broaches the subject of migration in Romanian artist Adrian Ghenie’s latest solo show at Pace Gallery in Chelsea. Here, two kids wait on a railroad track in front of a heaving, blood-red landscape wearing masks that disguise their faces but not the damage inflicted upon them. (On view through Feb 18th).
From the pervasive musty scent of perfume to the claustrophobic, tented ceiling of PPOW’s transformed back gallery, Portia Munson’s installation ‘The Garden’ assaults the senses and may induce panic in the clutter-adverse. The overload of frilly and feminine things is oppressive – calculated to send visitors gasping for more gender-neutral territory. (In Chelsea through Feb 11th).
The text on this box – ‘Enjoy your delicious moments!’ – is supposed to be an encouragement to appreciate pizza, but it’s also a good way to describe the feeling of realizing that this realistic food box is actually a meticulously crafted, hand painted wooden sculpture by trompe l’oeil master Matt Johnson. (At 303 Gallery in Chelsea through Feb 25th).
Petzel Gallery’s current must-see show, ‘We Need to Talk,’ is a tour de force of heart-felt political statement, from a video shot at Standing Rock to a neon sign reading, ‘What if Women Ruled the World?’ In between, Mark Dion’s 1991 ‘FBI Tool Bag of Dirty Tricks’ is a standout that’s turning into a classic. (In Chelsea through Feb 11th).
The mirrored, cave-like entrance to Lee Bul’s latest solo show at Lehmann Maupin Gallery dazzles. Once inside, however, the ceiling height diminishes rapidly and visitors emerge into the main gallery at an uncomfortable crouch. Failed promises are a recurring theme in Lee Bul’s oeuvre; here she sends a strong message from the beginning of the exhibition. (Through Feb 11th).
Spanish artist Lino Lago’s recent ‘Reality (Show)’ series jumbles art and artifacts from pop culture and art history together on the flat surface of a canvas. This shaped artwork in the form of a chair, part of the same series, allows collectors to make their own groupings. (At George Adams Gallery in Chelsea through Feb 11th.)
James Siena continues to produce mesmerizing patterned images with his latest show of drawings at Pace Gallery. However, instead of repeating an initial mark that establishes a rule system, Siena’s new work glories in interlocking patterns that boggle the mind with their detail and their complex consideration of space. (At Pace Gallery’s 25th Street location through Feb 11th).
Despite her assertive pose, Dutch painter Hannah van Bart’s enigmatic young lady appears to literally blend into the background as a shape-shifting wall the color of her dress manifests over her chest. (At Marianne Boesky Gallery through Feb 4th.)
Handmade blankets rendered in bronze and boldly colored paintings based on the blankets’ patterns orient Michele Grabner’s latest body of work toward the domestic, the personal and the tactile. Each blanket’s form looks ghostly, harkening back to the bodies that used it to stay warm. As 2-D images on the wall, the cozy factor is replaced by a reference to the grid, the ubiquitous underlying principle to much mid-20th century art. Grabner suggests that context is key. (At James Cohan Gallery’s Chelsea location, through Jan 28th).
Using the covers of old encyclopedias, law books and African American reference books, Samuel Levi Jones makes collages on canvas that question what changes as time passes. Jones employs books as symbols of obsolescence to further represent how the ideas expressed therein can also run their course. (At Chelsea’s Galerie Lelong through Jan 28th).
Silhouetted against natural light, the translucent petals of a blossoming flower from the cannonball tree contrast tightly shut pods in the foreground, but each indulges our pleasure in organic forms. Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich’s largest flowering plant sculpture to date sprawls across Tyler Rollins Gallery’s floor in Chelsea, recalling trees planted near Buddhist temples. Though they resemble the sal tree associated with Buddha’s birth, the plants arrived in Southeast Asia from the Americas via Sri Lanka, a reminder of complicated histories. (Through Feb 4th).
