Tag: monumental

Frank Stella at Deitch Projects

Five works by octogenarian painter and sculptor Frank Stella fill Jeffrey Deitch’s large SoHo space with looping, colorful segments of fiberglass and aluminum, their scale dominating and delighting visitors in equal measure.  The work here, ‘K.144 Large Version’ is part of a series titled after a musicologist who catalogued 18th century Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas.  To create his complex and vibrant sculpture, Stella starts with computer models which are 3-D printed, developed, constructed by fabricators in the Netherlands and Belgium and finally finished back in the artist’s Hudson Valley studio.  Trucked down to SoHo on double-wide flatbed trucks, the final products make their presence felt.  (On view through April 20th).

Frank Stella, K.144 Large Version, fiberglass on foam core, 197 x 208 x 150 inches, 2014.

Pat Steir at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

A record number of monumental paintings are dominating Chelsea galleries this month; at just over thirty-seven feet long, Pat Steir’s ‘Blue River’ at Hauser & Wirth Gallery is one of the largest and most absorbing.  Painted in 2005 and hung along more recent work, the gallery explains that the piece is intended to point viewers’ minds toward the vastness and power of the universe.  Washes of blue and white running down the canvas suggest a waterfall while a red border to one side evokes a stage curtain, nodding to the fact that this extremely large rendition of a natural scene is filtered through human imagination.  (On view through Dec 17th.)

Pat Steir, installation view of Blue River, Hauser and Wirth Gallery, Nov 2022. Blue River, oil on canvas, 135 ¼ x 447 inches, 2005.

Anselm Kiefer at Gagosian Gallery

Gagosian Gallery’s enormous Chelsea space seems made to accommodate the monumental scale and theme of Anselm Kiefer’s latest paintings, which address contemporary migration via reference to Greek mythology and the Biblical exodus.  The title of this over 43’ long painting, ‘Danae,’ refers to the Greek myth of Zeus manifesting as a shower of gold to visit the imprisoned Danae, a liaison which resulted in the birth of their son, Perseus.  Here, a cloud of gold hovers above the cavernous hangar of Berlin’s now-closed Tempelhof Airport, a space that has been used to house refugees, as if to rain blessing on the imperiled populations that have taken refuge there. (On view through Dec 23rd).

Anselm Kiefer, Danae, emulsion, acrylic, oil, shellac, gold leaf, coal, metal and wires on canvas, 149 5/8 x 523 5/8 inches, 2016 – 2021.

Luiz Zerbini at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

So large it’s an immersive experience just to stand in front of it, Brazilian artist Luiz Zerbini’s painting ‘Dry River’ at Sikkema Jenkins & Co juxtaposes an organizing grid against abundant plant forms.  Drawing inspiration from diverse sources including Brazilian tower blocks and his own personal garden, Zerbini’s practice revels in the abundance of natural design while prompting viewers to consider how human planning does (or does not) coexist harmoniously. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 15th).

Luiz Zerbini, Dry River, acrylic on canvas, triptych: 118 1/8 x 236 ¼ inches, 2022.

Ugo Rondinone at Gladstone Gallery

Like his colossal humanoids made of rough-hewn blocks of stone at Rockefeller Center in 2013 or his colorful rock stacks located outside of Las Vegas, Ugo Rondinone’s towering sculptures at Gladstone Gallery offer a transformative experience.  Titled ‘nuns + monks,’ the three figures are scaled up bronze versions of stones broken in ways that resemble figures in voluminous ecclesiastical garments.  Rondinone explains that nuns and monks exist as ‘vessel and beacon, human body and mystical source,’ and therefore represent the possibility of new metaphorical interpretation. (On view in Chelsea through June 18th.  Masks and social distancing are required.)

Ugo Rondinone, Installation view of ‘nuns + monks’ at Gladstone Gallery, May 2021.