Mark di Suvero, ‘Avanti!’ at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Preponderously heavy yet looking as if it just danced into Paula Cooper Gallery and paused for applause, Mark di Suvero’s 1986 ‘Nelly’ exemplifies the exuberance and solidity of the nonagenarian’s sculptures.  Across the gallery, ‘Avanti!’ from 1998 dares visitors to climb a small platform and use their own weight to shift a hulking great piece of steel suspended from a thick chain.  Both frightening and exhilarating, the experience of interacting with the metal behemoth takes visitors beyond the delight at dynamic forms to an appreciation of weight and actual movement.  (On view through July 17th).

An abstract sculpture roughly in the form of an X made of i-beams and other steel parts.
Mark di Suvero, Nelly, steel, 12 ft 6 inches x 18 ft 6 inches x 16 ft 10 ½ inches, 1986.

Veronica Ryan, ‘Retrieval’ at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Three years after winning Britain’s biggest art prize Veronica Ryan’s evocative, small-scale sculpture invite intimate inspection at Paula Cooper Gallery.  Despite the many accolades that have come her way in recent years, Ryan continues to craft humble, abstract sculptures from a combination of ephemeral and found materials that speak to the memories and associations held by everyday objects.  Titled ‘Retrieval,’ the show includes objects covered in bandages and sacks of Himalayan salt crystals that open conversations about healing.  Pillow-like forms, pincushions and a giant doily speak to the labor and care shown by Ryan’s late mother, who embroidered the family’s pillowcases and made clothing.  Here, two small towers created by stacking pie tins and held together by crocheted wool represent a structure made to house bundles of salt and ceramic seeds, symbols of healing and growth. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 22nd).

Two circular columns of stacked materials inside of two close-fitting orange and a turquoise crocheted sacks.
Veronica Ryan, Totem, pie tins, crochet wool, plaster, thread, Himalayan salt, netting, air-dried clay, acrylic paint, pink totem: 35 x 12 x 9 inches, blue totem: 30 ¼ x 9 ¼ x 9 ¼ inches, 2024-25.
A circular column inside of two crocheted forms, supporting three small sacks.
Veronica Ryan, Totem, pie tins, crochet wool, plaster, thread, Himalayan salt, netting, air-dried clay, acrylic paint, pink totem: 35 x 12 x 9 inches, blue totem: 30 ¼ x 9 ¼ x 9 ¼ inches, 2024-25.

Peter Moore, ‘New York Streets and Signs’ at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Late photographer Peter Moore captured images of iconic performance art in NYC from the early ‘60s on, documenting events by Yayoi Kusama, Trisha Brown, Nam June Paik and others that are now the stuff of legend.  Not only did he record artists, musicians and dancers, Moore also turned his camera on amusing signage and scenarios that presented themselves on the city streets.  Now on view at Paula Cooper Gallery, accompanied by Claes Oldenburg’s drawings of his own performative take on street life, Moore’s photos from the ‘60s to the ‘80s demonstrate his attentiveness and an appreciation for the lighter side of life.  (On view in Chelsea through June 14th).

Peter Moore, untitled (Dash Exterminating), gelatin silver print, 10 ¼ x 7 inches, 1977.

Cecily Brown, The Five Senses at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Long inspired by Old Master painters, Cecily Brown’s latest solo show at Paula Cooper Gallery engages with the fruitful collaboration between 17th century painters Jan Brueghel the Elder’s and Peter Paul Rubens.  Brown’s work on paper – etchings, drawings with watercolor and monotypes – reworks aspects of the duo’s collaborative series of paintings ‘The Five Senses’ from 1617-18, abstracting and condensing the space of interior scenes.  This lush and engaging painting in the gallery’s main space takes that impulse further, proffering a recognizable plate of oysters with lobster at the center of the canvas while turning the room’s other forms into a fluid, fluctuating space from which faces and forms emerge.  (On view through Dec 7th).

Cecily Brown, The Five Senses, 89 x 83 inches, oil on linen, 2023.

