Architect Charles Platt’s glass-wall contemporary designs are a world away from his collage, now on view on the Lower East Side at Freight and Volume Gallery. This pair of overalls, mounted to canvas and titled ‘The Hired Man’ literally turns the notion of work for hire inside out. (Through Feb 26th).
In 1977, James Wines partially buried twenty cars in a strip mall parking lot in Hamden, CT then covered them with asphalt to create an eerie auto graveyard. This maquette for that project, part of a group show at P! gallery on the Lower East Side, conveys a sense of quiet and disbelief upon discovering what looks like remains buried by ash. (Through Feb 26th).
At over eight feet tall, this structure of welded aluminum tubes by Emil Lukas not only dominates Sperone Westwater’s small back gallery, it commandeers our vision. By leading our gaze toward a single point on the wall behind, it melds sculpture with the role of painting and drawing by creating one-point perspective. (On the Lower East Side through Feb 11th).
The huge portal dominating Daniel Heidkamp’s hotel room painting leads us into more than we might expect. From what looks to be one of the Maritime Hotel’s distinctive windows, Heidkamp shuffles the New York skyline and offers glimpses of a ballet rehearsal in a building that only exists in this painting. It feels surprisingly daring to rearrange New York’s built environment and particularly appropriate as construction booms in the city. (At Derek Eller Gallery through Feb 5th).
Roger White’s new oil paintings at Rachel Uffner Gallery approach the wondrous in the everyday – a mirror reflects light, an array of mushrooms grows from a bag – but the artist amps up the drama in this picture of fire on a river. Has there been a chemical spill? Is this a miracle? A sci-fi scene? This small, intriguingly moody canvas asks good questions. (On the Lower East Side through Feb 19th).
Karen Heagle’s sumptuous, gold leaved paintings of scavengers, predators and fallen prey are irresistible, even at their goriest moments. On a solitary drawing, the text ‘The Unwashed Masses’ hints that Heagle’s interests stray beyond the lifecycle of animals to reflect on humanity’s ‘natural’ inclination to violence. (At On Stellar Rays on the Lower East Side through Feb 19th).
Fit for a student or a teacher, this monumental painted shoe not only holds scissors, pens and other school supplies, it’s a history lesson all on its own, from the cave paintings to a digitally rendered portrait in green lines. Titled after Magritte’s Le Modele Rouge (a painting of boots that take on the appearance of bare feet), Henry Gunderson’s update is more practical than surreal, but no less fun to ponder. (At 247365 Gallery on the Lower East Side through Feb 5th).
Sandwiched on the wall between two roughly lettered signs reading, ‘The End is Here’ and the enigmatic ‘You Are Pretty Good,’ Jim Torok’s photo-realist renderings of friends and acquaintances like ‘Jennifer’ bring the artist’s thoughts and his community together in the quiet of the gallery. (At Pierogi through Feb 12th).
Energized by the inauguration of President Obama in 2008, New York artist-provocateur Rob Pruitt started painting a picture of the president daily, sourcing his images from the news. All paintings completed up to the start of the show are included at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, where this unusual monument to the nation’s leader and to Pruitt’s endurance will be on view through the end of the week. (On the Lower East Side through Dec 18th).
Young Toronto-based painter Vanessa Maltese has a different take on the shoe as object d’art. In a show titled, ‘Company,’ it appears that she has invited guests who have removed their shoes in an empty gallery, then disappeared. In fact, each piece of footware is cast aluminum, painted in oil. Too clean to compare to Van Gogh’s famous paintings of heavily used shoes, these sneakers have some travels yet to complete. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd).
Though Michele Abeles’ photos look like appropriated commercial images, they are the artist’s own, transferred to a tablet prepared with various liquids and rephotographed. The resulting multi-layered effect blends oddness, familiarity and accident. (At 47 Canal through Dec 18th).
Every word in Brooklyn artist John O’Connor’s text stories packs a punch. Drawing in colored pencil using myriad fonts, he employs brand logos, emojis and pictograms to tell the tale of a young consumer whose life has taken a turn for the bizarre. (At Pierogi through Nov 13th).
Born in the Northern Brazilian city of Belem, home to an annual religious festival that draws millions of participants, artist Tonico Lemmos Auad creates a series of attractively simple, handmade, crocheted forms inspired by votive vessels. (At CRG Gallery on the Lower East Side through Oct 23rd).