The human body meets cold hard metal in LA sculptor Charles Long’s eerie new sculptures that pair geometric forms covered in flesh-like platinum silicon rubber with mirror polished stainless steel forms. Here, RealSenseSapient2 includes the appearance of moles, veins and wrinkles, suggesting a quasi-human futuristic living being. (At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery through Feb 4th).
After typing ‘Destiny’ (the name of an incarcerated woman he’d met long ago) into a prison database, Titus Kaphar began painting portraits of women with this name in layered works that elide their faces and stories. (At Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 28th).
Dramatic and monumental, Rodin’s 1890s sculpture of Balzac is a figure set apart. LA sculptor Liz Glynn changed the character’s remote quality during a 2-day performance/workshop at LACMA, during which she cast several of the museum’s Rodin bronzes and recombined them to striking effect. Here, a face from Rodin’s Burghers of Calais joins Balzac’s in a dual portrait that suggests strong emotion. (At Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery through Feb 11th).
While a single glove evokes Michael Jackson in the glitter of stage lights, this lone accessory – a stainless steel mesh glove encased in concrete – conveys something sinister. Semo’s other minimalist sculptures co-opt possible residue of violence, including chains, broken glass and shell casings as art materials, asking how fine art and conflict connect. (At Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 14th).
Phones, cameras and iPads outnumber art objects in Hai-Hsin Huang’s mash-up of Metropolitan Museum of Art treasures, ogled by visitors jockeying for snapshots and selfies. In this detail, a massive, 2,300 year old marble column from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis fails to attract much attention, begging the question of a museum’s purpose in today’s photo obsessed culture. (At Danese Corey Gallery in Chelsea through Feb 4th).
Motorcycle road trips all over the U.S. inspire New Yorker Edie Nadelhaft’s new paintings framed by vintage BMW mirror housings. Nadelhaft opts to travel on local roads for a more characterful portrait of the landscape. Looking back through the bike mirrors reveals what is receding in American culture, as evidenced by this classic car and a non-chain restaurant. (At Lyons Wier Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 28th).
New York painter Judith Simonian charts a course through the mist on a curiously empty, fabulously colored ferry in this standout painting in the group exhibition ‘Regrouping’ at Edward Thorp Gallery’s new Chelsea location. It’s unclear what the immediate future holds on Simonian’s vessel, but the journey looks amazing. (On view through Jan 28th).
Mid-20th century American minimalist sculptors rebelled against the relationship of parts in Anthony Caro’s abstract sculptures; later in life, Caro was the one to break out, introducing Perspex into his sculptures when he was in his mid-80s. Here, a thick sheet of clear Perspex turns two pieces of rusted steel into characters in an untold story –a customer and a bank teller, or a prisoner and her visitor? (At Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery in Chelsea on the Upper East Side through Feb 4th).
In 1971 and 1975, Philip Guston created a powerful series of drawings as protest to then-president Richard Nixon’s policies, in particular his decision to visit China after years of anti-Communist rhetoric. Now on view at Hauser & Wirth’s new Chelsea location, this drawing shows the former president scrapping with his advisor Henry Kissinger at his Florida retreat as an empty speech bubble rises with the clouds. (At Hauser & Wirth Gallery in Chelsea through January 14th).
While architect Zaha Hadid’s firm worked on the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, Hadid created a collection of related furnishings, including this stunningly sleek desk, currently on view with a selection of Hadid’s other design projects at Chelsea’s Leila Heller Gallery. How could your career fail to take flight, seated behind this desk? (On view through January 21st).
Soon after the scandal over tainted drinking water in Flint, Michigan broke in spring 2016, Matthew Brandt visited the beleaguered General Motors town, creating beautiful images using toxic water. Brandt collected river water and used it to wash over and degrade cyan, magenta and yellow sheets bearing an image of the river’s dam. Recombined in a lightbox, a damaged image represents a devastated landscape. (At Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 21st.)
