Anila Quayyum Agha at Sundaram Tagore Gallery

Inspired by Islamic art and architecture, Anila Quayyum Agha’s pattern-based practice celebrates the intricacies and pleasures of floral and geometric design.  Her installation Beautiful Despair, commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, literally immerses the viewer in patterns that are projected from a central cube onto the floor, walls and ceiling of a room at Sundaram Tagore Gallery.  With the piece, Quayyum Agha commemorates those lost to Covid (including her sister) while expressing hope for the future.  (On view in Chelsea though Oct 8th).

Anila Quayyum Agha, Beautiful Despair, lacquered steel and halogen bulb, 60 x 60 x 60 inches, 2022.

David Aipperspach at Chart Gallery

The paintings in Philadelphia-based artist David Aipperspach’s current solo show at Tribeca’s Chart Gallery, ‘Prologue to a Garden Dark’ anticipate the slow end of a summer’s day by blending light and color from different times in a single scene. At the show’s entrance, a small painting tracks the path of the sun as it sinks though a grid of darkening colors, acting as a Rosetta stone for the same color shifts that appear in rectangles of stacked colors inset in the paintings.  Acting as ‘clocks,’ the rectangles break into tranquil scenes, acting as abrupt reminders of the passage of time.  (On view through April 30th in Tribeca).

David Aipperspach, 4-7pm, oil on canvas, 84 x 72 inches, 2021.

Olafur Eliasson at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

Glass balls in a rainbow of color and a beautifully ephemeral light projection greet visitors to Olafur Eliasson’s gorgeous new solo show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, an exhibition designed to give visitors ‘a moment to exhale.’  ‘We need a moment of relief, of beauty, of letting go,’ explains Eliasson, an ambition fulfilled by every piece in the exhibition, including this spherical light installation.  Created from green tinted glass and pink iridescent color-effect-filter glass, the piece reflects light of a single color while allowing its complementary color to pass through.  (On view through April 24th. Appointments, masks and social distancing required.)

Edgy but perfect kinship sphere, color-effect filter glass (pink), color glass (green), stainless steel, LED system, diameter: 43 1/4 inches, 2020.

Abdullah M. I. Syed at Aicon Gallery

A glowing globe of hand-stitched prayer caps headlines ‘Nurun ‘ala Nur (Light Upon Light)’, Australian artist Abdullah M. I. Syed’s current show at Aicon Gallery.  Positioned over a water-like, reflective blue surface, the light sculpture imitates a full moon, associating the sublime beauty of a celestial body with personal and group devotion.  (On view through March 6th).

Abdullah M. I. Syed, Nurun ‘ala Nur (Light Upon Light), Hand-stitched white crochet taqiyah (skullcaps), LED light, Perspex dome and mirror, Dimensions variable, 2015.

Dan Flavin in ‘Flavin, Judd, McCracken, Sandback’ at David Zwirner Gallery

Twelve untitled light sculptures from 1995 by Dan Flavin transform the white cube into a bath of color at David Zwirner Gallery’s 19th Street Chelsea location.  Spaced along two walls, the color configurations change with each sculpture, inviting visitors who walk from piece to piece to reconcile cool and soothing blues and greens with intense reds and yellows.  (On view through Feb 20th. Masks and social distancing are required.)

Dan Flavin, untitled, blue, red and green fluorescent light, 4 ft wide, edition of 5, 1995.