For the last exhibition of its forty-year history, Helene Winer’s and Janelle Reiring’s legendary Metro Pictures Gallery is showcasing new work by Polish artist Paulia Olowska that celebrates exhibition and educational spaces run by women. This large painting checks in with Seurat’s 1880s scene of Paris leisure, La Grande Jatte, while having been directly inspired by a photo by fashion photographer Deborah Tuberville. Harnessing imagery meant to encourage consumption, Olowska sells the idea of new creative communities while aiming to increase representation of women in art history. (On view through Dec 11th in Chelsea. Masks required).
Paulina Olowska, The School of Archery (after Deborah Tuberville), oil on canvas, 102 3/8 x 82 11/16 inches, 2021.
On the heels of iconic photographer Cindy Sherman’s latest solo show at Metro Pictures, the gallery recently hung three enormous tapestries by the artist in its back gallery. Based on portraits created using filters and face-altering apps and posted to Instagram, the images don’t have the resolution to be printed large-scale but work wonderfully as tapestries, in which pixels translate to thread. More profoundly distorted and infinitely creepier than Sherman’s printed photos, the tapestries dramatically move Sherman’s vision from screen to wall. (On view at Chelsea’s Metro Pictures Gallery. Masks and social distancing are required.)
Cindy Sherman, installation view of three tapestries at Metro Pictures Gallery, Nov 2020.
It’s not hard to slip from male to female in Cindy Sherman’s reckoning. A bit of makeup and a change of clothing, and the iconic photographer became both halves of jet-set couples who are the subjects of her latest body of work at Metro Pictures Gallery in Chelsea. With exceptions, Sherman has shied away from portraying male figures in the past; her current characters embrace gender fluidity in colorful or opulent clothing from Stella McCartney’s archive. Placing them against backgrounds that Sherman shot in Bavaria, Shanghai and, here, Sissinghurst Castle Garden in England, the artist tempts viewers to read the identities of these eccentric characters. (On view through Oct 31st. Masks and social distancing are required.)
Cindy Sherman, Untitled, dye sublimation print, 62 ½ x 91 ¼ inches (image, no frame), ed of 6, 1 AP, 2019.
LA based artist Gary Simmons has returned to the subject of racist American pop culture imagery in a striking group of new paintings at the newly reopened Metro Pictures Gallery. Here, in ‘Screaming into the Ether,’ 1920s & 30s Looney Tunes character Bosko loses his characteristic portly belly as he releases a full-bodied cry that dominates the gallery in this eight foot-tall canvas. Partially erased by Simmons’ hand the figure nevertheless exerts a powerful presence. (Open by appointment in Chelsea through Sept 19th).
Gary Simmons, Screaming Into The Ether, oil and cold wax on canvas, 96 ¼ x 72 ¼ inches, 2020.
Resembling a disco ball and wrecking ball, Robert Longo’s dramatic 1.5 ton sculpture ‘Death Star’ draws viewers into Metro Pictures in Chelsea to discover a sphere covered with 40,000 inert assault rifle bullets. Referring to the number of deaths by gun violence in the US in 2017, the number has more than doubled from those included in a similar piece by Longo from 1993. (On view through May 25th).
Robert Longo, Death Star 2018, approximately 40,000 inert bullets (brass, copper, lead) welded to the frame; steel I-beams; steel chain, 254 ½ x 254 ½ x 144 inches, 2018.
The perfectly coiffed blond hair of the model in this surreal painting by Jim Shaw is not only coming from her head but powering her whole being as she emerges from a mass of curls like a genie materializes from smoke. Now on view at Chelsea’s Metro Pictures Gallery, the painting is part of Shaw’s bizarre but powerfully intriguing merger of advertising imagery and storytelling. (On view through Dec 22nd).
Jim Shaw, The Ties that Bind, acrylic on muslin, 56 x 48 inches, 2017.
Photographer Trevor Paglen’s past images of surveillance culture (NSA data centers, drone images) zeroed in on info and images gathered by the authorities. For his latest show at Metro Pictures, Paglen turns his attention to pictures analyzed via artificial intelligence. In this detail of a wall of photos, the artist Hito Steyerl posed for hundreds of portraits that were analyzed by facial-analysis algorithms, turning age, emotional state, gender and more into a set of numbers. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 21st).
