New York Art Tours celebrates the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s reopening to the public today with a look at this Seated Male Figure from the museum’s current ‘Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara’ exhibition. Fueled by global trade and transformed by the arrival of Islam, the region’s empires produced masterpieces like this terracotta figure whose identity is unknown. (On view through Oct 26th. View the Met’s new guidelines before visiting.)
Male behaviors and rituals occupy Ohio-based printmaker and current International Print Center New York resident artist Morteza Khakshoor’s colorful, dream-like prints. This piece, ‘Men of High Culture’ is a standout in the IPCNY’s current juried exhibition of new prints. Including a homogeneously dressed cast of male wall flowers and two figures grappling with eccentric creatures and separated by a vase of flowers, Khakshoor’s setup reinterprets the uber-male cockfight. (On view through Sept 22nd).
With their squat bodies, long legs and tiny heads, William King’s sculpted caricatures of important men or at least self-important ones are a highlight of Derek Eller Gallery’s current group show. Arms akimbo, each seems to demand to know what’s going on, as if they don’t quite approve of the work of nearby paintings on clothing by Annabeth Marks, Annie Pearlman’s vivid abstractions and Rachel Eulena Williams’ stitched canvases. (On view on the Lower East Side through Feb 11th.)
Known for hyper-detailed renderings of the male body (among other natural subjects), Ellen Altfest’s ‘Leg’ ponders the facts on a section of a man’s leg. Veins, hair, and tiny blemishes are the ostensible subjects of the painting, but the limb gives off a vital glow, contrasting its grey surroundings and suggesting that even a fractional view of her subject bears close scrutiny. (At Cheim & Read Gallery in ‘The Female Gaze, Part Two: Women Look at Men’ through Sept 2nd).