Carey Young at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Google Her Honour Judge Barbara Mensah, the first Circuit Judge of African origin in England and Wales when appointed in ’05, and animated pictures will pop up of her speaking at a podium or posing in her robes and white judges’ wig.  In front of Carey Young’s camera, however, Judge Mensah sits almost motionless, making steady eye contact with us, a larger-than-life presence who seems to be waiting for us to speak.  She is one of fifteen female judges from the UK who are featured in the video ‘Appearance,’ now on view at Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea, a title which doesn’t just refer to a court appearance but to the appearance of the judges who sit on the bench and embody the law.  Closeups of jewelry, hair and shoes highlight the individuality of each judge.  By celebrating ‘women in control of justice,’ as she puts it, Young points to the diversity she sees in the current legal system and her hopes for the future.  (On view through Feb 17th).

Carey Young, still from Appearance, single-channel HD video (from 4K); 16:9 format, color, silent, duration: 49 min, 30 sec, 2023.

Eric N. Mack at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Eric N. Mack calls himself a painter whose medium is fabric – new work at Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea is mostly hung on stretchers that support not canvas but collaged fabric fragments.  Like painting, Mack’s work foregrounds color and pattern, but the artist doesn’t add these elements to the canvas, rather he encounters them as found materials.  Instead of creating transparency and texture from paint, these are qualities of the surface itself.  Sourced from divergent origins – Mack might use fabric from couture clothing or neighborhood markets – the artist collapses quality distinctions in his dynamic abstractions.  (On view through Dec 22nd in Chelsea).

Eric N. Mack, Strewn Sitbon, fabric on aluminum stretcher, overall: 41 x 34 ½ x 6 inches, 2023.

Jay DeFeo at Paula Cooper Gallery

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After completing her iconic 2,000+ lb painting ‘The Rose,’ in 1966, Bay Area artist Jay DeFeo delved into photography, creating the 70 photographs, collages and photocopies now on view at Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea.  Like ‘The Rose,’ DeFeo’s photographs feature complex textures, moody tonal contrasts and nature-related imagery in straight shots of mushrooms on a fallen tree or chemigrams – abstract images created in the darkroom.  Among the representational works, a single resting hand seen from the side or a section of an illuminated lampshade pictured from below against a black background convey stillness while this powerful shot of rushing water embodies nature’s dynamism and power.  (On view in Chelsea through Oct 28th).

Jay DeFeo, Untitled, gelatin silver print, 6 x 8 7/8 inches, 1973.

Cecily Brown on The Brooklyn Rail and from New York Art Tours Archive

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Figures emerge and recede in Cecily Brown’s energetic gestural expressionism; this Nov ’17 photo from New York Art Tour’s archives features a face so subtle it seems to have emerged by chance from the drips and lines of paints surrounding it.  It’s a great moment to catch up with Brown’s latest work on Instagram @dellyrose – where she’s been posting paintings featuring far more direct characters – and via The Brooklyn Rail’s daily live lunchtime conversation tomorrow, April 1st with Jason Rosenfeld, Editor-at-large. (Access is free and by Zoom.  Visit Eventbrite to book).

Cecily Brown, detail from Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band, oil on linen, 97 x 151 x 1.5 inches, 2016.

Liz Glynn Scupture at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Dramatic and monumental, Rodin’s 1890s sculpture of Balzac is a figure set apart. LA sculptor Liz Glynn changed the character’s remote quality during a 2-day performance/workshop at LACMA, during which she cast several of the museum’s Rodin bronzes and recombined them to striking effect. Here, a face from Rodin’s Burghers of Calais joins Balzac’s in a dual portrait that suggests strong emotion. (At Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery through Feb 11th).

Liz Glynn, (detail) Untitled (after Balzac, with Burgher), bronze, 2014.
Liz Glynn, (detail) Untitled (after Balzac, with Burgher), bronze, 2014.