Female figures in long black dresses are the basis of this arresting canvas by Canadian painter Elizabeth McIntosh, who’s known for excerpting and riffing on elements of historical paintings. The identity of the repeated woman is a mystery, but the intensely yellow object coming from her hand – a notebook? handbag? a block of butter? – is the real puzzle that gives the painting intrigue. (At Canada on the Lower East Side through Oct 23rd).
Lorna Simpson’s understated, monochrome images employ collaged fragments from magazines like Ebony and Jet in a powerful, poetic mediation on race in America. (At Salon94 Bowery on the Lower East Side through Oct 22nd).
In a grouping of hand-painted wooden torpedoes, Marianne Vitale swaps out her signature bold, minimalist sculptures made with railway ties or battered wood for personalized weapons bearing ‘American’ symbols including USDA meat and Pollock-like swirls of paint. (At Invisible-Exports on the Lower East Side through Oct 16th).
In 1968, Bruce Nauman videoed himself slowly pacing down a narrow corridor, swinging his hips with each step into a pose reminiscent of Donatello’s bronze David sculpture. Once again, Nauman posits the human body – now older and fragmented by a screen with multiple splits – as subject for art in a new series of videos at Sperone Westwater Gallery, also on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (On the Lower East Side through Oct 29th).
Ruth Root’s untitled abstraction, created on fabric and Plexiglas dominates Jack Hanley Gallery’s group exhibition ‘The Congregation.’ With its unlikely form, as suggestive of a living creature as an eccentric chair, and mix of wonky hand-created forms and slick pattern, it’s hard to settle on one set of meanings for this wonderfully shape-shifting piece. (On the Lower East Side through Oct 9th).
LA sculptor Peter Shire’s ‘Scorpion’ strikes a fencing pose, but something about the red ball on top of this exaggerated tea-pot shape tones down the menace. Behind it, other sculptures reveal Shire’s involvement with the Memphis design group in the 80s and his own sense of humor in a deeply enjoyable survey of the artist’s work from the 70s to the present. (At Derek Eller Gallery on the Lower East Side through Oct 9th).
Titled ‘Curves,’ Bayne Peterson’s solo show of wood and metal sculpture at Kristen Lorello channels sensuous forms of the mid-20th century modernists (Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore) in dizzying color. At front left, ‘Apollo’ shares a name with the Roman god of music, appropriately, as the sculpture recalls a giant ear resting on a receiver. (On the Lower East Side through Oct 16th).
Brie Ruais’ wall mounted sculpture is designed to record the trace of her hands forming the shape of the sculpture, Sally Saul’s little women offer a kind of canvas for her ceramic compositions and Sara Murphy’s leg sawhorses provide a support for unnamed table-top activities. All expound on the human body as inspiration for creativity. (At Rachel Uffner Gallery on the Lower East Side through Oct 23rd).
Gillian Wearing’s now classic video of herself dancing uninhibitedly in a London shopping arcade in 1994 – causing discomfort with the idea of turning public into private space – is precedent setting in the International Center of Photography’s group show ‘Public, Private, Secret,’ which considers how identity is created both openly and in secret. (Through Jan 8, 2017).
Ydessa Hendeles’ ‘Partners (The Teddy Bear Project)’ is a standout in ‘The Keeper,’ the New Museum’s intriguing homage to obsessive collections of deeply meaningful, often personal, artifacts. The installation presents over three thousand photographs from diverse family albums of individuals with their teddy bears, taken since the stuffed animal came into existence thanks to Teddy Roosevelt’s hunting exploits. Here, teddies break through class barriers, age differences and cultural divides as the world embraces a mass-produced consumer good. (Through Sept 25th).
Nancy Shaver marshaled work by twenty-four artists to create ‘Quilt,’ a wall collage of Shaver’s own fabric panels and works in other media which spreads out over Derek Eller Gallery’s walls like a kudzu of patterns and pop culture references. (On the Lower East Side through Aug 19th).
Alicia Gibson’s charmingly messy abstraction revels in the possibilities of nail decoration and personal expression in ‘Nail Polishing Club remix.’ Gumdrops, hats and very celebratory tombstones come to mind in this riotous appreciation of a female art. (In ‘X’ at Lyles & King through Aug 12th).
