Brooklyn-based artist Jayson Musson’s tongue-in-cheek recreation of ‘modern’ art from the comic strip Nancy for his show at Salon94 on the Lower East Side is perfectly timed to recent market interest in abstract painting. Playfully forcing the question of how we create value in art, the show amuses and provokes in equal measure. (Through June 20th).
Jayson Musson, installation view of ‘Exhibit of Abstract Art,’ Salon94 Bowery, May 2014.
By spray painting over and removing pasta shapes on canvas, Scott Reeder creates tongue-in-cheek paintings that resemble austere abstraction, or in the case of this painting (seen in detail) a constellation composed of alphabet soup letters. (At Lisa Cooley Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd.)
Scott Reeder, detail from ‘Untitled (Pasta Painting),’ oil and enamel on canvas, 96 x 108 inches, 2013.
For Brooklyn-based artist Eileen Quinlan, photography is not about passive recording. In a series of 24 images pinned directly to the wall, she degrades the surface of her negatives by both allowing the developing process to go awry and scratching with steel wool to create abstractions that emphasize the medium as a process. (At Miguel Abreu Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 8th).
Eileen Quinlan, installation view of ‘Curtains’ at Miguel Abreu Gallery, Nov 2013.
Known for making artwork relating to lesser-known facts about historically important figures, Brooklyn & Philadelphia artist Terry Adkins turns his sights to George Washington Carver & Yves Klein in his Lower East Side show. Using apple pickers to refer to Carver’s efforts to move away from the ubiquity of cotton, and blown glass to recall Yves Klein’s fiery, transformative performances, Adkins invites us to read meaning into his subtly reworked histories. (At Salon94 Bowery and Salon 94 Freemans on the Lower East Side through Jan 11th).
Terry Adkins, installation view of Nenuphar at Salon94 Bowery, November, 2013. Sculpture in foreground: Terry Adkins, Harvest Montgomery, blown glass, apple picker, fiberglass and aluminum pole, 2013.
Like British YouTube phenomena The Slow Mo Guys, German artist Martin Klimas recognizes the power of slowing down a dramatic event to stimulate our curiosity. Both have recently captured paint flying up from the surface of a speaker (the subject of Klimas’ show at Foley Gallery). But selections from Klimas’ previous body of work – depicting smashing figurines, on view in the back room – steal the show by adding the suggestion of accident and the happy intervention of chance. (At Foley Gallery on the Lower East Side through Nov 3rd).
Martin Klimas, Untitled (Pink and Green), pigment print, 2006.
Bali-based American artist Ashley Bickerton has long painted tropical paradise inhabited by corrupt, non-idyllic characters. Now, his nubile female stock character has morphed into a brightly made-up crone with a snaking tongue and necklaces of trash. As disturbing as she is, it’s a bold new direction for Bickerton, who ups the ante with even stronger contrasts between attraction and repulsion. (At Lehmann Maupin’s Lower East Side space through Oct 26th).
Ashley Bickerton, MV1, aluminum, oil and acrylic paint, hair, cement, 2013 (foreground). Ashley Bickerton, m-DNA_eve1, oil and acrylic on digital print on wood, 2013 (background).
Inspired by the tradition of Americans finding escape in wilderness living, northern Minnesota-based artist Aaron Spangler’s latest work suggests totems for the modern frontiersman. ‘Idol’ is based on the form of a boli, or sacred object, and Spangler’s abstract designs suggest a secret language between human and the divine. (At Horton Gallery on the Lower East Side through Oct 20th).
Aaron Spangler, Idol, carved and painted basswood with a touch of graphite, 2013.
Art applauds nature in Berlin-based American sculptor David Adamo’s hand-made, ceramic termite mounds. Called “exceptionally appealing as objects” by the New York Times, the mini-mounds are smaller than they’d appear in nature but invite wonder at insect engineering. (At Untitled Gallery on the Lower East Side through Oct 20th).
David Adamo, installation view of ‘David Adamo’ at Untitled Gallery, Oct 2013. Foreground: Untitled (Cathedral A), Zellan, 2013.
Chip Hughes’ meticulously rendered abstract painting, ‘Drinks’, on view at Lower East Side gallery Kerry Schuss, recalls quilting with its grid and wavy lines like piping. But amoeba-like organic shapes, cool colors and a slick of washed out color suggest watery worlds or blown-up microbiology. (Through Oct 20th).
Chip Hughes, Drinks, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches, 2012.
