Maureen Gallace’s signature small-sized oil paintings, now on view at Gladstone Gallery, are a welcome reprieve from February in New York, her renditions of bright yellow roadside flowers, the sun rising over Long Island Sound and crashing ocean waves promising that winter will eventually end. Recent life changes find her living in a house by the beach in Connecticut where she takes account of her surroundings in paintings that isolate pleasurable impressions. (On view through March 9th).
Known for gallery-filling installations made of cardboard and packing tape, Paris-based artist Thomas Hirschhorn marshals these materials to transform Gladstone Gallery’s 21st Street location into a room resembling a destroyed command center or gaming parlor. Titled ‘Fake it, Fake it – till you Fake it’ the gallery’s huge space houses rows of desks littered with cigarettes and coffee cups cut roughly from polystyrene and cardboard computers (some with smashed screens) featuring war-destroyed buildings from both real places and video games. Hanging from lengths of packing tape, images of soldiers taken from video games populate the room’s aisles, their faces covered by emojis, which also hang like mobiles from the gallery ceiling. Hirschhorn’s deliberately low-tech materials contrast the realistic imagery from the video game (seen in this photo on one screen) and disturbingly blur the line between real and fake. (On view in Chelsea through March 2nd).
Lightning strikes three times in the same spot at Gladstone Gallery’s high-ceilinged 21st Street space in the form of bronze sculpture by Swiss New Yorker Ugo Rondinone. Trees scanned, 3-D printed and cast in bronze have been inverted to resemble day glow yellow bolts of light; at the same time, they belong to the terrestrial realm by still clearly resembling trees. As nature upends our expectations again and again through storms, floods and extreme temperatures, Rondinone questions the natural order. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 9th.
In a time when public monuments and memorials are being reconsidered, LaToya Ruby Frazier’s Carnegie Prize Winning installation ‘More Than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland 2021-2022,’ is a model for way forward, not by not singling out one achiever but by lauding a community of heroic individuals who dedicate their personal and work lives to helping others access better health care. Now on view at Gladstone Gallery, in Chelsea, the artwork features photos of and interviews with eighteen individuals like Kendra Lindsey. A carer for her family since she was a child, Lindsey was inspired to start a health and wellness business, become an auxiliary police officer and support local community groups in addition to working as a community health worker. As a tribute and an act of advocacy for appropriate pay, ‘More than Conquerors’ is a moving and illuminating look into the lives and motivations of an under-appreciated yet vital workforce. (On view through April 15th).
Describing himself as a ‘Greek man and an Italian artist,’ the late Jannis Kounellis was a founder of Arte Povera, a movement that emerged from the desire of post-war Italian artists to embrace materials more linked to everyday life than to fine art. In this piece from 2016, Kounellis sourced outdoor sheds, placing them on beds of coals arranged in a grid around Gladstone Gallery’s spacious 21st Street location. Iron panels line the walls, holding a rope and bent pieces of metal that resemble an alphabet. Though not meant to be interpreted literally, Kounellis’ materials are evocative – coal suggesting fire and the wooden sheds standing in for fuel while looking like makeshift coffins. Whether it’s the death of the industrial past hinted at by the old railway sheds or more contemporary losses, this somber installation acts as a reminder to pause and reflect. (On view through Dec 23rd).