Cutaway cars seen on a trip to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios inspired Greg Drasler to paint views of vehicles from multiple perspectives at once. Here, a car sits sandwiched between a vast sky and a flat, patchwork patterned plain, reflected as if partially submerged under water. The effect is strangely cinematic and painterly all at once. (At Betty Cunningham Gallery through Aug 5th).
Dutch artist Anouk Kruithof’s vaguely anthropomorphized stand features a printed sheet of vinyl bearing a picture (a screenshot) of a deliberately blurred ID card posted by the TSA to its Instagram account alongside contraband found on the traveller. It’s a strange and provocative rematerialization of web-disseminated images. (At Bitforms on the Lower East Side through July 31st).
Displayed under glass and supported by carefully crafted supports, Alan Wiener’s two bricks and a stone are everyday objects given the royal treatment but the mini-pedestals actually steal the show. Created from aquaresin in controlled pours, their shapes suggest candy, bones and ancient architectural embellishments. (At 11R through July 29th).
Robert Raphael’s cool-colored constructions of ropes are actually created in ceramic, rendering a traditionally functional material functionless. (At LMAK Gallery through July 30th.)
Masks populate the mask-like features of ‘Whatever Guy,’ a portrait by Nicole Eisenman of a zoned-out and alienated character. (At Marc Straus Gallery through July 29th).
‘Record Lines this Summer,’ a group show at Magenta Plains Gallery, takes its title from the delays expected at TSA airport checkpoints in July and August. In that context, Zach Bruder’s painting of Father Time holding a shoe up for contemplation takes on new meaning…is this shoe going to set off an alarm, or is he suggesting walking as a better mode of transport?
Shaped artworks on paper by young Brooklyn artist Gretta Johnson are abstract but bring specific objects to mind, as the show’s title ‘Jackets/Machines/Hair,’ affirms. Here, what looks like a heraldic symbol featuring modified fly whisks and a door hinge invites speculation. (At Feuer/Mesler on the Lower East Side through July 29th).
Caroline Larsen’s paintings are a deliberate tour-de-force of low-brow associations, resembling latch-hook or embroidery, created by squeezing oil paint through pastry bags and mounted on cheap wall coverings. Seemingly designed to test whether there’s any fertile ground left in the fine art vs kitsch debate, they deliberately elude the kind of transcendence that this majestic mountainscape might suggest. (At The Hole NYC through July 24th).
Brian Belott’s eclectic, messy collaged artwork pops up regularly in New York group shows; this month for Gavin Brown’s Lower East Side summer group show, Belott’s the organizer, having asked artist friends to contribute their own reinterpretations of iconic artwork. Among the standouts, Giva Beavers remakes Van Gogh’s Starry Night as if rendered in bacon and Melissa Brown brings Holbein’s Ambassadors up to date in paint and lottery scratch-off ink on aluminum. (Through July 30th).
T Magazine described a sketchy painting of a happy pregnant woman by Trevor Shimizu as having ‘emotional depth’ that ‘transcends that of an emoji.’ Perhaps it’s because Shimizu doesn’t set the bar very high on his draftsmanship or finish that his paintings charm with their earnestness and humor. His latest show was inspired by parenthood, reflecting on sleep deprivation (front) and breastfeeding in public (rear). (At 47 Canal on the Lower East Side through July 30th).
A generic meeting room, scaled down to doll-size and crafted in minute detail by Roxy Paine is the centerpiece of Pierogi’s summer group show ‘False Narratives.’ The absence of tables as protective barriers suggests that honesty and vulnerability will be part of whatever discussions take place here; a bulletin board on the wall offers topics of conversations that include ‘captives and fugitives’ and ‘chance and fate.’ (On the Lower East Side through July 31st).
Young Brooklyn-based, Irish artist Gerard Mullin merges paint and design in hand-carved abstract works that never seem to stop moving. (At Kristen Lorello Gallery on the Lower East Side through July 15th).
At eight feet high, Katherine Bernhardt’s vibrant, textile-like painting overwhelms with powerful graphics while her subject matter – plantains, cigarettes, basketball and Lisa Simpson – samples pop culture and everyday objects with strong associations. (At Canada New York through July 15th).
