Alex Israel at Greene Naftali Gallery

Known for huge paintings of sunsets, giant sculptures of dark sunglasses and other emblems of life in Los Angeles, Alex Israel continues to channel the allure of Hollywood and its environs with wave paintings and a fantasy street scene sculpture at Greene Naftali Gallery.  Titled ‘Sunset Coast Drive,’ the 44-foot-long strip of fictional and real buildings includes Israel’s own studio at one end and his favorite burger place at the other.  In the foreground of this photo, Israel revives a mural he painted on a building in Venice, CA before it was painted over.  The rest of the gallery is dominated by vividly colored acrylic on fiberglass panels depicting crashing waves inspired by Hokusai and surfing logos.  Their bright colors are alluring, but abstracted to the point of resembling reaching hands, the waves may be less innocuous than they first seem.  (On view in Chelsea through June 25th).

Alex Israel, Sunset Coast Drive (detail), 26 x 528 x 43 inches, 2022.
Alex Israel, Waves, acrylic on fiberglass, 99 x 99 inches, 2022.

Peter Halley at Greene Naftali Gallery

Inspired by the city grid, jail cell windows, high-rise buildings and other structures designed to regulate and control human activity, Peter Halley’s Neo-Geo abstraction has exceeded into own regulatory bounds in a dramatic, maze-like installation at Chelsea’s Greene Naftali Gallery.  Up and down stairs, around blind bends and through an eye-popping assault of day-glo color, visitors find their way through an environment that feels as if we’d stepped into one of Halley’s paintings.  Here, a painting composed of stacked forms has an altar-like presence at the top of a vividly green staircase.  (On view through Dec 20th).

Peter Halley, installation view of ‘Heterotopia II’ at Greene Naftali Gallery, Nov 2019.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye in ‘Painting Now and Forever, part III’ at Greene Naftali Gallery

Humor, irony and abjection abound in Greene Naftali Gallery’s summer group show ‘Painting Now and Forever, part III,’ a collaboration with Matthew Marks Gallery, but none of these qualities are found in British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s fictional portrait titled ‘Jubilee.’  Instead, Yiadom-Boakye’s elevated characters – backlit in this case by a golden glow – are quietly exalted, seemingly above everyday life and happy in their own company and thoughts.  (On view in Chelsea through August 17th).

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Jubilee, oil on canvas, 41 ½ x 35 ¾ inches, 2016.

Jacqueline Humphreys at Greene Naftali Gallery

The screen and the stretcher come crashing together in Jacqueline Humphrey’s new oil paintings featuring characters and numbers. Applied through laser-cut stencils, the thickly textured symbols spread across the canvas like a dense fog, at times arranged to resemble brush strokes. (On view at Greene Naftali Gallery through Dec 16th).

Jacqueline Humphreys, (#J>>), oil on linen, 100 x 111 inches, 2017.

Allen Ruppersberg at Greene Naftali Gallery

Intercut with circus and festival ads and excerpts from Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl,’ Allen Ruppersberg’s pointed yet ambiguous texts – one asks, ‘Is one thing better than another?’ – question the status quo in eye-catching day-glo color. (At Greene Naftali Gallery in Chelsea through Oct 21st).

Allen Ruppersberg, installation view of ‘The Novel that Writes Itself’ at Greene Naftali Gallery (floor 8), Sept 2017.