Chester Higgins, ‘Shared Memories’ at Bruce Silverstein Gallery

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Is this hand smothered by the US flag?  Supporting it?  Chester Higgins’ striking 2018 photograph, ‘State of Affairs’ continues the photographer’s six-decade photographic essay on the realities, triumphs and hardships of life for Black Americans with an image that is compositionally straightforward yet invites multiple interpretations.  The piece is a standout in the 80-year-old Brooklyn-based photographer’s current exhibition at Chelsea’s Bruce Silverstein Gallery, which includes work from his two dozen plus trips to the African continent alongside images from Harlem to Alabama, all of which richly demonstrate his love and respect for people of African descent. (On view in Chelsea through June 20th).

A closeup image of the American flag with an open hand in silhouette behind it.
Chester Higgins, State of Affairs, digital pigment print, 2018.

Katharina Fritsch, ‘Car and Caravan’ at Matthew Marks Gallery

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Katharina Fritsch’s sculptures elicit a mix of wonder and puzzlement, their careful manufacture and invitingly slick surfaces enticing us to ponder a strange shift in scale or unexpected color choice.  Here, a sculpture of a car and caravan in Fritsch’s solo show at Matthew Marks Gallery generates mild confusion at the incongruity of a Mercedes hauling a small camper (highlighted by the contrast between the car’s sleek black surface and the caravan’s white finish).  The artwork is based on a model of a toy that she presented at art school in 1979, a Pop art gesture that flirted with but flouted the prevalent minimalist aesthetic of the time. (On view in Chelsea through June 27th.)

A sculpture of a black car in front of a sculpture of a white caravan in a big, open-plan gallery.
Katharina Fritsch, Auto und Wohnwagen / Car and Caravan 1979/2026, vinyl ester resin, stainless steel, aluminum, lacquer, overall: 84 5/8 x 357 x 74 7/8 inches, 1979 / 2026.

Mark di Suvero, ‘Avanti!’ at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Preponderously heavy yet looking as if it just danced into Paula Cooper Gallery and paused for applause, Mark di Suvero’s 1986 ‘Nelly’ exemplifies the exuberance and solidity of the nonagenarian’s sculptures.  Across the gallery, ‘Avanti!’ from 1998 dares visitors to climb a small platform and use their own weight to shift a hulking great piece of steel suspended from a thick chain.  Both frightening and exhilarating, the experience of interacting with the metal behemoth takes visitors beyond the delight at dynamic forms to an appreciation of weight and actual movement.  (On view through July 17th).

An abstract sculpture roughly in the form of an X made of i-beams and other steel parts.
Mark di Suvero, Nelly, steel, 12 ft 6 inches x 18 ft 6 inches x 16 ft 10 ½ inches, 1986.

Emily Kraus, ‘In Relation’ at Luhring Augustine Gallery

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Emily Kraus’s oil paintings tower over visitors to Luhring Augustine’s Tribeca space, their repeated patterns alternately boldly colored and faded, like a stutter that periodically bursts into explosive expression.  The London-based American artist calls this group of abstract paintings her ‘Stochastic Series,’ after their unpredictable patterns and emphasizes the paintings’ relation to her own body.  Assigned a small studio with bad lighting while pursuing her MFA a few years ago, Kraus innovated by wrapping the walls in 360 degrees of canvas and later painting from within a cube structure which she rotates as she works.  Titled ‘Anemoi’ after the winds from Greek mythology, this painting suggests an opening through which twisting gusts might pass.  (On view in Tribeca through June 13th).

A large abstract painting hung in the corner of an art gallery.
Emily Kraus, Anemoi, oil on canvas, 125 ¼ x 225 ¼ inches, 2026.
A closeup view of an abstract painting.
Emily Kraus, Anemoi, oil on canvas, 125 ¼ x 225 ¼ inches, 2026.

Gerhard Richter, ‘Landschaften’ at David Zwirner Gallery

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Though iconic German artist Gerhard Richter painted from photographs from the 1960s onward, his dry-brush painting technique abstracted images from family albums, books or magazines into intentional ambiguity.  Focusing on landscapes, David Zwirner Gallery’s current show of Richter’s work from the ‘60s to the ‘00s displays both abstract and representational work side by side and, in some works, in the same painting.  Here, Lichtung (Clearing) seems to proffer an idyllic glade in the near distance.  In the immediate foreground, however, Richter imposes a permeable barrier between viewers and the scenic break in the forest by applying green-toned abstract passages of paint on the painting’s surface.  Our inclination to mentally venture into the meadow beyond is arrested as the focus shifts to the surface of the canvas, changing the painting from a nature scene into an experience of light, color and tone.  (On view in Chelsea through July 10th).

A painting of a clearing in a forest, partly covered over and hidden by paint.
Gerhard Richter, Lichtung (Clearing), oil on canvas, 28 ½ x 40 1/8 inch, 1987.

Debbie Lawson, ‘In a Cowslip’s Bell I Lie’ at Sargent’s Daughters

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Inspired by animal forms woven into carpets, carved into furniture and present throughout the history of architecture and the decorative arts, UK artist Debbie Lawson hides animals in plain sight in new sculpture at Sargent’s Daughters Gallery. Starting with a wire and tape armature, Lawson builds the animals and covers them in patterned carpet in a surprising blend of nature and culture.  The show’s handsome installation begins with canids camouflaged against a carpet backdrop and freestanding animals including a big cat and a bear, then progresses to this magnificent eagle at the back of the gallery, wings spread and claws poised as if materializing from the carpet’s foliage. (On view in Tribeca through May 30th.)

A Persian-style carpet hung on the wall with the form (sculpture) of an eagle appearing to fly out of it.
Debbie Lawson, Red Eagle, carpet, steel and mixed media, 116 1/8 x 21 5/8 inches, 2026.

Orkideh Torabi, ‘Kings and Conquerers’ at Asya Geisberg Gallery

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Orkideh Torabi’s solo show at Asya Geisberg Gallery is titled ‘Kings and Conquerors,’ but might more accurately swap ‘kings’ for ‘queens’ as the female protagonists of her vividly colored paintings take charge in the world and in their relationships with men.  At the gallery entrance, a confident woman in shades and cowboy boots drives straight towards us on her motorbike, a diminutive, worried-looking man on board behind her.  In other works, groups of men cheat at cards or gab loudly over beer.  When women appear in the paintings, however, they control the situation, as in this humorous recasting of the typically male magician and his female assistant.  (On view in Tribeca through May 16th).

A woman magician in a topcoat holding a cigarette and saw stands over a male assistant lying on a bench looking up.
Orkideh Torabi, Noise Cancellation: On, dye on canvas, 30h x 22w, 2026.

Giuseppe Penone, ‘The Reflection of Bronze’ at Gagosian Gallery

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Trees in the forest near the northern Italian village of Giuseppe Penone’s birth have inspired the famed 79-year-old Arte Povera artist’s artwork from an early age, and they continue to prompt his poetic mediations in the form of bronze sculpture currently on view at Gagosian Gallery.  After passing through a large gallery dramatically lined with cork oak tree bark and small sculptural masks of acacia leaves, visitors encounter four sculptures titled ‘Clepsydra,’ a reference to ancient water clocks that marked time with a slow, steady release (or ‘theft’) of water.  For each, Penone removed (or ‘stole’) wood from a large tree to reveal a younger plant, stripping away the years and layers of growth to return to an earlier state. (On view in Chelsea through July 2nd).

A sculpture of a large tree trunk with a slice removed on top of which is a spindly, leafless tree.
Giuseppe Penone, Clepsydra [I], bronze, 130 11/16 x 51 3/16 x 49 5/8 inches, 2012.

Sally Saul, ‘Over the River and Through the Woods’ at Shrine Gallery

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On a low pedestal at the center of Shrine Gallery’s back exhibition space, a selection of Sally Saul’s quirky ceramic sculptures seems designed to underwhelm but charms none-the-less.  Snaggle-toothed dogs frisk around, three white-throated sparrows with delicate bodies and chunky feet gather around a dish of food, and a couple of chipmunks chatter together in sculptures that delightfully picture animals in community with each other.  Meanwhile, Saul’s perturbed-looking self-portrait head semi-surrounded by several tiny flying fish humorously suggests that this alter ego has slipped into another mental state while nearby, a whimsical hatted figure holding a dish of something resembling fruit sits in wholesome enjoyment of the natural world. (On view in Tribeca through May 9th).

A ceramic man in a hat holds a dish of fruit while seated on the floor next to a ceramic tree.
Sally Saul, Man with Hat, clay and glaze, 17 x 12.75 x 12.5 inches, 2022.

Doron Langberg, ‘Landscapes’ at Deitch Gallery

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A vividly colored landscape near his family home in Israel, the forest in Ukraine where many family members were murdered during the Holocaust and a dance party on Fire Island are subjects of New York artist Doron Langberg’s huge new canvases at Deitch Gallery, all an attempt to personally process two years of war.  Langberg wrote a statement about his new work and gave an interview to the New York Times; beyond that, visitors are left to make their own interpretation of the peaceful and fraught places pictured.  The artist explains that Van Gogh and Munch inspired him to look to the landscape as a place to grapple with darkness; by extension, here he pictures the community at the Meat Rack rave which momentarily gave relief to pervasive feelings of heaviness. (On view through this Saturday, April 25th in Tribeca).

A mass of indistinct people at an outdoor gathering.
Doron Langberg, Meat Rack Rave, oil on linen, triptych, overall 96 x 240 inches, 2024.
Barely visible cluster of people in a darker area in foreground, a light colored string of flags top right.
Doron Langberg, (detail) Meat Rack Rave, oil on linen, triptych, overall 96 x 240 inches, 2024.

Anish Kapoor, ‘Untitled’ at Lisson Gallery

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Walk in front of Anish Kapoor’s 15-foot-tall sheet of stainless steel at Lisson Gallery, and you will be flipped upside down and made huge, an effect both disarming and entertaining.  In another sculpture titled ‘Double Vertigo,’ two back-to-back sheets of curving steel reflect each other into infinity while their opposite sides distort gallery visitors’ appearances to the point of disorientation.  In his quest to know who we are as humans, Kapoor’s work often attempts to metaphorically look inside the body or aims to create a sublime experience beyond it.  His current show falls into the later category, immersing viewers not just in artworks but in environments of his own making. (On view in Chelsea through April 25th).

Three people stand in front of a tall, curving piece of reflective metal in a white-cube gallery.
Anish Kapoor, Non Object (Plane), stainless steel, 184 x 85 7/8 x 29 7/8 inches, 2010.

Wendy Red Star, ‘One Blue Bead’ at Sargent’s Daughters

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18th and 19th century versions of the White French Cross bead in the foreground of this installation view of Wendy Red Star’s solo show at Sargent’s Daughters in Tribeca were harder for Venetian glassmakers to produce, and therefore worth more in the North American fur trade.  Trade routes that brought the beads from Europe to the North American interior as well as historic exchange values (3-4 could trade for a prime winter beaver pelt in the 1800s) are part of the information accompanying Red Star’s alluring display of much enlarged glass beads placed on Hudson Bay blankets.  A grid of watercolor paintings features the beads and their names (e.g. Padre, Watermelon), enlarging the tiny forms that generated big demand in exchange between Native Americans and Europeans. (On view in Tribeca through April 18th).

Large sculptural glass beads lie on a red blanket on the floor. Behind, on the wall, is a grid of paintings of individual beads.
Wendy Red Star, installation view of ‘One Blue Bead’ at Sargent’s Daughters, March 2026.

Kamrooz Aram, ‘Infrequencies’ at Alexander Gray Associates

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Rooted in a rigid structure but featuring curving forms suggestive of leaves and floral shapes found in decorative artwork across cultures and ages, Kamrooz Aram’s painted abstractions at Alexander Gray subvert the modernist grid by merging it with decorative elements.  Alert to modern art’s disapprobation of ornament, Aram combines both in a show of intensely pleasurable work from the last six years.  Here, a painting titled ‘Exuberant Flaneuse’ suggests an urban observer of life whose enthusiasm has overtaken her detachment. (On view in Tribeca through April 11th.)