At first glance, Adam Parker Smith’s shiny mylar balloon sculptures don’t look long for this world; inside of each, however, are resin & fiberglass interiors and metal armatures that give the sculptures heft. Arranged around a faux rock garden, the balloons resemble classic Greek sculptures reinterpreted with humor – Venus stands in the foreground with a champagne bottle body barely covered by a flying scarf while Augustus towers to the rear of the gallery. (At The Hole on the Lower East Side through July 24th).
Global art commerce comes to mind in Sadie Benning’s painting of abstracted airplanes bearing mini-paintings on their wings. The planes disappear right off the panel in an apparently never-ending cycle of supply and demand. (At Callicoon Fine Arts on the Lower East Side through July 29th).
Spanish artist Cristina de Miguel offers an update on Picasso’s 1905-6 Boy Leading a Horse with a version that crops the boy (as if shot on film) and adds expressionist patches of color reminiscent of the post-war CoBrA group. The horse’s expression – he’s in on the joke? – adds humor. (At Freight and Volume on the Lower East Side through July 10th).
At the top of a stepped pile of dirt, a domed chamber houses bees (contained in the top of the structure by a screen) and offers visitors a place to sit for quiet contemplation. Artist Terence Koh explains that the ‘bee chapel’ came to him in a dream as a way of offering sanctuary to the beleaguered insects. (At Andrew Edlin Gallery on the Lower East Side through July 1st.)
Self-taught super realist painter Lordan Bunch paints children from class photos and photo-booth shots, pulling their identities from oblivion to act as memento mori. (At Foley Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 30th).
New York painter Joanne Greenbaum takes mark making into three dimensions with ceramics that evoke natural forms and architecture in vibrant color at Rachel Uffner Gallery on the Lower East Side. (Through July 1st).
East Asian tradition meets folk tale characters in the late Kirk Magnus’s ceramic demon, now part of the artist’s mini-30 year retrospective at James Cohan Gallery. Magnus’ deep knowledge of the world’s ceramic arts and his sense of humor are evident in a variety of vessels crafted with different techniques and featuring an assortment of oddball characters. (On the Lower East Side through June 26th).
Whether she is Venus, Sister Ray (a Velvet Underground character), or Penthesilea, the Amazonian Queen, Danish artist Peter Linde Busk’s recurring female character has a jittery, incomplete quality owing to her construction from cast-off and fragmentary materials. Here, Smalti, natural stones, ceramics and more compose a faceless, imperfect creature. (At Derek Eller Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 19th).
Iconic Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz demonstrated his ongoing interest in the Fibonacci sequence this spiral table from 1982, now on view at Sperone Westwater Gallery. Merz translates the Fibonacci numbers – in which each number is the sum of the previous two – into a symbolic display of nature’s beautiful bounty. (On the Lower East Side through June 25th).
An ostrich, Asiatic black bear and other animals look to be constructed of cigarettes but have actually been crafted from Sculpey and acrylic by Amanda Nedham. A standout in Invisible Export’s group exhibition on the current cultural status of smoking, Nedham equates animals threatened by habitat loss with another endangered species – the smoker. (At Invisible Exports on the Lower East Side through June 19th).
Brooklyn-based, Sri-Lanka raised artist Nadia Haji Omar has found inspiration for her abstract forms in Tamil, Sinhala, Arabic and French letter forms. This untitled dye and acrylic canvas nods to language as much as to natural forms found in the water or under a microscope. (At Kristen Lorello Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 12th).
Sargent’s Daughters’ homage to Dutch New Yorker Anton van Dalen includes this painting from 1986 featuring behavior psychologist B.F. Skinner, whose pigeon experiments included a plan to train the birds to guide missiles in WWII. Himself a pigeon fancier, van Dalen reimagines the pigeon’s world to fascinating effect. (On the Lower East Side through June 12th).
LA artist Naotaka Hiro’s fragmentary, cast self-portraits question what we do and don’t see from the exterior. ‘Big Question’ also appeals our sense of hearing as the artist demonstratively takes hold of his ear. (At Brennan & Griffin on the Lower East Side through June 5th).
New York artist Josh Blackwell morphs a plastic carrier bag into a wonder of colorful stitching in a free-standing sculpture that’s a poster child for reuse and recycling. (At 11R on the Lower East Side through June 5th).