From plant life to outer space, New York painter Terry Winter derives his dynamic abstract paintings from patterns and forms in the natural world. Here, ‘Skin’ suggests both an exotic lizard species and an abstracted architecture. (At Matthew Marks Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 23rd).
An Ellis Island clerk from 1892 to 1925, Augustus Sherman was uniquely positioned to document immigration in all its diversity. Among his photographic portraits of Scottish boys in kilts and Romanian shepherds, this shot of a Russian German family is a standout as each family member stoically waits first for the camera and later, for a new life in North Dakota. (At Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 23rd).
British artist Richard Hughes makes his own t-shirts…out of paper pulp in the case of this low-key garment. Deliberate misspellings on the shirts, and here, a disregard for even including a message, take a whatever attitude to a new level. (At Anton Kern Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 22nd).
Several years ago, Polish photographer Kacper Kowalski turned his back on his career in architecture and began a new pursuit taking photographs from a paraglider or a gyrocopter at around 500 feet above the central European landscape. This beautiful observation of nature’s seasonal transformations is part of a series documenting the onset and experience of winter from above. (At The Curator in Chelsea, through Dec 17th).
German painter Katharina Wulff depicts the dusty byways of her adopted city of Marrakech in paintings that harness the strong sun to illuminate bodies and the landscape. Inside the peeling façade of this gym, bodybuilders strive for perfection while feral dogs rove outside. (At Greene Naftali Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 23rd).
This stunning aerial view of irrigation systems in Cadiz, Spain is part of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky’s Water series, which examines human use of the planet’s most valuable resource, specifically as it is harnessed for aquaculture. (At Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 23rd).
98 year old mathematician, physicist and NASA scientist Katherine Johnson strikes a regal pose in a photograph by Annie Leibovitz, who has relaunched her ‘Women’ series, highlighting the achievements of remarkable women. Images from Leibovitz’s the series are currently on view in the gym at Chelsea’s former women’s prison, offering an uplifting vision of women’s many roles in society. (Sponsored by UBS, hosted by the NoVo Foundation and Lela Goren Group on view through Dec 11th).
New Yorker painter Yvonne Jacquette fell in love with the aerial view while on commercial flights, eventually chartering her own aircraft to make art from the sky. After a trip to Hong Kong in the early 90s, she incorporated various views of Hong Kong harbor into this piece, including a floating restaurant, speeding cars and reflections of neon on the water. (At DC Moore Gallery through Dec 17th).
Iranian American artist Siah Armajani pays homage to New York School poet Frank O’Hara in this sculptural concept for a tomb. The table is a resting spot for a coffin and a gathering place for a collection of free-spirited chairs that merge with the table and resist sitting still. (At Alexander Gray Gallery through Dec 17th).
A wallpaper of surveillance cameras and the Twitter logo by artist/activist Ai Weiwei at Mary Boone Gallery’s Chelsea space refer to the consequences of his on-line criticism of the Chinese government. On a similar theme, a tree cobbled together from several once-majestic plants suggests disaster and endurance. (On view through Dec 23rd).
Scrap metal, vividly colored steel tubing and shiny, black cylindrical disks compete for attention in Carol Bove’s ‘Polka Dots,’ now on view at Chelsea’s David Zwirner Gallery. Here, the show’s titular sculpture brings to mind the powerful forces required to bend steel while reveling in a burst of yellow and the smooth perfection of black ‘polka dots.’ (On view through Dec 17th).
Polish painter Paulina Olowska’s series of female figures suggest strong personalities; this shadowy character is based on gardener Valerie Finnis, who confessed to having once put plants before people. (At Metro Pictures in Chelsea through Dec 22nd).
Monks levitate in an intense ball game imagined by German artist Werner Buttner. Elsewhere, sausages fall from the sky and a dinosaur skeleton in a red hat bounds through a barren landscape in a series of paintings that combine the banal and the unusual to striking effect. (At Chelsea’s Marlborough Gallery through Dec 3rd).