An abstract design with straight forms contrasting dominant curving forms in multiple vibrant colors.
Kamrooz Aram, Exuberant Flaneuse, oil, oil crayon, oil stick, and wax pencil on linen, 84 1/8 x 72 1/8 inches, 2020.

Eva Zethraeus and Camilla Iliefski in ‘Shimmering Real’ at HB381 Gallery

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Inspired by natural forms, Swedish artist Eva Zethraeus’ glazed porcelain sculptures have a pronounced curviness that makes them pleasing to the eye whether their projecting segments hint at ocean life or a virus.  The cool colors are offset in a two-person show at Tribeca’s HB381 Gallery by multi-toned, hand-tufted tapestry by fellow Swede and colleague Camilla Iliefski who also takes plant and ocean life as inspiration.  (On view through April 18th in Tribeca).

Several abstract ceramic sculptures rest on a light colored table with a textured tapestry on the wall behind.
Eva Zethraeus, (foreground) Pale Blue Helix, glazed porcelain, 7” h x 13.5” diameter, 2026.

Mariah Robertson, ‘Portraits’ at Chart Gallery

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Mariah Robertson’s instantly recognizable, abstract darkroom photographs are a kind of experimental art made with filters, chemicals, selective light application and multiple exposures born from her performance practice.  In new work at Chart Gallery, Roberston introduces another shift in her working methods with acrylic on aluminum paintings that exactly reproduce her photograms.  Explaining that people often compare her photographic work to paintings, she set out to discover what fertile ground lay in a new medium.  The resulting ‘portraits,’ as they’re titled, swap out the photograms’ light-infused, ephemeral magic in favor of a grounded feeling, as if revealing two sides of one character.  (On view in Tribeca through April 11th).

An abstract pattern of curving lines.
Mariah Robertson, 109, Unique C-Print, image: 30 x 26 inches, 2025.
An abstract pattern of lines.
Mariah Robertson, Portrait of 109, acrylic on aluminum, 60 x 48 inches, 2026.

Elias Sime, ‘Final Drop’ at James Cohan Gallery

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Titled ‘Final Drop,’ Elias Sime’s show at James Cohan Gallery of gorgeous new assemblage art created from row upon row of braided electrical wire and other end-of-life electronics continues his theme of human impact on the environment.  Sime’s past work occasionally resembles aerial views of landscapes and in this piece, a central oval shape could be water seen from above, surrounded by contour lines of land.  If the blue is water, it is surprisingly geometric – formed from stacked cube shapes – and suggests an imposed order on the landscape by humans, not natural forces. Clusters of earphone components give texture to the areas of ‘land’ while also repeating the recurring droplet shape that appears in multiple works, symbolizing the life-giving importance of water (and nature) and its precarity.  (On view through March 21st).

An abstract pattern featuring a round blue form at center.
Elias Sime, FINAL DROP 11, woven electrical wires on wooden panel, 66 x 112 inches, 2026.
An abstract pattern made with colorful braided electrical wire.
Elias Sime, (detail) FINAL DROP 11, woven electrical wires on wooden panel, 66 x 112 inches, 2026.

Kurt Kauper, ‘Housekeeping’ at Ortuzar Gallery

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Though Kurt Kauper’s realist oil paintings are intended to be open-ended, allowing viewers to apply their own interpretations to his sometimes-surreal scenarios, the artist makes sure there’s plenty to fuel speculation.  In this painting from Kauper’s series ‘Watching Men,’ part of his solo at Ortuzar Gallery that pictures men preparing themselves to face the world by brushing their teeth or combing their hair, for example, it’s tempting to consider what’s on this thoughtful man’s mind.  Just as he faces the direction of the arrow in the bike lane next to him, his scarf matches the road markings and the nearby construction barriers.  Though the barricades seem to symbolize impeded progress, the man appears to be at the moment of breakthrough as he emerges from shadow into light.  (On view in Tribeca through Feb 28th).

A man in the foreground appears to walk down the street toward a park with a light colored building behind and construction barriers to his left.
Kurt Kauper, Watching Men #13, oil on dibond, 12 x 12 inches, 2025.

Alexis Rockman, ‘Feedback Loop’ at Jack Shainman Gallery

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For sheer beauty, no other current Chelsea show can beat Alexis Rockman’s watercolor and acrylic landscape paintings, part of his exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery.  Attracted by washes of bright watercolor and acrylic, visitors are drawn into environments around the world that have experienced climate change-related fires or agricultural burns.  Oil and cold wax paintings in the main gallery juxtapose towering, burning landscapes with diminutive humans in boats on rivers in the foreground, helpless witnesses to the devastation.  A final gallery of ‘field drawings’ from the Great Lakes region were created from a kind of paint made with local materials – sand from the lakes or coal dust from a power plant – which he used to picture local fish, birds and more.  Part elegy at what is being lost, part appreciation of the beauty that remains, Rockman’s new work is a powerful reminder of the fragility of nature.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 28th.)

Bird of paradise flower in foreground, blurry fire in the background of this washy watercolor.
Alexis Rockman, Osa Peninsula, watercolor and acrylic on paper, 18 x 24 inches, 2025.

Zarina, ‘Beyond the Stars’ at Luhring Augustine Gallery

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Born in Aligarh, India ten years before partition, Zarina Hashmi’s uprooting at an early age prefigured a nomadic life of artmaking in Thailand, Germany, Paris, Japan, New York and beyond.  Luhring Augustine’s survey of several decides of the artist’s print-centered work reflects the artist’s recurring themes of home and displacement through pieces picturing abstracted maps of countries and cities in which she lived, as well as abstract work recalling architecture.  In this thickly textured cast-paper wall-sculpture titled ‘Marrakesh,’ Zarina, who went by her first name, suggests the earthen building tradition of Morrocco and a recurring stepped form in Islamic architecture.  (On view in Tribeca through March 28th).

A cast-paper form like a ziggurat or plant, colored brown.
Zarina, Marrakesh, cast paper, 22 x 19 ½ inches, 1988.

Eva Robarts, ‘Bikes, Bolts and Brooms’ at Nicola Vassell Gallery

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Titled ‘Bikes, Bolts and Brooms,’ Eva Robarts show of new sculpture at Nicola Vassell Gallery makes familiar objects feel both strange and wonderful by clustering them in colorful accumulations.  A rainbow of overlapping V-shaped bike frame segments and monochromatic panels made of roughly woven, crushed flat broom handles convey a certain amount of energy just by their tilting, dense arrangement of forms.  In the back room, this combination of a scythe and truck mirror titled ‘Dancers’ strikes a darker, dangerous note.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 21st).

Eva Robarts, Dancers, scythe, trucking door mount mirror, steel hardware, 35 x 54 x 33 inches, 2021.

Joseph Jones at Chapter NY Gallery

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Primed by countless social media posts to see cats as cute and entertaining, visitors to Joseph Jones’ solo show at Chapter NY Gallery encounter meticulously detailed paintings of the animals that slow down our rapid-view consumption and complicate our enjoyment.  Two of three paintings cropped to show human arms holding a gorgeous, white-furred cat prominently feature a wristwatch, perhaps making us aware of how long we pause to examine each work.  Though the show includes paintings of tiny but bold flower blossoms and one sympathetic-looking dog’s head, human/cat interactions dominate.  One cat wearing a yellow hood looks accusatorily outward as if horrified to be forced into such a getup while another manifests in a rainbow of color like a feline leprechaun. Jones’ paintings probe human attitudes to felines – from plaything to enigma –  in ways that invite careful looking. (On view in Tribeca through Feb 21st).

A person in a gold track suit top is holding a white cap in their arms.
Joseph Jones, Gold cat, oil and acrylic on linen, 2026.

Shaunte Gates, ‘The Night Before: Poppies and Parachutes’ at Marc Straus Gallery

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Drawing on influences as diverse as his uncle’s trove of recorded Hollywood movies and Greek and Roman mythology, DC-based artist Shaunte Gates wields a sophisticated collage technique that pictures heroic hybrid characters in a maelstrom of imagery.  New work at Marc Straus Gallery in Tribeca includes recurring Greek columns and white parachutes, suggesting a collapsing old order and either an escape from danger or an incoming invasion.  Here, Gates’ ‘The Messenger, The Archer, The Lover no II’ features a purposefully striding leg and a composite image of the hunting goddess Artemis, complete with quiver and dog.  Seen from below, the figures dominate, their actions full of portent and importance. (On view in Tribeca through Feb 28th).

A dense collage featuring a striding leg in a Timberland-style boot, a goddess and more figures.
Shaunte Gates, The Messenger, The Archer, The Lover no II, acrylic paint, photo, pulled paper, collage, thread on wood panel, 2026.
A figure of the goddess Artemis collaged from different pictures.
Shaunte Gates, (detail) The Messenger, The Archer, The Lover no II, acrylic paint, photo, pulled paper, collage, thread on wood panel, 2026.

Esteban Cabeza de Baca, ‘Pollinators’ at Garth Greenan Gallery

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Though based on the east coast, Esteban Cabeza de Baca roots his artworks in his parents’ Mexican heritage and his childhood upbringing near the California / Mexico border.  In this painting in his latest solo show at Garth Greenan Gallery, the artist employs New Mexico soil along with dyes made of cochineal from insects and indigo along with acrylic and spray paint, merging contemporary and ancient materials.  A Maize god featured on Mayan artifacts inspired the green, human-plant hybrid figure pictured here on a segment of a wall which has broken away and is hovering in space at the center of this painting.  Accepting human figures onto its open plant-palm, the deity offers a chance to exist in communion with nature, a recurring theme of Cabeza de Baca’s work. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 21st).

Esteban Cabeza de Baca, Portals to the Lunar Maize God, New Mexico soil, acrylic, and spray paint on cochineal and indigo dyed canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 2025.

Nicolas Party, ‘Dead Fish’ at Karma Gallery

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Nicolas Party’s last major NY solo show alluded to the devastating effects of climate change with a huge mural of a raging forest fire; imagery of dead fish in his current exhibition at Karma again suggests a relationship of precarity with the natural world.  Inspired by Renoir’s still life paintings of fish and Goya’s tonally darker paintings of the same subject matter (both created during wartime), Party presents a small oil on copper painting and a 14-foot-high mural featuring a pile of fish, a symbol of mortality more stark for its isolation at the center of the artwork.  The shift in scale from the show’s diminutive oil on copper paintings to the vast wall piece unsubtly directs viewers back to a feeling of thought-provoking unease that pervades Party’s practice. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 14th).

Several dead fish lie in a pile at the center of a blank area.
Nicolas Party, Dead Fish, soft pastel on wall, 173 x 206 inches, 2026.

Mary Bauermeister, ‘Stoned’ at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery

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Late German artist Mary Bauermeister addressed natural, mathematical and spiritual order in artworks composed of stones that she collected from beaches around the Mediterranean and Atlantic.  Now on view at Micheal Rosenfeld Gallery, a selection of the artist’s work from the late 1950s to 2018 includes her first stone work from 1962 and pieces from the same decade including this large assemblage, ‘Stone Arrow/Error,’ which seems to indicate a colossal downturn or alternatively, a suggestion to look down to the earth.  Composed of small to tiny water-smoothed pebbles arranged by size to suggest a recession into infinity at the center, the pattern of stones is broken by a white area of canvas at the bottom.  Here, a drawing of a hand drawing the hand that places the stones suggests an awareness of self-awareness that leads the viewer to ponder our frames of reference when it comes to creativity and the natural world.  (On view through Jan 31st at Michael Rosenfel Gallery in Chelsea).

A canvas shaped like a giant downturned arrow, covered with rows of very small stacks of rounded pebbles.
Mary Bauermeister, Stone Arrow/Error, stones, casein tempera and ink on plywood wrapped in painted canvas and particle board coated with sand, in two parts, 66 ¾ x 49 ½ x 4 ¾ inches, 1964-66.
Detail of an artwork composed of rows of stones and a drawing of a hand drawing a picture of a hand.
Mary Bauermeister, Stone Arrow/Error, stones, casein tempera and ink on plywood wrapped in painted canvas and particle board coated with sand, in two parts, 66 ¾ x 49 ½ x 4 ¾ inches, 1964-66.