Inspired by a sculpture in a David Cronenberg sci-fi horror film, Dora Budor’s enormous head houses a seating area – a lounge for contemplating the life of the mind and how it can be controlled. (At Ramiken Crucible through June 5th).
How do you make a 2-D image that is also a time-based artwork? Willy Le Maitre’s answer is to include multiple images in a lenticular print, so that, for example, a children’s play area runs together with icy branches and a glowing screen. Le Maitre explains that as viewers move back and forth before a piece, they use their eyes and their memory of what they’ve just seen to complete the picture. (At Canada NYC on the Lower East Side through June 5th).
Josh Kline’s stunning new show at Lower East Side gallery 47 Canal imagines a world in which technological advances have created mass unemployment. Carts with bottles and cans rendered in flesh tones suggest a sinister equivalence between recyclables and bodies that have been rendered redundant by ‘progress.’ (Through June 12th).
Abraham Lincoln’s vision for the U.S. literally explodes from his eyes in Brian Tolle’s sculpture of Lincoln with the text from his inaugural addresses bursting in red, white and blue from his eyes. The sculpture is part of a show featuring U.S. presidents from Washington to Obama with attributes that relate to their roles in the country’s history. (At CRG Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 12th).
Though William Bailey’s serene still life arrangements share subject matter with Giorgio Morandi’s paintings of bottles, jars and vases, their contours are perfectly complete and clear, achieving comparative gravity and a sense of permanence. Still, Bailey’s objects embody a sense of apartness that makes them captivating. (At Betty Cunningham Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 11th).
Known for photographing freeze dried flowers as he explodes them and liquid pigment as it is blasted by sound from a speaker, German artist Martin Klimas has come up with another way to make merge sound and art in a new body of work at Foley Gallery. The ‘Pure Tones’ series involves a frequency generator and still water, which is disturbed in surprisingly beautiful patterns, as evidenced by this grid of surfaces. (On the Lower East Side through May 22nd).
A foam couch, a broken glass table and lamps made of driftwood define young New York artist Jessi Reaves’ slacker design aesthetic in furniture art now on view at Bridget Donahue. Here, plywood, foam and driftwood create a giant letter ‘O’ which is simultaneously a seat, shelving and an opportunity to experience an ‘Oh…’ moment while discovering Reaves’ forays into unfinish. (On the Lower East Side through June 5th).
Known for clever analogue photo manipulation, John Houck’s latest body of work adds painting to the mix. Houck paints around items borrowed from friends – here a mason jar – in successive arrangements, gradually building one composite photo that disrupts traditional picture space. (At On Stellar Rays on the Lower East Side through May 22nd).
Light up wall decorations, picture frames and clocks are the hosts for Chadwick Rantanen’s unusual art project, which takes the form of adaptors that allow one battery to be used in place of another. With adaptors in the form of bees sticking out the back of this clock, the device is forced to keep its kitschy face to the wall. Resistance to tackiness and artistic innovation become the subject matter. (At Essex Street through May 16th).
Vietnam-based artists The Propeller Group make a surprising connection between brass bands in New Orleans and Vietnam in a mesmerizing video created for the New Orleans biennial, Prospect 3. Here, a funeral band wades into the Mekong Delta, making an elaborate journey as they accompany the dead toward the afterlife. (At James Cohan Gallery on the Lower East Side through May 15th).
Titled ‘post-paintings,’ as if they’re pioneering a new art form after painting, Strauss Bourque-LaFrance’s wall sculptures are in fact made from 2 x 2” posts and cropped pictures from the New York Post newspaper. Colored like a quilt and featuring snippets of Post sports coverage, this piece evokes all-American pastimes. (At Rachel Uffner Gallery on the Lower East Side through May 16th).
Lucas Blalock’s overt manipulation of this odd but banal scene begs the question of why anyone would want to represent chopped sausage at all, never mind as both a photo and a digital rendering. The effect is to put our minds between places –simultaneously in the digital realm and in a stranger’s kitchen. (At Ramiken Crucible on the Lower East Side through May 22nd).
Thousands of books with fake titles create a false and fun library at Pierogi Gallery, where a not-quite-homey feel is completed by Carol K. Brown’s editioned porcelain plate featuring a down-on-his-luck wanderer. (At Pierogi Gallery on the Lower East Side through May 8th).