Round the corner into Metro Pictures smaller back gallery and suddenly you’re in the valley of an enormous wave, dwarfed by a ominous black swell that prompts terror even on dry land. The scene is the highlight of Robert Longo’s show of huge, charcoal drawings, a body of work that pictures refugees, CIA prisoners and Ferguson protesting football players in a tour de force of contemporary conflict. (On view in Chelsea through June 17th).
Robert Longo, Untitled (Raft at Sea), triptych; charcoal on mounted paper, 140 x 281 inches overall, 2016-2017.
Leidy Churchman’s carefully arranged giraffes in the group exhibition ‘Sputterances’ at Metro Pictures categorize nature into manageable options, here, small, medium and large. Titled ‘Free Delivery,’ the painting equates the animals with product consumption, coincidently offering a provocative comment on the huge on-line audience that watched April the giraffe give birth to a calf in an upstate animal park in recent weeks. (In Chelsea through April 22nd).
Leidy Churchman, Free Delivery, oil on linen, 54 x 81 inches, 2017.
Polish painter Paulina Olowska’s series of female figures suggest strong personalities; this shadowy character is based on gardener Valerie Finnis, who confessed to having once put plants before people. (At Metro Pictures in Chelsea through Dec 22nd).
Paulina Olowska, The Gardener after Valerie Finnis, oil and acrylic on canvas, 86 5/8 x 70 7/8, 2016.
At the start of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader’s 19 second video, Fall 1, the artist perches on a chair on a roof. As we watch with increasing unease, he leans over until he causes himself to tumble to the ground below. Absurd yet emotionally jolting, Ader’s video portrays the artist as dare devil willing to take risks and foretells his eventual disappearance at sea during the creation of another event-as-artwork. (At Metro Pictures in Chelsea through Aug 5th).
Bas Jan Ader, Fall 1, Los Angeles, 16mm black and white film, 1970.
Press images of 1920s movie stars inspired Cindy Sherman’s latest body of work – photos of women who have aged out of the young starlet role but who still wear cupid lips, smoky eye shadow and wistful expressions. (At Metro Pictures in Chelsea through June 11th).
Cindy Sherman, Untitled, dye sublimation metal print, 70 ½ x 48 inches, 2016.
Flotsam from the digital world materializes in Olaf Breuning’s latest solo show at Chelsea’s Metro Pictures gallery, which is crowded with large wall-paper covered MDF panels that reference thought bubbles, emoticons, motivational slogans and more. (Through July 31st).
Olaf Breuning, installation view of ‘The Life,’ at Metro Pictures, June 2015.
Strange objects – a fish, emu egg shells, pills – in resin fill super-sized glasses scattered on the floor of Danish artist Nina Beier’s New York solo debut at Metro Pictures. In the foreground, a snake curls around a ruler, an enigmatic image inspired by stock photo images that suggests a nasty surprise for the incautious drinker. (Through May 23rd).
Nina Beier, Plunge, snake, ruler, resin, martini glass, 24 ¼ x 13 1/8 x 13 1/8 inches, 2015.
160 posters make up a 40-foot wall installation by New York artist Gary Simmons that commemorates historic boxing matches while blurring their memory with the artist’s signature ‘erased’ texts. (At Chelsea’s Metro Pictures through Dec 13th).
Gary Simmons, Untitled, ink jet posters on CDX plywood, installation dimensions variable, 2014.
A never-ending scroll of words runs on all four walls of Metro Pictures‘ upstairs gallery, naming National Security Agency and Government Communications Headquarters surveillance program code names, gathered and presented by New York artist Trevor Paglen. Minimal and in black and white, the piece resembles a memorial, perhaps to freedom from observation. (In Chelsea through Dec 20th).
Trevor Paglen, installation view of ‘Code Names of the Surveillance State,’ November, 2014 at Metro Pictures.
Iconic appropriation artist Louise Lawler appropriates her own appropriations in her latest show at Chelsea’s Metro Pictures gallery with this black and white tracing of an earlier work, printed on vinyl and hung on an entire gallery wall. Drained of color and magnified, the Pollock above and tureen below seem less dissimilar. (Through July 25th).
Louise Lawler, Pollock and Tureen (traced), signed certificate, installation instructions, and PDF formatted file, dimensions variable, 1984/2013.
There’s little subtlety in Robert Longo’s massive, 17 ft tall U.S. flag that appears to sink into Petzel Gallery’s floor and is subtitled ‘The Pequod’ after the ship destroyed by Ahab’s mad quest for vengeance on Moby Dick. (In Chelsea through May 10th).
Robert Longo, Untitled (The Pequod), steel, wood, wax and pigment, 207 x 192 x 12 inches, 2014.