Chicago-based artist Ann Toebbe’s flattened perspective piques interest. Here, a TV room’s couch looks like a modernist collage while the rest of the furnishings – shelves lined with books, a rocking chair and pictures featuring nature – suggest homey Americana. (At Monya Rowe Gallery’s inaugural exhibition at a new Lower East Side space through Oct 20th).
Ann Toebbe, TV Room, gouache and cut paper on panel, 15 x 20 inches, 2013.
Hands down one of the best shows on in New York at the moment, Josh Kline’s latest solo show at 47 Canal on the Lower East Side includes this video, which maps Whitney Houston’s face onto an actress who brings the singer back from the grave to discuss a life shaped and destroyed by stardom. Cynical but utterly absorbing, Kline lambastes our society’s love of celebrity and youth. (Through Oct 13th).
Josh Kline, Forever 48 (installation), sculpture with video: plexiglass, LED lights, MDF, plywood, HD television, media player, SD card, 16 min HD video, 2013.
A New York Observer critic recently likened Caetano de Almeida’s vividly colored geometric abstractions to an open window, adding that viewing them was ‘like flying.’ Come check out their physical effect on the Oct 12th open group tour. (At Eleven Rivington Gallery on the Lower East Side through October 13th).
Caetano de Almeida, Agudos, acrylic on canvas, 2013.
During a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Penelope Umbrico photographed cameras from the museum’s collection and printed them, applying Photoshop’s ‘Old Style’ filter, and creating this rather forelorn selection of specimens which rest under a projection of a mountain (used as a subject by Ansel Adams) photographed using hundreds of filters available on dozens of smartphone apps. (At LMAK Projects on the Lower East Side through Oct 20th).
Penelope Umbrico, 136 Mini Film Cameras in the Smithsonian Institution History of Photography Collection with Old Style Photoshop Filter, archival pigment prints on Hahnmuhle Photo Rag paper, 2013.
Chelsea and 57th Street gallery Marlborough Gallery has now put an anchor down in the Lower East Side, launching a new space at 331 Broome with the lightheartedly delicious ‘Pizza Time,’ a show dedicated to the slice. It includes this collage by Catherine Ahearn that marries painting and photo as serendipitously as olives and mushrooms. (Through Oct 6th)
Catherine Ahearn, Untitled (pizza 3), multi-media, 2011.
If it isn’t obvious that New York artist Aric Obrosey’s paper artwork ‘Hand Production Lines’ involves a lot of work, hand cut motifs repeated to form lace-like chains come together to depict a giant work glove. Created for the Museum of Art and Design’s ’09-’10 exhibition featuring cut paper artworks, the piece involves a mind boggling amount of detail and took nine months to complete. (At McKenzie Fine Art on the Lower East Side through Aug 17th).
Aric Obrosey, Hand Production Lines, cut paper, 41 ½ x 59 ½ inches, 2009. Photo courtesy of McKenzie Fine Art.
The artists in Lu Magnus Gallery’s summer group show ‘On the Grid’ mediate between technology and the handmade: Anoka Faruqee’s (background) pattern paintings look computer generated but are determined by intuitive hand painting, while Michael DeLucia’s (foreground) creates his patterned, wood sculptures on a screen, then brings them into reality. (On the Lower East Side through Aug 2nd).
Foreground: Michael Delucia, Double beam, plywood and construction enamel, 2013. background: Anoka Faruqee, Dusk, acrylic on linen, 2010.
Brooklyn-based Daniel Gordon presents one of his signature photo collages at Untitled Gallery on the Lower East Side, a selection of apples and pears that update Cezanne’s twisted perspectives on fruit by adding multiple digital perspectives against contemporary but dated background textiles. (Through July 26th).
Daniel Gordon, Pink Ladies and Pears, chromogenic print, 2012.
Disembodied hands snap photos at all angles from long tripods in ‘Truck Baby’ at Rachel Uffner Gallery on the Lower East Side. LA-based Samara Golden, known for disorderly installations of fantastical worlds, presents a more straightforward tableau here, in which anonymous hands record everything. (Through July 20th).
Samara Golden, installation view of ‘A Convocation of,’ foam, wood, acrylic, 2012 in ‘Truck Baby’ at Rachel Uffner Gallery.
An art student discovered a cache of tiny sculptures left on the sidewalk for the trash truck; thirty years later, they’re renowned as the work of the anonymous outsider artist known as the Philadelphia Wireman. Invisible Exports enlivens a selection of them by showing them alongside a huge Vik Muniz photo from his Pictures of Junk series. (On the Lower East Side through July 13).