Brazilian artist Adriana Varejao explores the complicated relationship between western and indigenous cultures with a series of self-portraits that blend Native South American and mid-20th century minimalist aesthetics. Here, wavy feathered plumes contrast a stark geometric stripe running the length of her face and clouds of dots over her eyes. (At Lehmann Maupin Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 16th).
They’re not looking at each other, but this dancing couple makes a connection through the eyes. As if they share a common vision, or are alert to each other’s thoughts, each bears an eye of the other as they engage in an elaborate courtship ritual. (At Lower East Side Gallery Thierry Goldberg, through May 1st).
Arranged in vitrines or along this long shelf, Katy Fischer’s ceramic objects look like archaeological finds. They’re a humorous take on the notion that ceramics must have use-value and yet provocative in prompting consideration of what those uses might be. (At Lower East Side gallery Louis B. James through May 1st).
Painter and sculptor Volker Hueller is known for mining art history, remixing styles and associations from yesteryear into a contemporary visual vocabulary. In this recent painting, on view at Lower East Side gallery 11R, he turns one of his signature, geometric characters into art object, suggestively equating face and vase. (Through April 24th).
A visit to the Alhambra in Spain inspired Oxford, England-based Sudanese artist Ibrahim El-Salahi to begin his ‘Flamenco’ series, in which he celebrates the music and dance of Andalusia in his signature, modernist style. (At Salon94 on the Lower East Side through April 18th).
Since lifting it from the bulletin board of a Thai ceramic factory 30 years ago, Swiss artists Fischli and Weiss have reproduced this motivational list in different locations and formats over the years, most recently installing it on Houston Street in Manhattan. From the simple instruction to ‘do one thing at a time’ to the more profound challenge to ‘distinguish sense from nonsense,’ the advice encapsulates the artists’ credo to ask questions and embrace the absurd. (On Houston St at Mott Street through May 1st. For more info, see Public Art Fund or visit the artists’ retrospective at the Guggenheim.)
A moody beach scene by Norwegian expressionist icon Edvard Munch inspires this painting by William Wegman at Sperone Westwater Gallery, which incorporates and builds on a postcard at center. Wegman both adds psychological intensity and humor to Munch’s angsty scene by making the main character a creative type alone in his Spartan room. Come see this painting and more on Saturday’s Lower East Side Gallery Tour, 1 – 3pm. (Click here for tickets. On view through April 23rd).
Her own nature photography and images downloaded from the Internet are the basis for several new photos by Eileen Quinlan at Miguel Abreu Gallery, including this interrupted shot of an otter. A strip from the center of the image looks like both a rip and a pool of water, while streams of photo chemicals toward the bottom of the image contrast liquids used in photo processing with the otter’s natural habitat. (On the Lower East Side through April 17th).
Doug Fogelson’s ‘Ceaseless’ series comprises beautiful but damaged nature photos, for which the Chicago-based artist shot traditional landscape photos, which he printed and partially destroyed by applying common industrial chemicals to the surface. Ironically, the results are gorgeous. Here, a verdant forest hovers like an apparition surrounded by peeling layers of emulsion. (At Sasha Wolf Gallery on the Lower East Side through April 16th).
Colorful lumps of squeezed clay, or the pattern on a checked shirt are inspiration to Houston-based artist Jeremy Deprez; here, he presents visitors to Feuer/Mesler Gallery with a five foot high bar of hotel soap. Unlike pop predecessors who supersized everything from hamburgers (Oldenberg) to soup cans (Warhol), Deprez pays painterly attention to his flecked monochrome. (On the Lower East Side through March 27th).
A painting is set into a painting, set into a painted frame in Nora Griffin’s ‘Painting Culture,’ a nestled presentation of homey organic shapes, cheery color and unselfconsciously handmade marks that conjures 80s design and a kind of youthful freedom exemplified by a zany silver zigzag. (At Louis B. James on the Lower East Side through March 20th).
The bar below his apartment, the 99 Cent Pizza place, the Laundromat and apartment furnishings inspired New York artist Nicholas Buffon’s latest paper sculptures, what the New Yorker called, ‘elegies to a vanishing downtown.’ Here, even his stove and cheerily decorated fridge bespeak the well worn and well loved. (At Callicoon Fine Arts on the Lower East Side through March 20th).
