Tag: children

Titus Kaphar at Gagosian Gallery

Amid vibrantly colored décor from an earlier time period, two sisters hold children who have disappeared in Titus Kaphar’s ‘Not My Burden’ at Gagosian Gallery’s 21st Street space in Chelsea.  A much-anticipated follow-up to select paintings shown online when TIME commissioned a cover from Kaphar after George Floyd’s murder, the exhibition features work in which children have literally been cut out of the canvas, representing the anxiety and fear experienced by Black mothers. (On view through Dec 19th.  Appointments, masks, social distancing, contact info and a health questionnaire are required).

Titus Kaphar, Not My Burden, oil on canvas, 66 x 60 ¼ inches, 2019.

Pieter Hugo at Yossi Milo Gallery

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).

Pieter Hugo, Portrait #9, Rwanda, digital C-Print, 47 ¼ inches x 63 inches, 2015.

Lordan Bunch at Foley Gallery

Self-taught super realist painter Lordan Bunch paints children from class photos and photo-booth shots, pulling their identities from oblivion to act as memento mori. (At Foley Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 30th).

Lordan Bunch, Amiable no 9, oil on panel, 17.5 x 11.5 inches, 2012.
Lordan Bunch, Amiable no 9, oil on panel, 17.5 x 11.5 inches, 2012.

Entang Wiharso at Marc Straus

As far as family portraits go, this one is by far one of the strangest I’ve seen, as a matron with a knife in her hair touches a carp’s tongue and father stands by cradling a skull while two boys look on. Wiharso has explained that in his work, tables are meant as meeting places and sites for negotiation; as such, this family has a lot to work through. (At Marc Straus on the Lower East Side through Feb 8th).

Entang Wiharso, Inheritance, graphite, resin, color pigment, thread, steel, life-size installation, 2014.

Ai Wei Wei at Brooklyn Museum

In response to the disastrous 2008 Sichuan earthquake that killed thousands of school children in their shoddily constructed schools, Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei constructed this snake of backpacks as a memorial. Below, a pile of porcelain river crabs indirectly stands in for censorship and recalls a huge feast of crab initiated by Ai Wei Wei as a protest against limitations on free speech. (At the Brooklyn Museum through August 10th).

Ai Wei Wei, Snake Ceiling, backpacks, 2009. He Xie, 3,200 porcelain crabs, 2010.