Geometric steel beams and panels dangle a pair of organic shapes in Mark di Suvero’s 2015 sculpture ‘The Cave’ at Paula Cooper Gallery, suggesting a manmade structure designed to offer up a natural form for our consideration. (In Chelsea through Dec 10th).
Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto opens a new chapter in his colorful immersive installations with this homage to the birth of humanity. Hand-crocheted hanging sculptures in the shape of a womb invite visitors to enter and walk back to a communal space with drum and guitar. Allusions to Adam and Eve in both western and indigenous Amazonian culture find common ground in the pursuit of knowledge. (At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 17th).
In the past, front-page news has been source material for Dashiell Manley’s canvases; his recent series explores his emotional and psychological reactions to the news of the day. (At Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 17th.)
It’s easy to recognize this scene by legendary photographer William Eggleston, without even knowing where it was shot. Typically Eggleston, its bright, saturated colors and subject matter featuring an everyday American landscape and vernacular architecture are deeply familiar. (At David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 17th).
Pittsburgh-based artist Vanessa German assembles a stunningly arrayed army of folk characters for her current show at Chelsea’s Pavel Zoubok Gallery. The figure in the foreground holds a lantern aloft as if to metaphorically light the way forward; a mother with an astounding headdress of ceramic devotional sculpture holds her limp child to the right; a figure at back speaks for social justice by holding up a stop sign. (Through Nov 30th).
Berlin-based artist Matthias Bitzer’s paintings, mixed media works and sculptures at Marianne Boesky Gallery are uniquely difficult to categorize. Constructed from concrete, wood, glass and more (and those are just the 2-D, wall mounted works), elegantly minimalist artworks take the eye on an adventure of materials. (In Chelsea through Dec 17th).
Brooklyn artist Andrew Lenaghan rewilds the High Line in this tiny painting of massive buildings, as seen from the elevated park. Dereliction and new development are Lenaghan’s themes; how they seem to merge is his intriguing angle. (At George Adams Gallery through November 30th).
Color gels and the wisteria vine from Bryan Graf’s studio/greenhouse combine to make a ghostly image with alluring depth at Yancey Richardson Gallery. (In Chelsea through Dec 3rd).
British painter David Hepher explains that like landscape painters before him (Constable, Turner, Cezanne), he paints spaces with which he’s familiar, returning again and again to explore nuances of the well-known. For Hepher, that means South London tower blocks, hulking brutalist buildings whose concrete walls have seen better days. Merging distant views and closeups of spray painted walls and graffiti, this painting both closely examines tower life and keeps it at a distance. (At Flowers Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 10th).
Whether they hover over desolate wastelands piled with junk or barren city streets, Masakatsu Sashie’s floating spheres add another ominous note to already bleak, futuristic landscapes. Composed of old machines or cobbled together from an assortment of panels and featuring text that appears to be ads, the orbs grimly foretell a post-human world. (At Jonathan LeVine Gallery through Nov 12th).
Wood makes a surprise appearance in sculptor and ceramic artist Arlene Shechet’s latest sculptures at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., challenging ceramic for primacy in pieces like ‘I Saw the 18th Century.’ Shechet is also currently showing new work at the Frick Collection inspired by 18th century porcelain, but the pieces in Chelsea bear little resemblance to the delicate results of her uptown project, instead suggesting the sturdiness of a corseted matron from a past century. (In Chelsea through Nov 12th).
An epic battle between divine beings – scrawny-armed ‘Undom Engle’ on the left and the pink, wolf-like creature ‘Repaint’ to the right – vividly kicks off Trenton Doyle Hancock’s intense new show at James Cohan Gallery. Though it helps to know the language of Hancock’s invented mythology and his recurring characters, each new work is its own richly imagined tale. (At James Cohan Gallery’s Lower East Side location through Nov 27th).
An unseen opponent batters James Kirkland with blows that literally make the flesh on his face shake in Paul Pfeiffer’s powerful video at Paula Cooper Gallery. By collaging together short clips that feature direct hits to the head and body and digitally removing Kirkland’s adversary, Pfeiffer focuses attention on the violence of boxing and turns fighter into victim. (In Chelsea through Nov 12th).