A 300 lb piece of talc was the basis of this large sculpture by Larry Bamburg, who bridged the natural and manmade by adding a similarly colored soap, then bathroom tiles to the stone, creating a conversation between materials whose properties converge yet remain distinct. (At Simone Subal on the Lower East Side through March 20th).
David Kennedy Cutler continues to turn photographed or scanned images into provocative sculpture with a cluster of heads representing Bacchus – the god of wine and related merrymaking – grouped together like giant grapes. Paired with slices of bread, however, does the reference turns toward the Eucharist? (At Lyles and King on the Lower East Side through March 13th).
Using techniques from ‘how to’ TV shows on painting, British artist Neil Raitt makes odd juxtapositions of cabins and mountains, cacti and palm trees in repeating patterns that are like digital wallpaper but carefully hand-rendered. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery on the Lower East Side through March 13th).
From sounds recorded at a textile factory in Bally, PA and computer data sites, Mika Tajima and a textile designer worked to translate sound waves into visual patterns. Old technology – the mill uses jacquard looms (a punch-card system invented in the early 1800s) – meets new in a beautiful abstract textile that looks like a screen interrupted by interference. (At 11R Gallery on the Lower East Side through March 13th).
Since 1993, Richard Dupont has made silkscreens from photos of TV screens with scrambled signals. The results look like paintings of lassos of paint, actual paint skeins, abstract expressionism or a capture of paranormal activity. (At Tracy Williams, Ltd. through March 6th).
Flesh-color, cabbage-like leaves nestle in a container that recalls an incubator in Hannah Levy’s alluringly odd sculpture at 247365 Gallery. Waxy fingers that hold the tub and leaves made of something resembling skin recall Keith Edmier’s resin renderings of his mother or Matthew Barney’s plastics and petroleum jelly, making for fascinating but unnerving sculpture.
Sally Saul’s arresting ceramic self-portrait portrays her as if in mid-sentence, her eyes looking into the distance as if trying to phrase something just so. Surrounded by tiny attentive birds, what she says has caused nature to stop and listen. (At LaunchF18 on the Lower East Side through March 6th).
This small painting by New York artist Clare Grill is a standout in a group show at Lower East Side gallery Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects for its lively color and suggestion of a sympathetic face framed by lighter color, curving bands. (Through March 13th).
In person, the subjects of LA painter Vanessa Prager’s heavily painted portraits only faintly emerge from their textured backgrounds; in photos, they materialize more readily. The implications of being more visible on a screen aren’t lost on Prager, who has installed peep-holes through out the gallery to carry on a conversation about the absence and presence of images today. (At The Hole NYC on the Lower East Side through Feb 29th).
Like protagonists in a young adults detective novel, Jane Corrigan’s svelte sleuths ooze intrigue as they receive covert messages, investigate strange noises and meet secretively at night. The hook is strong. What are they up to? (At Feuer Mesler through Feb 14th).
Jane Corrigan, Spies, oil on canvas, 70 x 55 inches, 2015.
Inspired by Islamic, Byzantine and Asian historical ornaments, New York artist Elizabeth Kley’s ceramics celebrate and overwhelm with pattern. (At Canada New York, through Feb 14th).
Elisabeth Kley, Flask with Eyes, glazed earthenware, 15.25 x 11.75 x 4.75 inches, 2015.
It’s telling that young New York artist Jeni Spota C.’s heavily textured paintings of individuals grouped around mother-figures are included in the Jewish Museum’s current group show of ‘outsider’ art. Inspired by early Renaissance painting as well as a psychic’s assertion that the artist is constantly surrounded by departed relatives, Spota’s work invites speculation on the spiritual realm. (At Brennan and Griffin on the Lower East Side through Feb 14th)
Jeni Spota C., Bird Woman (detail), oil on canvas, 36 x 42 inches, 2015.
British artist Jonathan Baldock’s soft sculptures channel both Louise Bourgeois’ use of soft fabric to create unnerving characters and Barbara Hepworth’s rounded, organic sculptural forms to create cheery yet creepy totemic forms. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery through Feb 7th).
Mutter, steel, hessian, felt, thread, polystyrene, dolls eyes, brass, 65 ½ x 15 ¾ x 11 ½ inches, 2015.
Late painter Moira Dryer’s career is in a revival as 11R gallery explores how the artist worked within the framework of minimalism to both create an emotional impact via color and convey personality via references to representation (a fingerprint, in this case). (On the Lower East Side through Feb 7th).