London-based Brazilian artist Alexandre da Cunha’s cement-mixer turned art-object brings to mind ancient bells or a new archaeological find. Supported by a concrete square on a plinth on the concrete gallery floor, it points to the labor involved in art-making and exhibiting. (At the Lower East Side’s Simon Preston Gallery through August 4th).
Alexandre da Cunha, Full Catastrophe (drum XIV), cement mixer drum, concrete, wooden plinth, 2013.
At over nine feet tall, New York-based Erin Shirreff’s hot-rolled steel sculpture ‘Drop (no. 3)’ is imposing without being overbearing. The elongated shapes, hung from a steel rod, derive from paper scraps created by the artist and turn leftovers into the monumental main attraction. (At Lisa Cooley Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 23rd).
Erin Shirreff, Drop (no. 3), raw hot-rolled steel, 2013.
Brendan Fowler will show his ‘crashed’ photographs, for which he meticulously merges framed photographs into what looks like the disastrous results of careless art shipping, in MoMA’s ‘New Photography’ showcase in Sept. In the meantime, his solo show on the LES at Untitled Gallery ups the ante in terms of destruction and obfuscation as Fowler covers the photos and their frames with purple or black silkscreens. (Through June 16th).
Brendan Fowler, Shipper in Jail – Something Something Adris Hoyos Something, silkscreen on archival inkjet prints, silkscreen on frames, plexi, 2013.
To her repertoire of vessel shapes and flat ceramic wall pieces, Betty Woodman adds carpets created from ceramic off-cuts she calls ‘bones’ in her latest solo show at Salon94 Freemans on the Lower East Side. She uses every available piece of gallery real estate (ceiling next?) to immerse visitors in colorful exuberance in both 2-D and 3-D space. (Through June 14th).
Betty Woodman, installation view at Salon94 Freemans of ‘Windows, Carpets and Other Paintings,’ May 2013.
Kristin Jensen’s ‘Vase Faces,’ are inanimate objects that appear to come to life, but the effect is more humorous homeyness than horror. Ghostly but not spooky, chubby-cheeked visages seem to emerge and disappear on these simple vessels to charming effect. (At Nichelle Beauchene Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 9th).
Kristin Jensen, ‘Face Vases 1-4, with Prologue,’ porcelain with celadon glaze, 2013.
Chadwick Rantanen’s new show, ‘Bins and Loops’ at the Lower East Side gallery ‘Essex Street’ pushes his materials like no other show up at the moment. Rantanen uses the hydrographic process, in which images are applied to produce surfaces via printed film, but stops short of applying the images, instead leaving them to float on the water’s surface in an abstract pattern that dramatically updates the idea of process art. (Through June 9th).
Chadwick Rantanen, ‘Bin,’ 11 polypropylene bin bottoms and 10 tops, hydrographic film, water, 2013.
When his grandparents’ Missouri farmhouse burned, Josh Tonsfeld’s family salvaged some things and left the rest. In a creative act of excavation, the New York based artist returned to remove more objects from the debris, including this book, ruined furniture and correspondence, which he arranges in the gallery in a kind of provocative but inconclusive personal archeology of a past American life. (At Simon Preston Gallery through June 2nd).
Josh Tonsfeld, Untitled, book, 2013.
Wim Delvoye’s twisted Gothic tower and a bronze crucifix distorted into a Möbius band flirt with potentially provocative subject matter; ultimately, however, his spectacularly distorted swirls of laser-cut metal are all about the wow factor. (At Sperone Westwater on the Lower East Side through June 28th).
Wim Delvoye, Dual Möbius Quad Corpus, polished bronze, 2010.
When Aiko Hachisuka doesn’t want a piece of clothing any more, she doesn’t just bag it for the thrift shop. The LA-based artist’s bulging cloth sculptures are made from clothing she’s folded, screenprinted, stuffed and stitched together in large, exuberant forms. (At Eleven Rivington on the Lower East Side through June 14th)
Aiko Hachisuka, Pro Weight, silkscreen on clothing and foam, 2011.
Ajay Kurian explores the chemicals we consume using materials that range from melted gummy bears to microwaved bars of soap. The surprise in this attractive display is that these pretty ‘rocks’ contain traces of recycled nuclear waste. (At Jack Hanley Gallery on the Lower East Side through May 5th).
Ajay Kurian, Spiegel-Leben 2, plexiglass, epoxy clay, Gobstoppers, recycled nuclear waste, 2013.