Nicole Cherubini, ‘Hotel Roma’ at Friedman Benda Gallery

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Three towering arrangements of curving stacked forms in Nicole Cherubini’s first solo show at Chelsea’s Friedman Benda Gallery represent Greek mythology’s Three Graces in a decidedly updated style. Cherubini’s versions partially preserve the white expanses of flesh on ancient marble trios while adding expressionist drips and splashes of color and terracotta material as if to partially cloth the normally nude characters.  In past work, Cherubini has treated sculpture and support as equally important; here for Grace number three, a long bench-like form extends away from the figure like the train of a dress or elements of a landscape. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 21st).

A stack of sculptural ceramic forms with a bench-like shape extending back into the gallery.
Nicole Cherubini, 3, earthenware, terracotta, sculptural clay, glaze, epoxy resin, Magic Sculpt, acrylic paint, steel rod, hardware, 87 ¼ x 146 x 26 ½ inches, 2025.

Louise Bourgeois, ‘Gathering Wool’ at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

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Though Hauser and Wirth Gallery’s current exhibition of work by Louise Bourgeois focuses on the late artist’s abstract sculpture, many pieces incorporate found objects or include an element of representation that gives each work an extra charge.  Viewers first encounter a darkened gallery dominated by a metal submarine-like shape in two parts – one moving slowly in an out of the other on rails – meant to evoke mother/child dependency. Less unnerving but still pointing to the female body, one of the artist’s Poids sculptures features a humerously minimal assemblage of curving forms – a tire and two liquid-filled glass bowls positioned on an arched steel rod – that suggest a stooped, subservient form. Here, an untitled pink marble sculpture offers another spherical shape, this one with a chubby arm emerging from one side as if breaking out into independent life.  (On view in Chelsea through April 18th).

A marble sphere sits on top of a roughly carved marble block. A child's chubby upper arm comes from the sphere.
Louise Bourgeois, Untitled (With Hand), pink marble, 31 x 30 ½ x 21 inches, 1989.

Judy Pfaff, ‘Light Years’ at Cristin Tierney Gallery

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‘Wow’ is always an appropriate response to Judy Pfaff’s exuberant installations and sculpture, their joyful excess of materials and form always eye-catching, sometimes overwhelming.  Her first show with Cristin Tierney Gallery features a 40’ long installation of acrylic sheets fixed with neon, polyurethane foam, recycled plastic and umbrellas along one wall of the gallery’s new Tribeca space.  Opposite, three sculptures incorporating waving segments of plastic carpet pierced by neon (made with collaborating neon artist Joe Upham) transform impoverished materials into artworks with engaging visual complexity.  (On view through Dec 20th).

An abstract arrangement of a waving plastic carpet and neon lights.
Judy Pfaff, CARPETRIGHT, steel, recycled plastic carpet, neon, T5 fluorescent light, 74 x 68 x 41 inches, 2025.

Meg Lipke, ‘Matrilines’ at Broadway Gallery

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For energy and pleasure, few current Tribeca exhibitions can best Meg Lipke’s exhibition of fiber-stuffed shaped paintings at Broadway Gallery.  In her works’ vibrant color and inventive form, Lipke expresses kinship to her artistic forebears, pointing out Howardena Pindell’s late ‘60s soft grid composed of rolled up canvas segments, Ree Morton’s inventive combination of painting and objects and Elizabeth Murray’s shaped canvases as influences.  Here, the huge 8’ x 16’ ‘Slanting Grid’ could easily dominate the gallery but acts more subtly, its pastel tones and mostly soft forms drawing in visitors while three triangles at bottom and its insistent rightward lean direct attention away.  (On view in Tribeca through Dec 13th).

A stuffed grid of fabric in pink and green/blue color mounted on the wall.
Meg Lipke, Slanting Grid, acrylic and fabric dye on muslin, fiber and thread, 96 x 192 x 7 inches, 2020 – 2025.
Closeup of the stuffed grid painting above.
Meg Lipke, (detail of) Slanting Grid, acrylic and fabric dye on muslin, fiber and thread, 96 x 192 x 7 inches, 2020 – 2025.

Jacob Hashimoto, ‘The bittersweet fall into actuality’ at Miles McEnery Gallery

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Jacob Hashimoto’s new wall-mounted paper and bamboo sculptures at Miles McEnery Gallery have tantalizing titles (‘The problem with bubbles’ and ‘It was all possible until it wasn’t’) but are resolutely abstract.  Inspired by structures from circuit-boards to cells, Hashimoto has described his work as an open system that allows viewers in, validating a variety of experience.  Nevertheless, he seems to be edging closer to representation with this multi-colored, riotously patterned construction titled, ‘The bittersweet fall into actuality.’  Anchored in a form suggesting a tree, the artist’s step towards ‘actuality’ is still enjoyably open to interpretation. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 20th).

An artwork composed of layers of small paper disks with abstract patterning. The entire pattern suggests a tree at the center with surrounding abstract patterns.
Jacob Hashimoto, The bittersweet fall into actuality, acrylic, paper, bamboo, wood and Dacron, 60 x 48 x 8 ¼ inches, 2025.
Detail of the artwork showing abstract patterns of green, white and brown on circular disks.
Jacob Hashimoto, (detail) The bittersweet fall into actuality, acrylic, paper, bamboo, wood and Dacron, 60 x 48 x 8 ¼ inches, 2025.

Lauren Satlowski, ‘Not All Clues Are Paintings, But All Paintings Are Clues’ at Timothy Taylor Gallery

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LA artist Lauren Satlowski’s realist painting finds the point at which banality turns into something unsettling.  New work at Timothy Taylor Gallery in Tribeca features cartoon characters in office mishaps, coffee mugs placed before strange, visceral forms and everywhere, spilled coffee.  In this five-foot tall piece, ‘Skiing on Acid,’ Satlowski juxtaposes two skiers – one on a ceramic coffee mug labeled ‘purgatory’ and the other on a teeth-bitten Styrofoam cup dunked in a glass of water.  Symbolic of escape yet conveying confinement, the setup seems to sabotage the mental exit strategy of a trapped worker.  (On view in Tribeca through Dec 13th).

A painting of a mug with a picture of a person skiing) placed on an oval serving tray next to a water-filled glass holding a styrofoam cup featuring a picture of a person skiing.
Lauren Satlowski, Skiing on Acid, oil and acrylic on linen, 60 x 72 inches, 2025.

Guanyu Xu, ‘Resident Aliens’ at Yancey Richardson Gallery

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Though they’re hard to read at first glance, it’s illegibility that draws viewers into Guanyu Xu’s photographs of apartment interiors at Yancey Richardson Gallery. At first appearing to be a digital collage, the images are of actual physical spaces temporarily hung with photographs and shot by Xu.  Here, the floor and curving wall anchor the scene, which is hung with a photo of a window (partially covering a doorway), a photo of a bookshelf affixed to a radiator along with larger and smaller images that make space strange.  The details draw us in – travel photos, personal snapshots and more express the particular character and interests of the apartment owner, each of whom lives in the US or China with varying immigration statuses.  Titled ‘Resident Alien,’ the focus on intimate personal details in each photographed interior challenges the exhibition title’s cold terminology. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 20th).

A photograph of an apartment with printed photos of different sizes and subjects hung on the wall.
Guanyu Xu, DJ-08182018-01172022, archival pigment print, 2022.
Photograph of an apartment interior with many photographs of various sizes hung from the wall.
Guanyu Xu, (detail of) DJ-08182018-01172022, archival pigment print, 2022.

Jennifer Packer, “Dead Letter” at Sikkema Malloy Jenkins

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From the first painting in Jennifer Packer’s solo show at Sikkema Malloy Jenkins to the final piece, the artist pictures individuals in repose.  Several figures lie on couches while nearby, their intimates read, smoke or simply look on.  In other works, heads fill the canvas, appearing to be sleeping peacefully, though they are rendered in visceral, red tones.  Packer’s first show of new work at the gallery since the unexpected death of her partner in 2021 poignantly pictures moments of absence and presence, usually in the same painting, while continuing her signature focus on the unique beauty and value of her subjects.  Here, in a piece called ‘Melt,’ a figure slumps down with a bag by her feet, as if grateful to arrive in a peaceful place of rest.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 13th).

A woman leans back against a chair, resting, with a shopping bag by her side on the floor.
Jennifer Packer, Melt, oil on canvas, 26 x 30 1/8 inches, 2025.

Marie Watt, ‘Thirteen Moons’ at Marc Straus Gallery

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Drawn into Marc Straus Gallery by the soft pink glow of a neon moon, visitors to Seneca Nation citizen Marie Watt’s exhibition are surrounded by the material richness of light glittering off metal cones and satin blanket edges.  Embroidered blanket segments referring to Native American gifting practices and small, conical shapes sewn to garments worn for dance are Watt’s signature materials, harnessed to recall Indigenous histories and traditions. Likewise, the show’s title, ‘Thirteen Moons,’ refers to the thirteen months of the Haudenosaunee calendar, which are aligned with events in the natural world and appear in the neon text. ‘Sugar Maple Moon’ refers to the spring month when maple trees should be tapped, while corn moon, green bean moon, resting moon and others point to sources of nourishment or repose in a culturally specific interrelation of time and nature.  (On view in Tribeca through Dec 20th).

Circling rings of text. Text is the names of the months of the Haudenosaunee calendar.
Marie Watt, Time Piece, neon, diameter 84 inches, 2025.

Veronica Ryan, ‘Retrieval’ at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Three years after winning Britain’s biggest art prize Veronica Ryan’s evocative, small-scale sculpture invite intimate inspection at Paula Cooper Gallery.  Despite the many accolades that have come her way in recent years, Ryan continues to craft humble, abstract sculptures from a combination of ephemeral and found materials that speak to the memories and associations held by everyday objects.  Titled ‘Retrieval,’ the show includes objects covered in bandages and sacks of Himalayan salt crystals that open conversations about healing.  Pillow-like forms, pincushions and a giant doily speak to the labor and care shown by Ryan’s late mother, who embroidered the family’s pillowcases and made clothing.  Here, two small towers created by stacking pie tins and held together by crocheted wool represent a structure made to house bundles of salt and ceramic seeds, symbols of healing and growth. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 22nd).

Two circular columns of stacked materials inside of two close-fitting orange and a turquoise crocheted sacks.
Veronica Ryan, Totem, pie tins, crochet wool, plaster, thread, Himalayan salt, netting, air-dried clay, acrylic paint, pink totem: 35 x 12 x 9 inches, blue totem: 30 ¼ x 9 ¼ x 9 ¼ inches, 2024-25.
A circular column inside of two crocheted forms, supporting three small sacks.
Veronica Ryan, Totem, pie tins, crochet wool, plaster, thread, Himalayan salt, netting, air-dried clay, acrylic paint, pink totem: 35 x 12 x 9 inches, blue totem: 30 ¼ x 9 ¼ x 9 ¼ inches, 2024-25.

Scherezade Garcia, ‘Sea of Belonging’ at Praxis Gallery

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The sea is calm but overwhelming in Scherezade Garcia’s paintings at Praxis Gallery.  Swells and currents represented by thick, multi-toned and almost calligraphic lines create a dynamic that competes with the opulent decoration worn by serene, even regal characters.  Titles like ‘Splendor of a New World’ or ‘Map of the World’ harken to the historical arrival of Europeans in the Americas and the cultural intersections that resulted, represented in Garcia’s work by the combination of baroque forms and people with what she calls ‘cinnamon skin.’  Seeing water as a metaphor for transformation and movement, the artist’s opulent vision speaks to the beauty and possibilities of fluidity. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 1st).

A person resting in water in a golden life preserver with elaborate clothing, hair and jewelry.
Scherezade Garcia, Splendor of a New World, Gold Paints acrylic, charcoal, pastel on linen, 72 x 54 inches, 2025.
A person with golden hair, an elaborate collar and jewelry.
Scherezade Garcia, Splendor of a New World, Gold Paints acrylic, charcoal, pastel on linen, 72 x 54 inches, 2025.