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).
Created in mirror-polished stainless steel, this sculpture of a lifeguard by Scandinavian art duo Elmgreen and Dragset shimmers like an apparition on the Flag Art Foundation’s 9th floor terrace. Peering intently toward the Hudson River (or the buildings on the block in between), the guard is perpetually alert to a situation we can’t see. (In Chelsea through Dec 17th).
Hong Kong artist Chow Chun Fai paints stills from Hong Kong films, including this distillation of loneliness from Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 classic Chung King Express. Filmed just three years before Hong Kong’s return to China, the movie is about failed relationships and new beginnings, a position that interests Chow Chun Fai as Hong Kong heads towards socialist governance by 2047. (At Klein Sun Gallery in Chelsea through Nov 12th).
Spencer Finch literally changes the atmosphere inside James Cohan Gallery by creating an installation of hanging glass panels that create fog-like conditions inside the space. The shifting panels obscure the view across the gallery only from certain spots, meaning that visitors have to keep peering intently ahead to make out what’s there – an experience akin to moving through fog. (At Chelsea’s James Cohan Gallery through Nov 26th).
Inspired by sublime landscapes she’s encountered on road trips, Claire Sherman pictures the majestic outdoors as studies in light and form. (At DC Moore Gallery through Nov 5th).
Against the backdrop of rapid urban development in the Persian Gulf countries, the artist collective GCC examines the parallel trends toward the pursuit of happiness and health. Here, a woman practices a new age, healing therapy on her son. They stand in sand, a symbol of the landscape, inside a racing track reminiscent of the region’s many new urban walkways. (At Chelsea’s Mitchell-Innes and Nash through Nov 23rd).
Glasgow painter Merlin James suggests a sweeping landscape with an extreme economy of means in this painting on nylon at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. A tree overlooking a placid shoreline dominates the foreground while lighter tones at center and a few intersecting diagonal lines to the left suggest distant, mountainous terrain. (In Chelsea through Nov 12th).
Incomplete female bodies are Brooklyn painter Caitlin Keogh’s signature subject matter, so it’s fitting that human hands are alluded to in this painting titled, ‘The Gentle Art of Making Friends.’ Intertwined with flowers reminiscent of medieval tapestries, this decorative pattern of weaponry has been (temporarily at least) converted into a trellis evoking a well-groomed garden more than an arsenal. (At Bortolami Gallery through Oct 29th).
Jackie Gendel’s almost abstract chorus line of colorful figures appears chicly modern and homespun at the same time, recalling Gino Severini’s 1912 Futurist nightclub dancers but looking as if sewn together from fabric, an attractive and disarming effect achieved by painting in oil on vinyl. (At Thomas Erben Gallery through Oct 29th).
Two nudes descending a staircase by Georg Baselitz channels Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1912 Cubist figure but without the nervous energy. Upside down and painted in white, they are joined in the room’s other monumental paintings by ghostly characters who could be disappearing slowly downward into a dark pool of water, like Bill Viola’s transcending subjects. (At Gagosian Gallery’s 21st Street location in Chelsea through Oct 29th).
Does your furniture say something about your personality? Japanese design group Nendo goes a step further, suggesting that chairs themselves have personality, as demonstrated by fifty stainless steel seats. All were inspired by manga and intended to convey mood or attitude. Enhanced by swirling projections on the gallery walls, the chair in the foreground looks like it’s just arrived from another dimension, eager to please. (At Chelsea’s Friedman Benda through Oct 29th).
Jeff Elrod’s digitally inspired paintings may evoke a preschooler’s scrawl, but there’s something about ‘Rubber Miro’ that intrigues. Maybe it’s the necklace-like pattern or the pretty colors hovering somewhere in the background that make it hard to dismiss, maybe he’s succeeded in tapping into a subconscious, universal realm that Miro pioneered. (At Luhring Augustine Gallery through Oct 22nd).