On a pedestal of lava rock, Larry Bamburg stacked a 400lb redwood burl, then proceeded to add animal hoofs, turtle shells and more burls. The materials are evocative and the arrangement is a feat of balance but the real charge comes from nature used as both raw material and formal element. (At Simone Subal Gallery through April 28th)
Larry Bamburg, ‘Burls Hooves and Shells on a Pedestal of Lava Rock,’ wood burls, animal hooves, turtle and mollusk shells, lava rock, ratchet strap, 2013.
Israel-born, New York based artist Guy Ben-Ari makes his New York exhibition debut with a show that speaks to our access and remove from contemporary events. Here, hands hold a tablet showing an act of self-immolation caught on camera and witnessed by mostly passive spectators which include the tablet owner and finally, us. (At Scaramouche Gallery through April 28th)
Guy Ben-Ari, An Act of Protest Viewed Through a Tablet Device, oil on panel, 2013.
Sylvie Fleury’s 1998 video ‘Walking on Carl Andre,’ features women’s feet as they pose on ‘60s Minimalist icon Carl Andre’s signature metal floor plate sculptures. In this updated version, she allows visitors to try on a pair of heels and strut their stuff on an Andre replica in a feminizing collaboration that turns his masculine, industrial art product into a catwalk. (At Salon 94 Bowery through April 27th.)
Sylvie Fleury, installation view of ‘It Might as Well Rain Until September,’ at Salon 94 Bowery, March 2013.
Wolfgang Laib’s fourteen-foot high ziggurat dominates Sperone Westwater’s narrow main gallery with its hefty slabs of fragrant beeswax. Titled, ‘Without Beginning and Without End,’ Laib creates his architecture in the form of an ancient structure, while using a natural material made by bees in their own building process. (On the Lower East Side through March 30th)
Wolfgang Laib, ‘Without Beginning and Without End,’ beeswax, wooden understructure, 2005.
Both Rubenesque and strong, caryatid-like females by New York sculptor Allyson Vieira update classical Greek architectural tradition by hoisting steel I-beams instead of plain lintels, suggesting that today’s new glass and steel structures will one day find themselves ancient. (At Laurel Gitlen on the Lower East Side through March 24th).
Allyson Vieira, Weight Bearing III, drywall, screws, steel, 2012.
On the subject of ceramics (see yesterday’s post about Takuro Kuwata), Matthias Merkel Hess takes an amusing position on aesthetics vs use value in contemporary ceramics with these beautiful gas cans. (At Louis B. James, Lower East Side through Feb 22nd. )
Jules de Balincourt’s soldiers have a dazed, world-weary expression and, like Andy Warhol’s ‘Triple Elvis,’ each has at least one shadow character in near proximity. In this detail from the larger painting ‘Off Base,’ the artist turns the mens’ face paint camouflage into Fauvist masks that resonate with a reinterpreted Matisse painting nearby. (At Salon94 Bowery, on the Lower East Side, through January 13th.)
No artist stereotype is as persistent as the garret-living starving artist, but a runner up with a more contemporary feel must be the artist trapped in the studio, ruminating on his or her surroundings. Bruce Nauman’s floor-pacing, wall-bouncing videos from the 60s and ‘Mapping the Studio…’ from ’01 give the artist’s space itself a role in the creative process. Jeanne Silverthorne casts her studio floor as a means of ‘archaeology’ while artists like Ellen Altfest have created meticulous renderings of paint-splattered floors, plants and views from the window of her studio.
London-based artist Elizabeth McAlpine also reproduces scenes from the studio, but obscures their origins in ‘The Map of Exactitude,’ her first New York solo show. The exhibition features mysteriously shaped sculptures combining organic and geometric forms and even more eccentric-looking framed images on paper that hint at architectural diagrams which, in a way, they are. McAlpine’s sculptures are actually casts of the ceilings and corners of another artist’s studio, which she then made into pinhole cameras with multiple tiny openings.
Photosensitive paper folded to the dimensions of the casts’ interiors records multiple views that are often so abstract, they don’t really give much insight into a place that is intended for art making. Instead, McAlpine puts the artistic process itself on display by exhibiting her tools and the resulting images – sculpture-like cameras – on equal footing. Using the peculiarities of the space to make artwork about the space could be obnoxiously self-referential, but comes across instead as a thoughtful reflection on the process of pursuing ideas and discerning meaning in the studio.
Elizabeth McAlpine at Laurel Gitlen, 261 Broome Street, Show extended through July 1, 2012.