Chloe Wise, ‘Myth Information’ at Almine Rech Gallery

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Entangled bodies dominate the dark, shallow space of Chloe Wise’s new paintings at Almine Rech Gallery, recalling dynamic figures from the late Renaissance.  Titles like, ‘This Offworld Impulse’ (picturing a reclining person, youthful and slim gazing skyward) and here, ‘Wake up, mutate and ascend’ both point to experience that transcends corporality.  Taking inspiration from historical paintings featuring contact between the heavenly and earthly realms (she cites El Greco’s rendition of St Francis of Assisi receiving stigmata), Wise pictures people in contemporary clothes and hairstyles alongside partially visible figures in satin gloves or red stockings.  Though modeled on historical characters experiencing the divine, Wise’s figures roll their eyes a little too far heavenward while striking self-conscious poses, rooting them in the here and now. (On view through tomorrow, Oct 25th, at Almine Rech’s Tribeca gallery).

Central figure with head propped up by hand, many other hands and arms dropped around them.
Chloe Wise, Wake up, mutate and ascend, oil on linen, 72 ¼ x 60 ¼ x 1 ¼ inches, 2025.

Lawrence Weiner, AS OFTEN AS NOT at Gladstone Gallery

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Late conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner realized in 1968 that he could favor the idea of an artwork more than an actual physical object and went on to make hundreds of text-based artworks.  Around thirty are on display at Gladstone Gallery through Saturday, a mini-retrospective that starts with his iconic ‘Declaration of Intent’ to physically create – or not – an artwork.  Appearing on the wall just inside the gallery entrance in pale pink text, Weiner’s foundational principle is present but subordinate to bold statements in the main gallery, such as ‘SET AT THE POINT JUST BEFORE THE POINT OF NO RETURN’ or here, ‘AS OFTEN AS NOT,’ phrases that can take the mind to a place that an image cannot.  (On view at Gladstone Gallery’s 21st Street location in Chelsea through Oct 25th).

Text on the wall in black bold font reading 'As Often as Not'.
Lawrence Weiner, AS OFTEN AS NOT, language and the materials referred to, dimensions variable, 2017.

Gabriel Orozco, ‘Partituras’ at Marian Goodman Gallery

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Are there visual artists who aren’t inspired by music?  Galleries and museums regularly post playlists to accompany exhibitions and music references pop up constantly, suggesting that music is a presence behind much visual art produced today.  That relationship steps to the fore in Gabriel Orozco’s show of paintings at Marian Goodman Gallery in Tribeca, a body of work for which he transcribed his improvisational piano playing as a system of multi-colored circular forms.  Similar to previous painting series for which he followed a system of laying down and repeating circular forms then added color through a method inspired by a knight’s movement in chess, the artist generates the current paintings’ forms through a system.  According to Orozco, the resulting horizontally oriented forms could be read and played by musicians or appreciated visually and aurally through Vimeo links on the gallery’s checklist.  (On view through Oct 25th).

painting of small abstract forms in an arrangement that looks like musical notes on staffs.
Gabriel Orozco, 30 de Octubre 2024, 16:40 hrs, Paris, tempera, gold leaf and graphite on canvas, 78 ¾ x 78 ¾ x 1 ½ inches, 2025.

Mona Kowalska, ‘Out of Body’ at Kerry Schuss Gallery

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After a life in the fashion industry, which began as a fit model in a Polish state-run clothing factory and progressed to running her beloved NYC-based brand ‘A Detacher,’ Mona Kowalska struck out as a visual artist.  Six years later, her second solo show at Kerry Schuss Gallery in Tribeca demonstrates her continued interest in bodies, expressed through textiles.  A sculpture of a thick and curvy, Smurf-like lower torso and legs crafted in impressively thick lengths of hemp rope rests near a dress and boots made in the same material.  Nearby, a bowl-like wooden form attached to the wall and covered with black netting suggests a figure partially disguised by a face veil.  Another mysterious visage emerges from two socks joined by a single string, a shaggy, wall-mounted sculpture made of goat hair that effects a fairy-tale-like merger of human and animal forms. (In view in Tribeca through Oct 25th).

Mona Kowalska, Goathair Socks, goathair, cotton, 25.5 x 15.5 x 1.5 inches, 2019.

Diana Cepleanu, ‘Now’ at Kaufmann Repetto

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Amid soft waves of hair and a dark, indistinct background, a face looms toward the surface of a self-portrait by Romanian artist Diana Cepleanu, arresting for its piercing eyes and a tangle of light and color across one cheek.  Similarly, the artist’s seemingly abstract painting ‘Ray’ focuses on a curious manifestation of light, as if a beam was emerging from a natural environment to powerful effect.  Three decades of work at Kaufmann Repetto in Tribeca introduces Cepleanu to New York as a painter who pulls the extraordinary from quotidian life. (On view in Tribeca through Oct 24th).

A face looming forward with accents of light and color on the left side.
Diana Cepleanu, Self-portrait, oil on canvas, 15 x 15 inches, 2023.
An abstract depiction of a ray of light coming from a curving white form below.
Diana Cepleanu, Ray, oil on canvas, 21.7 x 19.8 inches, 2021.

Maria Berrio in ‘Soliloquy of the Wounded Earth’ at Hauser and Wirth Gallery

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Along one wall of New York-based Columbian artist Maria Berrio’s solo show at Hauser and Wirth Gallery, she depicts three Cumbia dancers in the guise of the Fates from Greek mythology, known for spinning a thread that will start, influence and end the life of each human.  What if this thread should be stolen from them, repurposed and deified, spun into banners and flags?  Throughout the show Berrio follows this storyline while also foregrounding female figures who seem to counter the misuse of the thread: an oracle on a horse, a levitating female figure and this young woman who walks with a brilliantly abundant banner.  Using her signature Japanese papers with watercolor painting, Berrio’s vibrant artworks offer a hopeful starting point for dreams. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 18th).

Maria Berrio, Songlines, collage with Japanese papers and watercolor paint on linen, 118 1/8 x 92 ¼ x 1 3/8 inches, 2025.
Maria Berrio, Songlines, collage with Japanese papers and watercolor paint on linen, 118 1/8 x 92 ¼ x 1 3/8 inches, 2025.

Samuel Fosso, ‘Autoportrait’ at Yossi Milo Gallery

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Shortly after leaving post-war Nigeria in the early 70s to join his uncle in Central Africa Republic, Samuel Fosso opened his own photo studio at the age of 13 and began making the photos that would rank him among the most important 20th century African photographers.  Now on view at Yossi Milo Gallery, a selection of work from ‘75 to ‘78 demonstrates the teen’s inventiveness and records Fosso’s experience of contemporary pop culture through self-styling.  In the gallery’s back room is work from the photographer’s 2008 ‘African Spirit’ series (also currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) for which Fosso dressed himself as important leaders in the African diaspora from Dr Martin Luther King to Angela Davis by way of tribute.  (On view in Chelsea through Nov 8.)

A grid of 4 photos of a man dressed in different ways.
Samuel Fosso, work from the series ‘Autoportrait,’ installed at Yossi Milo Gallery, Sept 2025.

Post Times and 95 Gallon Gallery at the U-Haul Art Fair

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Led by the Armory Show, New York City is abuzz with art fairs this weekend, and one of the most unconventional is free, easy to get to and full of finds.  Parked along 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Aves, the U-Haul Art Fair consists of twelve U-Haul trucks and one 95-gallon trash can repurposed as an exhibition venue.  Apart from circumventing a tight real estate market and generally slow art sales, the galleries and independent curators of the fair are enjoying high visibility with their location outside some of Chelsea’s biggest galleries.  Participants range from LES gallery Post Times showing an absorbing assortment of mini-paintings by Minnesota artists Bruce Tapola and Melba Price to New York based artists Bradley Milligan’s and Dan Gausman’s bin housing Kian McKeown’s kinetic sculpture, ‘Cherry.’  (On view this weekend through Sunday, Sept 7th).

U-Haul truck with a ramp, man inside looking at a row of small paintings.
Post Times Gallery at the U-Haul Art Fair.
rail holding small paintings, one of a girl with red pigtails.
Installation of paintings by Bruce Tapola and Melba Price at Post Times, U-Haul Art Fair.
People looking in a big trash can with a modified lid.
95 Gallon Gallery at the U-Haul Art Fair.
white box with a motor turning two red balls around. Wall is marked by the red.
Kian McKeown, Cherry, at 95 Gallery Gallery, U-Haul Art Fair.

Robert Wilson, ‘Animals’ at Winston Wachter Gallery

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Opening at Chelsea’s Winston Wachter Gallery just a week before his death at the age of 83, theater director, playwright and visual artist Robert Wilson’s show of video portraits of animals from the last two decades invites visitors to appreciate the wondrous beauty of snowy owls, a black panther, skunks, elks and more.  The animals’ movements are limited, which invites gallery visitors to spend time observing their stately forms.  Known for staging experimental theater works that stretch time and employ periods of silence, Wilson carries the effect into the video works to sometimes comic, sometimes ethereal effect. (On view through Sept 13th).

a snowy owl perched on a branch against a white background of orange polka dots.
Robert Wilson, Snowy Owl (Orange Pantone Owl), seamlessly looped UHD video and audio, 43 in plasma screen, 2006.

Agnieszka Kurant in ‘COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE’ at Marian Goodman Gallery

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Fossilized auto paint from car production lines (aka ‘Detroit agate’), data mined from protesters using social media and the patterns of Namibian termite mounds are all materials for Agnieszka Kurant’s recent sculpture, now on view in Tribeca at Marian Goodman Gallery.  Whether her source inspiration comes from the activity of generations of factory works, millions of social media users or termites, Kurant’s work points to contemporary means of mass data collection, the uses it’s put to and the new ideas and forms that it can be used to generate.  Here, a living 75-year old bonsai tree is joined with a 3-D-printed version of its possible future self, an appendage that not only visually predicts how this juniper bonsai tree species will evolve in the future but impacts its present growth. (On view in Tribeca through Aug 22nd. Note summer hours.)

A living bonsai tree intertwined with a 3-D printed bonsai.
Agnieszka Kurant, Semiotic Life, 75-year old bonsai juniper tree, 3D-printed resin, enamel paint, ceramic flowerpot, soil, grow lamps, 22 x 30 x 15 inches, 2022/2025.

Elger Esser in ‘In Sequence’ at Bruce Silverstein Gallery

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Elger Esser’s serene, light-infused photographs often juxtapose nature’s vastness with humankind’s comparatively limited efforts to create the built environment.  In two images from 2019, now in Bruce Silverstein Gallery’s summer group show ‘In Sequence,’ Esser restricts his view to a relatively small, yet deeply tranquil scene of water and trees.  Printed on silver-coated copper plate, the photographs’ glow recalls 19th century landscape photography and earlier northern European painting but surpasses precedents in the intense communication of mood via light.  (On view in Chelsea through Aug 29th. Note summer hours.)

Elger Esser, Belle Ile sur le Risle I, direct print on silver-coated copper plate, ed of 3 + 1 AP (2/3), 13 x 16 7/8 in, 2019.
Elger Esser, Belle Ile sur le Risle II, direct print on silver-coated copper plate, ed of 3 + 1 AP (2/3), 10 3/8 x 13 inches, 2019.

Nathalie Khayat, ‘Unfolded Proximities’ at Marianne Boesky Gallery

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With titles like ‘Clutch,’ ‘Trespass,’ and ‘Cradling,’ Nathalie Khayat’s new ceramic sculptures at Marianne Boesky Gallery suggest emotionally evocative human actions in clay form.  Yet each centers on a merger of architectural solidity (aided by stoneware construction) and plant-like organic growth, upward and outward. Weighty and deliberate yet offering the notion of development within those restraints, Khayat situates her practice in the experience of living in the crossroads city of Beirut, where she has described a tenuous and fluid quality to life.  (On view in Chelsea through Aug 15th.  Note summer hours.)