At a time when sensitive portraits of African Americans were far from the norm, 19th century Boston artist Francesca Alexander’s tiny ink on paper sketch from 1852 of Julia Benson charms. (At Driscoll Babcock Galleries in Chelsea through Oct 22nd).
At over fourteen feet high, Lynda Benglis’ towering anthropomorph dominates her show of recent sculpture at Cheim & Read Gallery. Created by squirting spray foam onto chicken wire and casting the result in aluminum, its fragmentary quality makes it appear both imposing and fragile. (In Chelsea through Oct 22nd).
Sally Gall’s gorgeous, boldly colored photos bring to mind flowers, sea creatures and fungi; in fact, the billowing organic shapes are laundry items, photographed from under a drying line. The show wonderfully affirms the beauty in the everyday. (At Julie Saul Gallery through Oct 22nd)
From obsolete reference books, New York artist Brian Dettmer creates found poetry, collages and sculpture that literally manipulate knowledge into fascinating new forms. (At Chelsea’s PPOW Gallery through Oct 15th).
Meleko Mokgosi’s provocative pairing of three regal African women with a massive bull implies that we’re looking at two powerful forces. The diptych’s subtitle is ‘Lerato: Philia I’ the Setwana word for love (used as a noun in reference to a woman) followed by a suffix that brings to mind excessive devotion. (At Jack Shainman Gallery on 20th and 24th Streets through Oct 22nd).
Kyle Staver’s large paintings at Kent Fine Art update legends and classical mythology with panache and humor, but her small terracotta studies stand out for their immediacy. Here, Venus tries unsuccessfully to persuade Adonis not to venture out on his ill-fated hunt in a compressed action scene that casts Venus as a solid earth-mother and Adonis as an ungainly and heedless youth. (In Chelsea through Oct 22nd).
In Jeffrey Beebe’s richly imagined worlds, he pits ‘the Uncles’ – leaders of the Rover clans – against the ‘Red Soil Boys’ – a bellicose neighboring group who initiated an attack that wiped out many Uncles. In this detail from a grid of lost Uncles, Beebe introduces one of his fantastical creatures – a 21 ft long giant whose horn ‘improved both echolocation and moral indignation.’ (At Bravin Lee Programs in Chelsea through Oct 15th).
Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #368 appears to pulse and move as it surrounds visitors to Paula Cooper Gallery. In addition to the physical impact, there’s also appeal in imagining the various ways LeWitt’s instructions (as enumerated in the drawing’s title) could be interpreted. (In Chelsea through Oct 22nd).
Black canvases, some formerly used as studio rags, hang from wires in David Zwirner Gallery’s Chelsea space in Oscar Murillo’s new installation, dividing the gallery into sections like a make-shift field hospital. Even more ominous are sculptures inspired by morgue tables and a huge torn canvas featuring a bank note. Both are a far cry from the artist’s last show – for which he created a chocolate factory in the gallery. (Through Oct 22nd).
Twice a day for ten minutes, gallery staff at Lehmann Maupin Gallery switch on this magical instrument, constructed by Brazilian street art twins OSGEMEOS. The gallery fills with an eerie melody in keeping with the dream-like setting constructed by the duo, transporting visitors far away from the everyday. (In Chelsea through Oct 22nd).
In Ugo Rondinone’s exhibition of stacked sculptures at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in 2013, the Swiss artist piled rocks to resemble human figures. Here, vivid colors set the tone for a show that is about visual pleasure. In the background, a circular form (made from branches cast in aluminum and gilded) stands in for the sun setting over this cheery, primordial landscape. (In Chelsea through Oct 29th).
Chicago artist and member of the iconic Hairy Who artist group, Suellen Rocca devises a language of her own in this symbol-laden, nearly 10-foot long canvas from 1965 at Matthew Marks Gallery in Chelsea. Dominated by the perfect beauties of advertising, simplified down to their silhouettes and made sinister with modified features, Rocca’s painting ponders the temptations of consumer culture. (Through Oct 22nd).
