Modeled after El Greco’s ‘The Penitent Mary Magdalene,’ Mary Carlson’s small-scale sculpture of one of Christ’s most devoted followers is both delicate in her tiny features and monumental in her seated, robed body. Now on view at Kerry Schuss Gallery, displayed on wall-mounted wooden shelves amid scrolling copper piping, Carlson’s new sculptures evoke the figures and decorative designs on the pages of medieval manuscripts. Characterized by world-weariness vs El Greco’s doe-eyed young woman, Carlson’s saint is pictured in the process of receiving a revelation and puts a hand to her bare chest. Less erotic than El Greco’s version, Carlson’s Mary is a substantial woman engaged with the life of the mind and spirit. (On view in Tribeca through April 27th).
Tag: gallery
Maria Calandra at Fredericks & Freiser Gallery
Red-orange skies appear to be ablaze in Maria Calandra’s landscape painting of Weir Island in Maine while her blue skies over Como, Italy are a tranquil color but feature roiling clouds. Apocalyptic in their color and Mannerist in their elongated forms, Calandra’s paintings at Fredericks & Freiser Gallery are hallucinogenic visions that offer visual pleasure via their dynamic fluidity. Here, Mont Sainte-Victoire, made famous by Paul Cezanne’s many images of the mountain near Aix-en-Provence, rises above a field of flowers and greenery that appears to be flowing up the mountain. (On view in Chelsea through April 13th.)
Oliver Beer at Almine Rech Gallery
Inspired by 17th century German scholar Athanasius Kircher’s cat organ, which elicited sounds made by cats, British artist Oliver Beer created ‘Cat Orchestra,’ a musical instrument crafted from 37 found objects in the form of hollow cat vessels. Now on view at Almine Rech Gallery’s Tribeca space, the piece’s sound is activated by a keyboard that turns on microphones in each vessel to produce resonances that together form an ethereal musical performance. Motivated to find music where it’s least expected, Beer awakens viewers to possibilities everywhere. (On view through April 27th).
Kaloki Nyamai at James Cohan Gallery
Nairobi-based artist Kaloki Nyamai’s New York solo debut at James Cohan Gallery introduces an artist who uses acrylic paint, stitching and photo transfer to create complex surfaces that suggest complicated histories. This painting’s title, ‘The one who stole my heart,’ features a figure leaning back into a man whose outward-looking eyes connect with our gaze. In contrast to the couple’s intimate, relaxed moment, partially visible figures in the background raise their arms in what could be celebration or protest. Elsewhere, photo transfers contrast happy moments of communal activity with news articles about political unrest as Nyamai juxtaposes the lives of individuals with larger social happenings. (On view through May 4th).
Mernet Larsen at James Cohan Gallery
Fascinated for decades by Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cezanne, painter Mernet Larsen applies her own delightfully eccentric perspectival distortions to her French forebear’s iconic imagery in new work at James Cohan Gallery. Larsen diversifies the cast of characters in ‘The Bathers (after Cezanne)’ adding bikinis to figures more robotic than robust and emphasizing artificiality in the human figures that replace Cezanne’s stabilizing triangle of trees in the original. A diving figure heading into flat waves akin to the slats in Japanese Bunraku puppet theater (which allow figures to move through water) and a woman to the left literally holding up the top of the painting add dynamism and complexity. By alluding to Cezanne but shifting away from his focus and results, Larsen emphasizes the choices behind a painting’s design and nods to the many iconic painters who have moved beyond inspiration to find their own unique results. (On view in Tribeca through March 16th).