Nathalie Khayat, The Devouring of You, glazed stoneware, 21 ½ x 23 x 19 ½ inches, 2025.

Whitfield Lovell in ‘Interlayered’ at DC Moore Gallery

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Whitfield Lovell’s immediately absorbing set of fifty-three charcoal-on-paper portraits in DC Moore’s summer group show ‘Interlayered’ pairs the faces of Black men and women with playing cards from a vintage deck, suggesting that as each card has its unique identity in a group, so do the individuals assembled here.  Lovell typically finds his subjects in late 19th and early 20th century photos sourced from a variety of places, from flea markets to photo archives;  isolated from their settings, each person has remarkable presence.  Paired with cards, Lovell suggests that in life, alone or together, they might play and/or be played.  (On view through Aug 6th).

Whitfield Lovell, The Card Pieces, 53 charcoal drawings on paper with attached playing card, 12 x 9 inches (each), 2018 – 2022.
Whitfield Lovell, The Card Pieces, 53 charcoal drawings on paper with attached playing card, 12 x 9 inches (each), 2018 – 2022.

Dana James in ‘Friends in Both Places,’ at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

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Taking its title from Mark Twain’s comment about heaven and hell that he had ‘friends in both places,’ the artwork in Nicelle Beauchene Gallery’s summer group exhibition ranges from the sublime to the nightmarish in theme. Dana James’ painting ‘The Sandbox’ would seem to fall into the former category with its organic, curving forms and light palette, though darker areas and the contrast in two conjoined canvases between smoother and more gestural abstraction adds complexity to this enjoyable canvas.  (On view through Aug 15th. Note summer hours.)

Abstract image of curving forms.
Dana James, The Sandbox, oil, acrylic and pigment on canvas, diptych overall 48 x 30 inches, 2025.

Dustin Yellin, ‘If A Bird’s Nest is Nature, What is a House’ at Almine Rech Gallery

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Playfully describing his work as ‘window sandwiches,’ Brooklyn artist Dustin Yellin seals images from books and magazines, paint and street trash in layered glass sculptures that delight with their creativity and tiny details.  Now on view in his solo show at Almine Rech Gallery, this image of a human figure with waterfalls for arms and a head that looks as if the sun is exploding from a volcano is host to dozens of little climbing, rafting and parachuting human figures.  Blurring the line between man and nature, Yellin questions the role of the spirit in human life with the title ‘God Shaped Hole (Study).’  (On view in Tribeca through Aug 1st. Note summer hours.)

Dustin Yellin, God Shaped Hole (Study), glass, epoxy, collage, acrylic paint, 19 ¼ x 8 1/8 x 6 ½ inches, 2024.
Dustin Yellin, God Shaped Hole (Study), glass, epoxy, collage, acrylic paint, 19 ¼ x 8 1/8 x 6 ½ inches, 2024.

Marepe in ‘The Kids Are Alright’ at Timothy Taylor Gallery

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Growing up is complicated.  Nevertheless, ‘The Kids are Alright,’ a sprawling, salon-style summer group show curated by Helen Toomer at Tribeca’s Timothy Taylor Gallery suggests by its title that obstacles can be surmounted.  A textile piece by Anya Paintsil pictures a weeping child comforted by a loving mom, Dominic Chambers’ painting shows young people joyfully fly kites against an apocalyptically red background and Gehard Demetz’ wooden sculpture disturbingly positions a youngster at the center of a giant grinding device yet pictures the youth as entirely serene.  Brazilian artist Marepe, known for repurposing found objects in his sculpture, contributes a cluster of hanging nets with openings through which one might have tossed the colorful plastic balls resting within. If life is a game, this piece suggests you need some luck to play it.  (On view in Tribeca through Aug 1st. Note summer hours.)

Marepe, Uteros [Wombs], net, aluminum, and plastic balls, 128 x 110 x 144 inches overall, 2023.

Woomin Kim in ‘Soft Structures’ at Jane Lombard Gallery

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Jane Lombard Gallery’s summer group show ‘Soft Structures’ is an immediate ‘wow,’ enticing visitors with ten textile-centric artists’ inventive use of materials.   At the show’s entrance, Woomin Kim’s huge soft sculpture of fingertips with wildly decorated nails charms with its humor and vibrant color.  Nearby, Crystal Gregory’s knit cotton and silk netting, embedded with pewter and cast in concrete pits the various strengths of textile, metal and concrete while Elodie Blanchard creates pleasingly wonky ‘ceramic’ vessel forms from fabric, leather and mylar balloon.  As summer group shows are increasingly replaced by solo shows in New York galleries, this exhibition argues for the vitality of the group showcase.  (Curated by independent curator Jen Wroblewski. On view through Aug 8th in Tribeca.  Note summer hours).

a wall mounted sculpture featuring a cluster of fingertips made of different colors and patterns of fabric.
Woomin Kim, Sontop II, fabric, embellishment, fiberfill, 53 x 65 inches, 2024.
Closeup of a sculpture of decorated fingernails in many colors and patterns.
Woomin Kim, Sontop II (detail), fabric, embellishment, fiberfill, 53 x 65 inches, 2024.

Sally Gall, ‘Vertical World’ at Winston Wachter Gallery

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Inspired by a Grand Canyon rafting trip in 2021, New York photographer Sally Gall focused on the rugged landscapes of the Colorado Plateau to make ‘Vertical World’ a series of striking photos now on view at Winston Wachter Gallery in Chelsea.  While Gall’s more recent photo series have featured man-made objects seen from surprising angles – laundry-lines from underneath that look like flowers, distant kites in the sky which appear to be flat, abstract designs – her new work gives attention to the natural colors and patterns of rock surfaces.  The title of this piece, ‘Visitor,’ draws our attention to a small cactus in the foreground of the photo, a curvy interloper in the geometric barrenness of a vast wall of rock.  (On view through July 18th in Chelsea.  Note summer hours.)

Sally Gall, Visitor, archival pigment print, 33 x 50 inches, 2022.

Tammy Nguyen, ‘A Comedy for Mortals: Paradiso’ at Lehmann Maupin Gallery

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Dante’s famous 14th century epic poem ‘The Divine Comedy’ led him from the inferno to purgatory to the heavens on a spiritual journey that inspired Tammy Nguyen’s trio of exhibitions at Lehman Maupin’s Seoul, London and now New York galleries.  Taking Dante’s pathway as a loose framework for her own consideration of the forces that shape our world, she combines abundant and diverse imagery to suggest the complexity of history.  Recurring images of Frankenstein recall the global impact of Indonesian volcano Mount Tambora’s massive volcanic eruption in 1815, which created stormy weather patterns that kept Mary Shelly indoors inventing her famous character.  Images of President Eisenhower’s head and segments of his 1961 farewell address warning of the rising military industrial complex appear alongside eagles that symbolize soaring American political ambitions while also recalling Dante’s encounter with an eagle who snatches him up to fly onward.  Competing notions of progress appear in the show’s densely layered, imagery-rich paintings, their own complexity suggesting an unstoppable progression of myriad events that impacts both present and future.  (On view in Chelsea through Aug 15th).

Tammy Nguyen, Beneath the Shadow of its Wing, watercolor, vinyl paint, pastel, silkscreen printing, rubber stamping, hot stamping, and metal leaf on paper stretched over wood and gator board panel, 70 x 48 x 2 inches, 2025.
Tammy Nguyen, (detail) Beneath the Shadow of its Wing, watercolor, vinyl paint, pastel, silkscreen printing, rubber stamping, hot stamping, and metal leaf on paper stretched over wood and gator board panel, 70 x 48 x 2 inches, 2025.

Thomas Demand, ‘Memorial’ from new work at Matthew Marks Gallery

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Thomas Demand’s photographs at Matthew Marks Gallery are a litmus test for how carefully we look at images, requiring viewers to take more than a quick glance.  Despite the allure of their large size (this one measures over six feet across) many appear to represent relatively mundane scenes, at least until the feeling that something is ‘off’ leads to the realization that each artwork is a photo of a carefully constructed, life-sized paper and cardboard sculpture replicating an image from the media.  Demand’s new work pictures an intercepted shipment of methamphetamines hidden amongst watermelons at the US/Mexico border and a closeup of a melting ice shelf that alludes to climate change.  Here, an image recreating a memorial at the site of the 2022 racially motivated shooting at a Buffalo supermarket turns Demand’s time-consuming practice of meticulously replicating the various flowers, signs and candles into an additional act of homage to those lost. (On view in Chelsea through June 28th).

Thomas Demand, Memorial, Framed UV print, 47 ½ x 82 inches, 2025.
Thomas Demand, (detail) Memorial, Framed UV print, 47 ½ x 82 inches, 2025.

Moffat Takadiwa, ‘Second Life’ at Nicodim Gallery

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Reminiscent of microorganisms or animal-like forms yet created with cast-off plastics, Zimbabwe-based artist Moffat Takadiwa’s wall mounted sculptures at Nicodim Gallery embody what he calls ‘post-colonial hangover.’ Sourced from dumping sites and factory cast-offs, the artist explains, the materials are evidence of stalled industry.  Manipulated into a ‘Second Life’ per the show’s title, however, the artworks speak to the resourcefulness and creativity driving Takadiwa’s practice.  (On view in SoHo through July 3rd).

Moffat Takadiwa, Fashion Brands (d), computer and laptop keys, toothbrushes, buttons and various accessories, 69 ½ x 55 inches, 2025.
Moffat Takadiwa, (detail) Fashion Brands (d), computer and laptop keys, toothbrushes, buttons and various accessories, 69 ½ x 55 inches, 2025.

Jovencio de la Paz, ‘the place of miracles’ at PPOW Gallery

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Based on angular forms but deviating from strict linearity, Jovencio de la Paz’s textiles at PPOW Gallery invite contemplation and close inspection.  At short range, deep textures become apparent in some woven panels, creating a surprising, almost sculptural dimensionality.  Traditionally trained as a weaver yet working with a digital Jacquard loom, de la Paz manipulates design software to produce results in their Warped Grid series that offer a new take on the traditional ‘waffle weave.’  The show also includes a series of warped circular forms impacted by the thickness of the thread, an aspect ration error that de la Paz describes as a ‘queering of geometric proportions.’   Work in the final gallery was inspired by the archaeological site of Mitla in Oaxaca, Mexico, where weaving patterns on the walls of the necropolis’ structures act as portals between worlds.  (On view in Tribeca through June 21st).

Jovencio de la Paz, Warped Grid 6.1, handwoven jacquard textiles, cotton, wool, linen and indigo, 60 x 96 x 2 inches, 2025.
Jovencio de la Paz, Detail of Warped Grid 6.1, handwoven jacquard textiles, cotton, wool, linen and indigo, 60 x 96 x 2 inches, 2025.

Heinz Mack, ‘From ZERO until Today’ at Almine Rech Gallery

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At over six feet high and ten feet long, this 2022 painting by German avant-garde artist Heinz Mack adds a dramatic burst of color to the cool metallic and minimal tones of the artist’s solo show at Almine Rech Gallery.  Along with Otto Piene, Mack founded the artist collective ZERO to launch art into new directions post-WWII, avoiding popular expressive styles and focusing instead on light and motion.  A small, monochromatic canvas from 1958 at the show’s entrance varies from heavier to lighter paint application in vertical bands, creating a vibrating effect.  Around the corner, Mack amplifies the same sensation with aluminum sheet embossed into vertical grooves that reflect light and the colors of the larger, more recent paintings in the room. In a Almine Rech Gallery video, the 94-year-old Mack explains that these newer, vibrant works present color in its own space, each tone carrying its own amount of light.  (On view through June 14th).

Heinz Mack, Untitled (Chromatic Constellation), acrylic on canvas, 82 x 123 ½ x 1 ¼ inches, 2022.