Taking the doubts of Christ’s disciple Thomas as subject matter, Beijing-based artist Miao Xiaochun attempts a radical transformation of his own, departing from traditional art-making techniques to explore how hand drawing on canvas from 3D models might energize his paintings. (At Klein Sun Gallery through Oct 8th).
Awash in light, Hung Liu’s painting of an American sharecropper from near Jackson Mississippi belies the difficulty of this Depression era woman’s life as originally pictured in a photo by Dorothea Lange. Liu lifts her subject from the realm of documentary and considers her – via the same image – from an alternative angle. (At Nancy Hoffman Gallery through Oct 22nd).
Number 181 is a powerful presence at the entrance to abstract sculptor Leonardo Drew’s latest solo show at Chelsea gallery Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Thick clusters of driftwood project out over viewers who draw close to explore small sticks with white ends laid out in lines between rows of variously shaped pieces of wood. In this and the show’s other sculptures, Drew powerfully juxtaposes chaotic arrangements and careful order. (Through Oct 8th).
Digital technology allows us to be (at least in our conscious minds) in more than one place at a time. Abstract painter Sarah Walker engages the possibility of seeing multiple dimensions at once in her ‘space machine’ paintings, canvases that seem to offer portals into parallel universes. (At Pierogi on the Lower East Side through Oct 9th).
The colors of Gustav Klimt’s famous portrait of Viennese girl Mada Primavesi (in the Met’s collection) inspired this lush painting by British artist Ian Davenport, seen here in detail. In Klimt’s original, Mada’s slim figure barely stands out against a background of white, lilac and pink color; here, Davenport allows the colors to take over fully. (At Paul Kasmin Gallery through Oct 22nd).
Judith Schaechter’s relatively small stained glass work, ‘Botanical Study,’ opens a show of new work that pits the human body against fabulous depictions of nature in all its rich abundance. Here, Schaechter ignores humans entirely, zeroing in on a single drop of rich plant and insect life, amplifying the wonders of the natural world. (In Chelsea at Claire Oliver Gallery, through Oct 22nd).
LA artist Wayne White combines set design with his signature word paintings to eye-popping effect in his latest Chelsea solo exhibition at Joshua Liner Gallery. Using found prints or paintings as backgrounds, he adds phrases that are completely at odds with their tranquil subject matter and more in keeping with iconic movie lines; here, the phrase, ‘I’m gonna play like you didn say that’ dominates a mountainscape. (Through Oct 8th).
While living in an artfully converted shipping container next to a Costco parking lot in Queens, New York sculptor Lars Fisk developed his hugely entertaining concept of a real-world place rolled up into a tidy, circular package. His first show at Chelsea’s Marlborough Gallery features the largest ‘Lot Ball’ to date, along with balls inspired by subway signs and a Mr Softee truck. (Through Oct 15th).
At the center of Rashid Johnson’s ‘architectural grid work,’ classically trained pianist Antoine Baldwin plays jazz compositions on a piano fixed high in the structure. Complex and intriguing sounds merge with an arrangement of evocative objects – plants in planters hand-made by the artist, blocks of shea butter, stacks of books relating to African-American culture and early video work by Johnson. Together they continue the artist’s theme of freedom and anxiety experienced by African-American men in America, offering escape through lush greenery (signaling travel to a warmer land) and abundant reading material (liberation for the mind) or imprisonment by a rigid grid. (At Hauser & Wirth Gallery through Oct 22nd).
Without cell phones at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers had to make do with paintings made after the fact. Not so in Mark Wagner’s imaginatively collaged ‘Wish You Were Here,’ in which he collages a scene from the back of the $2 bill with myriad fragments of $1 bills to portray George Washington through a different lens. (At Pavel Zoubok Gallery in Chelsea through Oct 15th).