Fans of Marilyn Minter’s super realist paintings – and their sullied glitz – will want to catch her early work included in the group exhibition ‘Bad Conscience’ at Chelsea’s Metro Pictures. Here, ‘Spill’ from 1976 conveys the ‘ugh’ feeling of encountering a spilled drink on institutional linoleum. (Through Feb 22nd).
Marilyn Minter, Spill, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches, 1976.
British artist Alexandre Singh’s theatrical performance ‘The Humans’ – an elaborate tale of creation, then divine meddling in human fate – was called ‘one of the outstanding achievements’ of the Performa 13 performance art biennial this November. Metro Pictures in Chelsea gives us a close-up on the eccentric characters in the play with busts including Singh’s ‘Wife’ character. (At Metro Pictures through December 7th).
Sam Falls has a different take on beauty and the urban environment with his two huge (15 feet long) hangings created by putting abandoned tires on colored canvases and leaving them outside to age for several months. (At Chelsea’s Metro Pictures through Aug 2nd).
Sam Falls, Untitled (Large Blue, Glassel Park Los Angeles, CA), & Untitled (Large Orange, Glassell Park, Los Angeles, CA), both pre-dyed canvas and metal grommets, 2013.
At seven feet tall, Alex Israel’s shades are impressive. One coldly reflective lens propped against the wall in Metro Pictures’ summer group show ‘Noa, Noa’ seems designed less as sun protection than as proof of its wearer’s extreme fashionability. (In Chelsea through August 2nd).
Alex Israel, Lens, UV protective plastic, 2012-13.
Trevor Paglan’s latest project ups the ante on artistic ambition; a series of one hundred images titled ‘Last Pictures’ was etched on a disk and affixed to a communications satellite that went into space last November, creating a selective portrait of mankind’s nature and history for all or none who may see it. Here, a gallery visitor examines unselected images from Paglan’s shortlist. (At Metro Pictures in Chelsea, through March 9th).
Trevor Paglen, ‘The Last Pictures’ installation view, Feb 2013 at Metro Pictures.
In a 20-year retrospective of his work at Chelsea’s Metro Pictures Gallery, Gary Simmons’ ‘Stardust, Blizzard’ from 2006 is a standout. Simmons turns two terms for cocaine into beautiful but haunting text images using his signature, hand-smearing technique. (Through Jan 19th.)
Claire Fontaine, installation view, ‘Dogma’ at Metro Pictures.
‘Kultur ist ein Palast der aus Hundescheisse gebaut ist.’ Spelling out the phrase ‘Culture is a palace built from dog shit,’ in German gives the idea more gravitas. Putting it in blue neon, more consumer appeal. Both are relevant to artist collective Claire Fontaine’s use of this quote by Bertold Brecht via Theodore Adorno criticizing mass culture’s commercialization. How the art world’s own extreme commercialization in recent years changes the equation is the question begged by this piece. (‘Dogma,’ a show more or less about dogs and people runs at Metro Pictures through Aug 10th).
Tris Vonna-Michell, installation view at Metro Pictures, 2011.
In his New York gallery debut, British artist Tris Vonna-Michell explores the stories of little-known historical figures (an East German border guard, a forgotten concrete poet) in a group of distinct but linked installations that collect, sift and reconfigure information to create intriguing, and charmingly quixotic, alternative histories. Despite deliberately low-tech, low-key visuals—slide shows of bleak urban scenes, displays of texts on tables and shelves—the artist’s soundtrack of urgently delivered word streams provides an irresistible hook.
In the darkened front gallery, a voice speaks pressingly about magnetic tapes, tanks and Russians, while a projector slowly flashes images of the former no-man’s-land near the Berlin Wall. Texts spell out the story of a young soldier canonized by the East German state for being shot by defectors escaping west in 1962, but the actual details are left untold because, as the piece suggests, truth was subsumed by official legend long ago.
Elsewhere, Vonna-Michell tells of his not entirely successful attempt to track down an obscure French avant-garde poet, Henri Chopin (a former neighbor), and also recalls the 1989 mass demonstrations around Stasi headquarters in Leipzig, as nervous authorities shredded incriminating files inside. Seamlessly segueing from their frantic efforts to destroy records to Kurt Schwitters’s collage technique, Vonna-Michell demonstrates that while none of us may ever completely know the past, it can be engaged, at least, on one’s own terms.
Originally published in Time Out New York, issue 832, October 13-19, 2011.