Michael Armitage, ‘Crucible’ at David Zwirner Gallery

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Michael Armitage’s solo show at David Zwirner Gallery’s elegant new Chelsea space pictures the fates of migrants who have lost their freedom and in some cases their lives in attempting to escape unlivable situations. Bronze sculpture in the gallery’s first room picture suffering bodies and includes an abstracted cruciform figure titled ‘Eli Eli Sabachthani,’ or ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’  A second space includes paintings of a woman selling lethal home brewed alcohol and a man scavenging for food.  Finally, in the gallery’s largest space, Armitage pictures a sinking raft of migrants and images of extreme hardship.  Two profoundly moving paintings of a mother and child and here, a man and baby, suggest the tragic end of a parent and child who are lost at sea yet appear to be passing into another realm.   (On view in Chelsea through June 27th).

Michael Armitage, Untitled, oil on Lubugo bark cloth, 79 x 59 ¼ inches, 2024.

Hope Gangloff at Susan Inglett Gallery, June 2025

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Summer never looked so good as in Hope Gangloff’s paintings of a vivid red barn, a spectacular lightning strike seen from a front porch and friends lounging lakeside, but the standout piece of her latest solo show at Susan Inglett Gallery is a double portrait of close-up magicians Matthew Holtzclaw and Prakash Puru.  Employing a wizardry of her own in recording the texture of each man’s suit and a wide range of tones in their faces, Gangloff delivers a knock-out work whose intense colors and typically distorted proportions give the piece its distinct dynamism.  (On view in Chelsea through June 7th).

Hope Gangloff, Matthew (Holtzclaw) and Prakash (Puru), acrylic on wood panel, 80 ½ x 48 inches, 2025.

Tomma Abts at David Zwirner Gallery

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Tomma Abts’ small abstract paintings at David Zwirner Gallery defy language, their dynamic forms and rich colors existing to provide stimulation to the eye.  Recurring spiraling shapes evoke wheels with uneven spokes or a curving staircase.  Other canvases feature angular forms emanating from a central point.  All suggest centrifugal force, including the less geometric composition ‘Saske,’ pictured here.  A profusion of soft feathery forms in yellow, turquoise and pink tones recall Edgar Degas’ paintings of 19th century stage performers and provocatively contrast the hard, light-catching metallic surface of a cast-bronze segment to the left. (On view in Chelsea through June 14th).

Tomma Abts, Saske, acrylic on canvas and cast bronze in two (2) parts, 18 7/8 x 15 inches, 2024.

William Kentridge ‘A Natural History of the Studio’ Hauser & Wirth

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Internationally renowned for his stop motion animations made from charcoal drawings, South African artist William Kentridge’s drawings for his new nine-part film series are the focus of his first New York solo show at Hauser & Wirth Gallery. “The studio can be understood as an expanded head,” the artist says by way of introduction to ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot,’ a show that likens the artist’s creative process to percolating coffee.  Though the films play one-by-one in the back gallery, visitors first encounter drawings and work on paper that emerged from enforced studio time during the Covid lockdown.  Here, a full wall drawing featuring peonies (‘a backdrop for conversation in the studio’ according to Kentridge), Leon Trotsky’s head and the words ‘Let Me Live Again’ appear over pages from an accounts ledger, not only nodding to a recent project considering Russian composer Dimitri Shostavovich’s relationship with authoritarian power but generally touching on themes of freedom, renewal and power. (On view in Chelsea through Aug 1st).

William Kentridge, Drawing for Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot (Let Me Live Again), Indian ink, charcoal and collage on found paper from cash sales book, 2021.

Olivia Jia, ‘Mirror Stage’ at Margot Samel Gallery

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Despite their subdued grisaille palette, Olivia Jia’s intimately-scaled paintings at Margot Samel Gallery entice with their crisp, realist renderings of artworks, artists and nature.  Here, a bronze ritual vessel features on one page of an open book opposite an ornamental comb, their relationship a mystery, the pictured book a product of the artist’s imagination.  Jia has explained that her upbringing in the U.S., cut off from family by distance and from the material culture of her parents’ homeland has prompted her to paint artifacts that stand in the gap.  Though we know from the painting’s title that the featured photograph of the young woman is Jia’s grandmother, the picture is partially obscured and rests on a sheet of broken glass or mirror; though the significance of each item is clear, the meaning is not, allowing us to share in Jia’s desire for deeper connection. (On view through May 31st).

Olivia Jia, Night Studio (bronze ritual vessel, horn comb with painted bird, branches, two lilies, portrait of my grandmother), oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches, 2025.

Salman Toor, ‘Wish Maker’ at Luhring Augustine Gallery

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Stony-faced men in paintings titled ‘Angry Dads’ or ‘Uncles’ contrast images of young men with distant looks or softly downcast gazes in Salman Toor’s tour de force character studies in the Tribeca venue of his solo debut at Luhring Augustine Gallery’s New York locations.  Ever present in both shows is the uncomfortable coexistence of the artist’s traditional upbringing in Lahore, Pakistan, and the life he has made for himself in New York’s queer diasporic south Asian community.  This pairing of a defiant youth with a wall of disapproving older men encapsulates the drama, frustration, and absurdity of the conflict.  (On view in Chelsea and Tribeca through June 21st).

Salman Toor, ‘Boy, Dads,’ pencil, charcoal, and gouache on paper, 10 1/8 x 10 ½ inches, 2024.

Laura Lima, ‘Bale Literal’ at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

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Dozens of performers noiselessly cluster backstage waiting to go before the audience at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in a performance orchestrated by Brazilian artist Laura Lima.  All actors, or ‘ballerinas’ as the gallery terms some of them, are sculptures created by Lima’s studio and include beekeeping clothes modified to suggest a space suit, a hammer and a sickle, each sporting a long ‘Greek’ dress, and a black and red cross a la early 20th century artist Kazimir Malevich.  Sent out on a pulley system along one gallery wall and powered by an offstage bicycle, the inanimate figures are given life by lights, sound and careful movement of the pulley.  Strangely absorbing, the installation and its dancing figures reward visitors who are game for interpretation. (On view in Chelsea through May 30th.)

Laura Lima, installation view of ‘Bale Literal,’ at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, May 2025.

Kennedy Yanko, ‘Epithets’ at James Cohan Gallery

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Spotlit and spaciously installed on elegantly understated grey walls at James Cohan Gallery, Kennedy Yanko’s abstract sculptures delight with their formally complex compositions.  Continuing her signature combination of scrap metal and sheets of dried and folded paint, Yanko’s latest sculptures are restrained in size but rich in evocative color and dynamic form. The first piece in the show incorporates a crushed metal cannister that looks as soft as a duffel bag.  Another sculpture features curlicues crafted from metal fencing surrounding a twisting sheet of paint skin in colors that complement the fragments of color on the metal.  Here, rusting metal compliments a deep red swathe of paint. (On view in Tribeca through May 10th).

Kennedy Yanko, Remembering the Future, paint skin, metal, 40 x 24 x 15 inches, 2025.

Takako Yamaguchi, ‘Innocent Bystander’ at Ortuzar Projects

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Raised in Japan and living in LA since the ‘70s, Takako Yamaguchi melds Japanese and Western art in richly decorative paintings that sample from kimono textiles as readily as Art Nouveau aesthetics.  Large works from the ‘80s, now on view in Tribeca at Ortuzar Projects, picture landscapes that include European-derived architecture and geometric structures in isometric perspective alongside a stylized representation of the natural world.  Dominating all are shapes the gallery describes as sperm-like, undulating and spreading across the surface of the artwork as if to “inseminate the past with futures then unknown.” (On view in Tribeca through May 31st).

Takako Yamaguchi, Le Temps Mele, oil and bronze leaf on paper, 48 x 83 inches, 1984.

Claudia Alarcon & Silat at James Cohan Gallery

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Indigenous Argentinian weavers Claudia Alarcon and members of the Silat Collective carry on tradition, recall their ancestors and convey messages from dreams and the subconscious with textiles featuring abstracted designs from the natural world. Now on view at James Cohan Gallery in Tribeca, their woven panels made by harvesting, breaking down, pounding, spinning and dying the native chaguar plant connect visually to modernist weaving by the likes of Annie Albers, who in the mid-20th century visited and collected textiles from the Salta region, home to Alarcon and the Silat Collective. Here, a textile titled ‘The Three Marias’ resembles abstracted human figures joined by one fabric. (On view in Tribeca through May 10th).

Claudia Alarcon & Silat, The Three Marias, hand-spun chaguar fiber, woven in yica stitch, 48 ¾ x 46 ¼ inches, 2025
Claudia Alarcon & Silat, (detail) The Three Marias, hand-spun chaguar fiber, woven in yica stitch, 48 ¾ x 46 ¼ inches, 2025.

Tavares Strachan, ‘Starless Midnight’ at Marian Goodman Gallery

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Tavares Strachan’s book, the ‘Encyclopedia of Invisibility,’ positioned at the entrance to the artist’s solo show at Marian Goodman Gallery, announces his continued efforts to bring remarkable, underappreciated biographies to light via highly engaging sculpture and installation.  In addition to works honoring mathematician and aerospace engineer Mary Jackson and singer/songwriter Rosetta Tharpe, the ground floor has been transformed to house a ceramic sculpture of the Bahamian musician and artist Exuma, whose work evidenced his engagement with Obeah spiritual practice.  The sculpture stands in an installation of grass, shaped to form a Ghanaian Adrinka symbol indicating bravery, which evokes a rice field intended to supply sustenance across time and space.  High on the walls, a text by James Baldwin exhorts readers to choose behavior that benefits the common good while a piano plays a composition inspired by British-Sierra Leonean composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.  (On view through April 19th in Tribeca).

Tavares Strachan, installation view of ‘Starless Midnight’ at Marian Goodman Gallery featuring The Birth of Exuma (Eagle Talon), ceramic, rice field installation, ceramic 72 7/8 x 26 ¾ x 15 inches, April 2025.

Olivia Erlanger, ‘Spinoff’ at Luhring Augustine Gallery

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Three large dioramas dominate Olivia Erlanger’s solo show at Luhring Augustine Gallery’s Tribeca space, miniature recreations of oddly empty environments.  Visitors first encounter a vista dotted with sandy colored hoodoos topped by an incongruous and illegible pink road sign.  Further into the gallery, a sharply receding view of a formal garden recalls Versailles’s controlled natural environment.  Finally, an apparently post-apocalyptic scene of towers and large buildings surrounded by snow-covered ash changes the mood from strange to worrisome.  In keeping with Erlanger’s interest in human made or alien environments, and joined by graphite drawings of unpeopled places, this stark, intriguing exhibition invites us to ponder post-human landscapes.  (On view through April 19th).

Olivia Erlanger, Green Sky, balsa wood, resin, snow #15, plaster, foam, acrylic, aluminum, graphite, shoe polish, LED, plexiglass, driver, 50 x 32 x 36 inches, 2024.

David Kennedy Cutler, ‘Second Nature’ at Derek Eller Gallery

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David Kennedy Cutler’s bed, his shorts, his plants and more personal items line the walls of Derek Eller Gallery in the form of paintings that foreground the artist himself as subject.  At a time when artists often conceive of and manage artwork that is actually produced by others, Kennedy Cutler’s hands-on, labor-intensive process underscores his role as maker, albeit one who uses digital tools.  Starting by photographing objects in his studio, digitally altering the images, printing on canvas and cutting the surface to create a pop-up effect, then adding paint to the result, the artworks blur the line between media while also multiplying the original represented object.  Alluding to the increased representation of self via social media, Kennedy Cutler represents what he identifies as, ‘a scattering or stuttering of our consciousness,’ a potentially freeing state.  (On view in Tribeca through April 12th).

David Kennedy Cutler, Wild, inkjet transfer, acrylic and clear coat on canvas, armature wire, 49.5 x 35.5 x 3.5 inches, 2024.