Moira Dryer, Untitled, casein on wood, 48 x 63 inches, 1987.
Late painter Moira Dryer’s career is in a revival as 11R gallery explores how the artist worked within the framework of minimalism to both create an emotional impact via color and convey personality via references to representation (a fingerprint, in this case). (On the Lower East Side through Feb 7th).
Moira Dryer, Untitled, casein on wood, 48 x 63 inches, 1987.
1980s interior décor inspires Brooklyn artist Leah Guadagnoli’s huge new wall sculptures, perfectly conjuring the colors and fabrics of the decade and turning them into objects of contemplation. (At 247365 on the Lower East Side through Feb 7th.)
Leah Guadagnoli, Slow Dance in My Underpants, oil, acrylic, fabric, pumice stone, canvas, wood and polyurethane foam on insulation board, 72 x 58 x 7 inches, 2015.
Austrian Pop artist Kiki Kogelnik lays out bodies for view in ‘Cold Passage,’ an oil painting that offers and denies access to its subjects by abstracting heads into round emoji-like circles (though the painting is from 1964) and silhouetted bodies as if they’re flat cutouts or crime scene chalk outlines. (At Simone Subal Gallery through Feb 7th).
Kiki Kogelnik, Cold Passage, oil and acrylic on canvas, 59 ¾ x 48 inches, 1964.
Known for videos made from photos taking during his painting process, Dutch artist Jacco Olivier embraces abstraction in his latest projections at Marianne Boesky’s Lower East Side space. Without the narrative found in his previous painted videos, the recent work becomes meditative; it’s not so much watching paint dry as watching it drift slowly across the canvas. (Through Feb 14th).
Jacco Olivier, Equilibrium II, HD Animation, 3 min, 20 seconds, projection size: 37 3/8 x 33 ½ inches, 2015.
Molly Zuckerman-Hartung made a splash in the last Whitney Biennial with a huge painting on drop cloth that had been spray painted, pierced with a dremmel and stitched together with an industrial sewing machine. ‘Fruited Void,’ a standout in a two-person show at Lower East Side gallery Lyles & King, likewise is roughly handmade – fabrics with seeping stains meet in uneven tucks – but a warm palette and curving colors convey a softer sensibility. (Through Feb 7th).
Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, Fruited Void, acrylic and oil on sewn silk, cotton, linen, 55.125 x 65.125 inches, 2014.
Pleasure starts to look like panic in Katherine Bradford’s large painting of beach-goers frolicking in turquoise waters when you learn its title, ‘Fear of Waves.’ Themed on swimmers and water, the show’s paintings entice as they demonstrate a range of moods from the ominous to the magical. (At Canada New York on the Lower East Side through Feb 14th).
Katherine Bradford, Fear of Waves, oil on canvas, 84 x 72 inches, 2015.
In 11R’s serendipitous pairing of ceramics by Jennie Jieun Lee and multiple exposure photograms by Mariah Robertson, each artist creates visual interest by defying convention. Robertson punctuates gorgeously-hued abstractions by cutting her photo paper into a rough, tapering point. Lee crafts vessels from glaze-splashed curls of clay. (At 11R on the Lower East Side through Feb 7th.)
Installation of ceramic by Jennie Jieun Lee and Mariah Robertson, 11R, January 2016.
Sixteen years before his solo debut at LA’s Ferus Gallery, Andy Warhol was just another art student at Carnegie Tech. Here, the whimsical character, if not the elegantly wavering line of his later commercial illustrations is prefigured in a student assignment from 1946. (At Betty Cunningham Gallery on the Lower East Side through Feb 13th).
Andy Warhol, Kids on Swings, tempera on board, 31 x 26 7/8 inches, 1946.
Dutch artist Rachel de Joode creates a striking optical illusion at The Hole NYC with two flat photographic images mounted to PVC that momentarily appear to be 3-D. Part of The Hole’s excellent exhibition of art indebted to photographic processes, de Joode’s images of man-handled clay exist in a dimension of their own. (On the Lower East Side through Jan 16th).
Rachel de Joode, ‘Here I am and things that exist. Ow! XIV (foreground), archival inkjet print on PVC with pedestal, 60 x 34 x 14 inches, 2015.