Sharon Core, ‘Facsimile’ at Yancey Richardson Gallery

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Irving Penn’s flower photographs, featured in Vogue’s annual Christmas issues from 1967 – 1973 and published in a volume titled ‘Flowers’ in 1980, are the launching point and raison d’etre of Sharon Core’s new body of work at Yancey Richardson Gallery, ‘Facsimile.’  Meticulously shot and printed, the crisp clarity and stunning color of Penn’s images give way to freer renderings in Core’s renditions of Penn’s photos, which she painted using cyan, yellow and magenta Epson UltraChrome inks on Canson Photo Rag paper and then printed as an editioned book.  In her past work, Core has grown flowers that she’s then shot for still-life photos.  Other projects involved photographing her own recreations of food that has been depicted in famous artworks.  Here, she also considers the life of a subject prior to being captured in an image, but now the precursor is the medium of painting itself.  Since the invention of photography, its function in relation to painting has been debated; here, Core reveals in the complexities, ultimately forcing viewers to confront our own expectations.  (On view in Chelsea through April 12th).

Sharon Core, installation view of ‘Facsimile’ at Yancey Richardson Gallery, March 2025.

Ozioma Onuzulike, ‘Who Knows Tomorrow’ at Marc Straus Gallery

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Regulated by a grid format, yet pleasingly undulating, Nigerian ceramic artist and professor Ozioma Onuzulike’s wall-mounted textiles at Marc Straus Gallery are immediately eye catching.  Resembling the babariga, a traditional West African men’s garment, closer inspection reveals their construction from palm kernel shells with ‘embroidery’ patterns created of ceramic pieces.   Conjuring both the global trade in palm oil and its precedents in the slave trade, Onuzulike’s materials reflect complex histories by also evoking a regal fabric. (On view in Tribeca through April 26th).

Ozioma Onuzulike, Starched Babariga with Top-to-Bottom Embroidery, natural palm kernel shells, earthenware and stoneware clays, glazes, recycled glasses and copper wire, (37kg; 5,396 natural and ceramic palm kernel shell beads), 72 7/8 x 57 1/8 x 4 inches, 2024.
Ozioma Onuzulike, (detail) Starched Babariga with Top-to-Bottom Embroidery, natural palm kernel shells, earthenware and stoneware clays, glazes, recycled glasses and copper wire, (37kg; 5,396 natural and ceramic palm kernel shell beads), 72 7/8 x 57 1/8 x 4 inches, 2024.

Walton Ford, ‘Tutto’ at Gagosian Gallery

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Known for large watercolor, gouache and ink paintings that picture the animal world through the lens of human (mis)understanding, both historic and contemporary, Walton Ford’s new work at Gagosian Gallery focuses on animals in the menagerie of the wealthy early 20th century Italian heiress Luisa Casati.  Here, one of her pet cheetahs gazes from the prow of a gondola on a foggy night in Venice, where Casati lived in a palazzo later owned by Peggy Guggenheim.   Explaining his motivation for the show, Ford says he wanted, “…to paint pictures about the world’s fastest animals living a fast life with a wild woman in Venice.” (On view in Chelsea on 21st Street through April 19th).

Walton Ford, Forse che si forse che no, watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper, 84 x 60 inches, 2024.

Robert Indiana, ‘The Source, 1959 – 1969’ at Kasmin Gallery

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Robert Indiana is known for his iconic LOVE design, first coming to the public eye as MoMA’s 1964 Christmas card and then appearing in the form of painting, sculpture and an extremely popular US Postal Service stamp.  Plagiarized in countless forms from t-shirts to posters (it was unfortunately not copyrighted by Indiana) the graphic tends to overshadow a lifetime of work.  Kasmin Gallery’s current show (in advance of an upcoming exhibition at Pace Gallery) builds appreciation for Indiana’s broader contribution to mid-century art by situating his best-known piece in the context of a decade of his production from 1959 – 1969.  This period (and the show) begins with paintings featuring dramatically pared down forms, including a spherical orb recalling an orange shared on a Manhattan pier by Indiana and Ellsworth Kelly when both lived on Coenties Slip.  Here, Indiana records the shadow of an easel that Kelly gifted him in a painting that is both artwork and conversation between two art practices.  (On view in Chelsea through March 29th).

Robert Indiana, The Gift (Easel), oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches, 1960.

Joan Jonas, ‘Empty Rooms’ at Gladstone Gallery

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Though twelve paper sculptures hang from the gallery ceiling, a grid of drawings covers one wall and a video projection takes over another in Gladstone Gallery’s cavernous 21st Street space, Joan Jonas’ new installation ‘Empty Rooms’ feels more subtly presented than many of her past multimedia works.  Overhead, boxy forms dominate the gallery, floating like geometric clouds or 3-D kites and lit from within like lanterns.  Made of wrinkled paper (along with lights and steel frames), the sculptures connect with a towering grid of similarly textured paper bearing drawings of leafless trees.  Featuring the silhouette of a turbine and a young woman, a monochrome video adds a human actor to this enigmatic but intriguing view of the natural world. (On view in Chelsea through April 12th).

Joan Jonas, Empty Rooms (installation view) at Gladstone Gallery, March 2025.

En Iwamura, ‘Mask’ at Ross and Kramer Gallery

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Titled ‘Neo Jomon,’ Japanese ceramic artist En Iwamura’s sculpture at Ross and Kramer Gallery updates ancient Japanese pottery with a new consideration of the age-old ‘cord’ pattern.  Pulling a tool over clay that has started to harden, Iwamura achieves a textured effect that can look deceptively like fabric, even at close range.  Inspired by the mask collections in Osaka’s National Museum of Ethnology, which he visited while growing up, Iwamura infuses his forms with both mystery and humor.  (On view in Chelsea through March 22nd).

En Iwamura, Neo Jomon: Black Mask (Crack), glazed ceramic, gold, 31 x 31 x 9 inches, 2024.

Silvia Sleigh in ‘Every Leaf is Precious’ at Ortuzar Projects

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Four paintings in Ortuzar Projects’ exhibition of work by iconic feminist artist Sylvia Sleigh feature Paul Rosano, the subject of this boundary-breaking portrait from 1975.  Clothed, nude and scantily-dressed, the musician and life model appears in poses usually filled by female figures in western art histories.  More brazenly posed than the Renaissance Venuses or holy figures to whom Sleigh alludes, yet in pleasing contrapposto and surrounded by feminizing flowers, Sleigh’s male figures still have the power to surprise. (On view in Tribeca through April 5th).

Sylvia Sleigh, Annunciation: Paul Rosano, oil on canvas, 90 1/8 x 52 ¼ inches, 1975.

Deborah Druick, ‘Past Present Tense’ at Nino Mier Gallery

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Who are the stylized female figures in Deborah Druick’s paintings at Nino Mier Gallery?  With their faces hidden behind a fan, a bird, hair or even painted out, Druick not only gives nothing away but drives home the women’s anonymity.  At the same time, their abundant, characterful, wig-like swooshes of hair hint at a liveliness below the surface.  Similarly, Druick’s abundant patterning of the women’s dress and their backgrounds flattens the figures, making them less life-like while also suggesting agency via bold fashion statements.  The contradictions entice.  (On view in Tribeca through March 22nd).

Deborah Druick, Plumage, flashe paint and acrylic on linen, 24 x 18 inches, 2023.

Todd Gray, ‘While Angels Gaze’ at Lehmann Maupin Gallery

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As a winner of the ’22-’23 Rome Prize, photographer Todd Gray spent six months in Rome absorbing the city’s contrasting ancient and contemporary architecture and translating those time shifts into complex images.  Already known for sculptural, photo-based artwork juxtaposing African landscapes with European architecture built with wealth extracted from its colonies, Gray’s new work at Lehmann Maupin Gallery showcases the extravagant beauty of Rome’s built environment, troubled by symbols of exploitative practice.  Here, a ceiling from an early 19th century Neoclassical villa decorated with cavorting nude figures is punctuated by the mast of a slave ship model in the Maison des Esclaves (House of Slaves) museum on Goree Island in Senegal.  An image from the Hubble Scape Telescope acts as portal between the two places, allowing a kind of passage between locations and back in time. (On view through March 22nd).

Todd Gray, Blues Ship (makes me wanna holla), 3 pigment ink prints on Dibond in artist’s frames, 41 x 61 1/8 x 2 ¾ inches, 2024.

Saya Woolfalk, ‘The Woods Woman Method’ at Susan Inglett Gallery

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For the past 20 hears, Saya Woolfalk has centered her multi-media art practice around her invented, utopian world in which cultural and even physical hybridity leads to empathy towards other beings.  In advance of the artist’s mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Art and Design in April, Susan Inglett Gallery in collaboration with Leslie Tonkonow Gallery present a compact but enjoyably diverse selection of Woolfalk’s work from the last c. 9 years in a range of media, from prints on paper and silk to glass fused with plant material.  In this print, Woolfalk pictures a composite figure of apparent spiritual importance holding two planet-like orbs in her hands, framed by natural growth and prominently anointed with a multi-colored disc.  (On view at Susan Inglett Gallery in Chelsea through March 15th).

Saya Woolfalk, Encyclopedia of Cloud Divination (Plate 3), archival inkjet print, silkscreen, silver leaf, chine colle on Hahnemule Photo Rag Ultra Smooth, 40 x 30 (image), ed of 14, 2018.

Camille Henrot, ‘A Number of Things’ at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

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Green rubber playground flooring transports visitors into an unexpected perceptual experience in Camille Henrot’s first New York solo show of playfully odd sculpture at Hauser and Wirth Gallery. Marked with a matrix-like grid that’s calming yet at the same time reminiscent of a guillotine paper cutter, the pattern reinforces the artist’s ongoing interest in the structures that organize society. Paintings inspired by etiquette books, sculpture that looks like abacuses (both the kind used as tools and children’s toys) and this group of dogs on leashes offer varied takes on relationships and power relations. (On view in Chelsea through April 12th).

Camille Henrot, installation view of ‘A Number of Things’ at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Feb ’25.

Giorgio Morandi at David Zwirner Gallery

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Sixty years after his death, Italian artist Giorgio Morandi’s enigmatic still life paintings continue to exert remarkable influence. Coming on the heels of a much-talked-about show of the artist’s work on the Upper East Side by Rome-based Galleria Mattia De Luca last fall, David Zwirner Gallery’s current Morandi survey features work from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation (located near Parma, Italy) collected by musicologist and friend of Morandi, Luigi Magnani. The gallery’s first two rooms show how Morandi rejected organic still life, portraiture and metaphysical interests (akin to Giorgio deChirco and Carlo Carra) to arrive at the still life paintings of everyday objects that would occupy him for over forty years. Here, a cluster of vessels placed precariously close to the edge of a table testify to the artist’s constant experimentations with spatial arrangements and shifting tones. (On view through Feb 22nd).

Giorgio Morandi, Natura morta (Still Life), oil on canvas, 17 3/8 x 18 7/8 inches, 1948.

Jennifer J. Lee, ‘The Falls’ at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery

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Four paintings of models in jeans – visible only from thigh to waist – line the wall of Jennifer J Lee’s current show of paintings at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery like products in an online store.  Lee’s characteristic small-scale renditions of clothing, food, and people recall and derive from the kind of photographic images we encounter in daily digital life and even the scale of her work – the show’s largest painting is just 22 x 15 inches – operates more in keeping with the size of a screen than an expansive picture plane.  Nevertheless, painted on thick jute, its weave rough enough to suggest pixelation, Lee’s painting are resolutely material, smartly engaging the phenomenon of image-saturated life one oil painting at a time.  (On view in Tribeca through Feb 22nd).

Jennifer J. Lee, Lee jeans, oil on jute, 15 x 13 inches, 2024.

Nick Cave, ‘Amalgams and Graphts’ at Jack Shainman Gallery

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Nick Cave’s stunning sculpture ‘Amalgam (Origin)’ at Jack Shainman Gallery’s newly renovated Tribeca location radically scales up the artist’s iconic Soundsuits, wearable sculptures that make sound as they are moved.  Designed as a protective gesture in response to the 1992 beating of Rodney King’s by LA police, Cave’s first Soundsuit was made of twigs; this 26’ tall bronze adds full branches in a melding of human and natural forms that reaches nearly to the gallery’s 29’ tall ceiling.  (On view through March 29th).

Nick Cave, installation view of ‘Amalgam (Origin)’ at Jack Shainman Gallery, Tribeca, bronze, 309 5/8 x 201 x 227 inches, 2024.

Roe Ethridge, Hand with Dramm at Andrew Kreps Gallery

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Photographer Roe Ethridge takes us to the beach in his latest solo show at Andrew Kreps Gallery, a destination not quite in synch with a New York winter but nevertheless refreshing with its vivid colors and enjoyable in its inclusion of deliberately imperfect subject matter.  ‘Rainbow over Shore Front Parkway’ captures a rainbow in a stunning, multi-hued sky over beachfront dunes that have recently been constructed as a massive barricade in an ongoing coastal resiliency project.  Nearby, model Irina Shayk in a captain’s hat grins with extra exuberance in an outtake from one of the photographer’s commercial fashion shoots.  The aquatic theme continues with this intense image of a candy-colored spray nozzle, caught as it releases a jet of water into a distinctly unnatural, green environment.  (On view in Tribeca through March 1st).

Roe Ethridge, Hand with Dramm, UV cured pigment print, 34 x 44 inches, 2023.

An-My Le at Marian Goodman Gallery

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Recalling a circular full-room installation in her MoMA retrospective last year, An-My Le’s ‘Grey Wolf’ series in her current show at Marian Goodman Gallery continues to explore immersive environments.  While the earlier presentation juxtaposed diverse landscapes and histories, the current exhibition features color views of the stark Montana countryside where large-scale agricultural production and nuclear missile launch sites mark the land.  Hung tightly in a small, curved enclosure, the photos situate viewers in a landscape seen from above, a cockpit-like, Gods-eye perspective that points to human impact on the landscape. (On view in Tribeca through Feb 22nd).

An My Le, installation view of Grey Wolf, installation comprised of 7 vinyl prints (each 48 x 64 ½ inches), 2024 at Marian Goodman Gallery.
An My Le, installation view of Grey Wolf, installation comprised of 7 vinyl prints (each 48 x 64 ½ inches), 2024 at Marian Goodman Gallery.

Per Adolfsen at Nino Meier Gallery

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Visitors to Per Adolfsen’s solo show of colored pencil drawings at Nino Meier’s Tribeca space can shrug off the cold temperatures outside and bask in the warmth of the Danish artist’s vividly colored landscapes.  Having decided to take his practice out of the studio and into the natural world, Adolfsen explains that he depicts scenes that are based on real places but which offer an exploration of emotion through color and his choice of environment.  Inspired by Edvard Munch, Paul Cezanne and Caspar David Friedrich, Adolfsen aims to elicit feeling in his audience while prompting respect for the environment. (On view through Feb 8th).

Per Adolfsen, Blanket in a Forest, colored pencil on Hahnemuhle paper, 35 1/8 x 25 5/8 inches, 2024.

Simphiwe Mbunyuza at David Kordansky Gallery

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At over five feet tall, Simphiwe Mbunyuza’s monumental ceramics at Chelsea’s David Kordansky Gallery entice with their strong presence, striking color and unusual protrusions.  Bumps inspired by traditional Xhosa ritual vessels, house shapes that recall cylindrical South African dwellings and horns pointing to the importance of cattle in Xhosa life signal Mbunyuza’s engagement with aspects of his culture and upbringing including his spiritual identity.  The latter manifests in the sizes of the works, the larger pieces connecting to ancestors while smaller pieces are associated with the artist and his living relatives. Arranged specifically in the gallery and characterized by colors representing South African landscapes, Mbunyuza’s ceramics offer access to material and immaterial worlds.  (On view through Feb 22nd).

Simphiwe Mbunyuza, MTHIMKHULU, ceramic, 63 x 53 x 51 inches, 2024.

Louise Nevelson, Mirror-Shadow VI at Pace

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At the entrance to Pace Gallery’s exhibition of late work by iconic modern artist Louise Nevelson, the contrast between one all-white sculpture and many black-painted assemblages creates a dynamism that is revisited in the diagonals and curving forms of the artist’s sculpture from the 70s and 80s.  Nevelson’s oft quoted intent to “join the shattered world, creating a new harmony” is joined by an attempt to picture the sublime, manifest in works with titles referring to moonlight, reflections, night frost and here, mirrors and shadow.  (On view in Chelsea through March 1st).

Louise Nevelson, Mirror-Shadow VI, wood painted black, 1985, 9’ 9” x 11’ 7” x 1’ 9”, 1985.

Pete Turner at Bruce Silverstein Gallery

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A giraffe silhouetted against a red sky, white adobe buildings suffused with deep blue light and the brilliant orange of canned peaches stand out amongst the grid of album covers on Bruce Silverstein Gallery’s foyer wall, a testament to late photographer Pete Turner’s renowned and striking use of color.  In an exhibition that focuses on jazz album covers selected from over seventy covers Turner created over fifty years, the gallery positions the photographer at the forefront of the mid-20th century move toward artistic covers that express the identity of the music vs the brand of the record label.  Here, Turner’s interpretation of Joe Ferrell’s 1975 jazz album ‘Canned Funk’ suggests (literally) eye-popping surprise amid sweet, curving forms.  (On view through Jan 18th).

Pete Turner, Eye to Eye, archival pigment print, printed c. 2000s, 13 x 19 inches, 1968.

Esther Mahlangu at Ross + Kramer Gallery

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South African artist Esther Mahlangu’s designs energize Chelsea gallery Ross + Kramer with their vibrant patterns, sacred geometries for which the 89-year-old is internationally renowned.  Inspired by the house painting traditions of the Ndebele people and learned from her mother and grandmother, Mahlangu’s abstractions take the form of murals, ceramics, canvases and even this hand painted car, the star of a show featuring 30 paintings made over ten years.  (On view through Jan 25th).

Esther Mahlangu, installation view of ‘Esther Mahlangu: Time in Color’ at Ross + Kramer, Chelsea, Dec ’24.

Kenny Scharf at Sixty White

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Renowned for his involvement in the downtown 80s New York art scene, Kenny Scharf coined the term ‘Pop Surrealism’ to describe his energetic blend of cartoon and pop imagery.  Now on view at huge scale, the artist’s 1995 site-specific mural ‘The Heads,’ created in 1995 for the Center of Fine Arts in Miami fills Tribeca’s 60 White in all its dream-like glory.  Stretching throughout the vast space, the paintings are accompanied by a quote from Scharf recalling dreams of space travel.  (On view through January.  Check with the gallery for the exact closing date.  Note that gallery hours change during the holiday period).

Installation view of ‘Kenny Scharf: Space Travel,’ Dec 2024 at 60 White. Foreground: Kenny Scharf, Poval, oil and acrylic on canvas, 108.3 x 132 inches, 1995.

Mallory Weston in ‘Objects USA’ at R & Company

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Looking to turn over a new leaf in 2025? Do it literally with jewelry designer Mallory Weston’s Shattered Begonia Brooch #3, a wearable artwork that pushes boundaries by combining jewelry and textile working techniques.  Part of her NODES series, which also features a dangerously spiky-looking prickly pear and enormous monstera leaf necklace, the piece grabs the attention by combining natural subject matter with a digital-aesthetic achieved with a tiled titanium construction.  It is on view in R & Company’s sprawling Objects USA, a showcase of 100 objects by 55 makers.  (In Tribeca through Jan 10th.  Note that gallery hours change during the holiday period).

Mallory Weston, Shattered Begonia Brooch #3, anodized titanium, nickel, leather and cotton, 2022.

Irwin/Bell: The ‘60s at 125 Newbury

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Though based in Los Angeles, the mid-century Light and Space movement is well represented in New York galleries, a happy circumstance aided by Pace Gallery’s long-term relationships with key artists.  ‘Irwin/Bell: The ‘60s’ at Pace’s Tribeca offshoot, ‘125 Newbury,’ presents work by Larry Bell and Robert Irwin that revisits their early shows in New York, including the premier of Irwin’s aluminum disc paintings in 1968.  Installed in a back gallery with a bench inviting visitors to sit and contemplate, this untitled piece from 1967 presents a circular aluminum form that exists materially but appears to be composed entirely of light and shadow.  (On view in Tribeca through Jan 11th).

Robert Irwin, Untitled, sprayed lacquer on aluminum disc, 62” diameter, 1967.
Robert Irwin, Untitled, sprayed lacquer on aluminum disc, 62” diameter, 1967.

Irving Penn, ‘Kinship’ at Pace Gallery

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Pace Gallery’s current exhibition of Irving Penn’s photographs from the ‘40s to 2000, curated by supremely image-savvy artist Hank Willis Thomas, is compact but impactful, featuring juxtapositions of photos with often radically different subject matter that nevertheless have some affinity. A 1947 studio portrait of New Yorker cartoonists poised on a scaffold hangs near a photo of a careful arrangement of blocks, immediately conveying careful arrangement and balance rather than humor or play.  Around the corner, two models in Issey Miyake echo the form of a neighboring image of two weathered cigarette butts, a parallel that crashes together the fashionable and the discarded.  Hung on gallery walls constructed to recall the temporary structures Penn used as sets, photos are positioned near each other but on different walls, similar yet different.  Here, tangled members of a wrestling family appear opposite an arrangement of seafood, both shot in 1948, demonstrating the ‘visual muscle memory’ that Willis Thomas argues ties together Penn’s 70-year career.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 21st).

(left) Irving Penn, Dusek Brothers (1 of 3), vintage gelatin silver print, 7 11/16 x 9 5/8, image, ed of 41, New York, 1948. (right) Irving Penn, Bouillabaisse, chromogenic print, 24 x 20 inches, images, ed of 7, Barcelona, 1948.
Installation view. Irving Penn, ‘Kinship’ at Pace Gallery, Dec ’24.

Francis Alys at David Zwirner Gallery

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Driven by the poetic idea of bridging the 7,7 nautical mile wide Straight of Gibraltar, Francis Alys’ solo show at David Zwirner Gallery pictures fanciful connections between Moroccan and Spanish territory in the form of installation, video, painting and more.  One painting anthropomorphizes sea cliffs into human forms, while elsewhere a giant child stands in the Straight with two people-packed boats under her arms.  In the back gallery, beyond a lightbox displaying news articles about migration across the Mediterranean, a video features a row of kids from Morrocco and a similar line of Spanish youth at the beach, heading into the water carrying toy boats made from shoes (seen here in sculptural form elsewhere in the show).  Resembling both personal items lost in migration and suggesting resourceful toymaking, the boats are somber and lighthearted at the same time, expressing continued hope despite harsh realities.  (On view through Dec 18th).

Francis Alys, installation view of ‘Francis Alys: The Gibraltar Projects,’ Nov 2024.

Denzil Forrester at Andrew Kreps Gallery and Stephen Friedman Gallery

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Grenada-born British artist Denzil Forrester’s current gallery exhibitions at Andrew Kreps Gallery and Stephen Friedman Gallery in Tribeca showcase vibrantly colored moments from London’s dub reggae scene in past decades.  A regular club visitor from the 1980s, Forrester sketched by night and painted by day, documenting legendary DJs like Jah Shaka, who he honors here in ‘Tribute to Shaka.’  Figures in the periphery of the painting seem to dissolve, as if the reverb was literally breaking apart form and altering the material realm.  (On view through Dec 18th).

Denzil Forrester, Tribute to Shaka, oil on canvas, 79 7/8 x 107 7/8 inches, 2024.

Jade Fadojutimi at Gagosian Gallery

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Titled ‘The Generosity of Trauma,’ this painting by British artist Jade Fadojutimi is one of only two works (along with ‘Sulking is a virtue’) in her show at Gagosian Gallery with a title. Typically colorful and energetic with areas that appear to either be plants or zones of pure abstraction, the artist’s new work explores identity through color.  She has said, “When I feel emotion, I see a color and that’s how my paintings come to life.’  In tune with global challenges like climate change and displacement and the artist’s personal experience with depression, Fadojutimi’s two works with oxymoronic titles suggest that pushing her practice forward through difficulty gives it its vibrant character. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 21st).

The Generosity of Trauma, acrylic, oil, oil pastel and oil bar on canvas, 98 7/16 x 68 7/8 inches, 2024.