Mark di Suvero, The Cave at Paula Cooper

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Geometric steel beams and panels dangle a pair of organic shapes in Mark di Suvero’s 2015 sculpture ‘The Cave’ at Paula Cooper Gallery, suggesting a manmade structure designed to offer up a natural form for our consideration. (In Chelsea through Dec 10th).

Mark di Suvero, The Cave, steel, 157 ½ x 172 x 132 inches, 2015.
Mark di Suvero, The Cave, steel, 157 ½ x 172 x 132 inches, 2015.

Paul Pfeiffer, Caryatid (Kirkland) at Paula Cooper

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An unseen opponent batters James Kirkland with blows that literally make the flesh on his face shake in Paul Pfeiffer’s powerful video at Paula Cooper Gallery. By collaging together short clips that feature direct hits to the head and body and digitally removing Kirkland’s adversary, Pfeiffer focuses attention on the violence of boxing and turns fighter into victim. (In Chelsea through Nov 12th).

Paul Pfeiffer, Caryatid (Kirkland), digital video loop, chromed 32” color television with embedded media player, 27 x 30 x 19 inches, unique, 2016.
Paul Pfeiffer, Caryatid (Kirkland), digital video loop, chromed 32” color television with embedded media player, 27 x 30 x 19 inches, unique, 2016.

Sol LeWitt Wall Drawings at Paula Cooper

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Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #368 appears to pulse and move as it surrounds visitors to Paula Cooper Gallery. In addition to the physical impact, there’s also appeal in imagining the various ways LeWitt’s instructions (as enumerated in the drawing’s title) could be interpreted. (In Chelsea through Oct 22nd).

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #368: The wall is divided vertically into five equal parts. The center part is divided horizontally and vertically into four equal parts. Within each part are three-inch (7.5 cm) wide parallel bands of lines in four directions in four colors. In each of the other parts, three-inch (7.5 cm) bands of lines in one of the four directions. The bands are drawn in color and India ink washes. Red, yellow, blue, ink, India ink 3” (7.5 cm) bands. First drawn by: Jo Watanabe and others. First installation: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, January 1982. India ink. dimensions variable.
Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #368: The wall is divided vertically into five equal parts. The center part is divided horizontally and vertically into four equal parts. Within each part are three-inch (7.5 cm) wide parallel bands of lines in four directions in four colors. In each of the other parts, three-inch (7.5 cm) bands of lines in one of the four directions. The bands are drawn in color and India ink washes. Red, yellow, blue, ink, India ink 3” (7.5 cm) bands. First drawn by: Jo Watanabe and others. First installation: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, January 1982. India ink. dimensions variable.

Jennifer Bartlett at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Using her home and the surrounding landscape in Amagansett as subject matter, Jennifer Bartlett offers two versions of the same view. Both have been constructed with a graining brush, a tool that allows her to paint in parallel lines, taking her longstanding relationship with the grid to new directions. (At Paula Cooper Gallery through April 23rd).

Jennifer Bartlett, Amagansett Diptypch #2, oil on canvas, each of two panels 96 x 96 inches, 2007-08.
Jennifer Bartlett, Amagansett Diptypch #2, oil on canvas, each of two panels 96 x 96 inches, 2007-08.

Walid Raad at Paula Cooper Gallery

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In Walid Raad’s tongue in cheek narratives about the emergence of a booming new Arab art world, he’s hunted for refugee color and fonts that have gone into hiding and reflections that are missing; here at Paula Cooper Gallery, a wall text explains that the shadows normally cast by the artwork have run away, no longer interested in being part of the art infrastructure. The artist hopefully builds a series of walls with fake shadows to entice the real ones to return, all the while ostensibly failing to notice that the art itself is missing. (In Chelsea through March 26th).

Walid Raad, installation view of ‘Letters to the Reader,’ at Paula Cooper Gallery, March 2016.
Walid Raad, installation view of ‘Letters to the Reader,’ at Paula Cooper Gallery, March 2016.

Tauba Auerbach, Altar/Engine at Paula Cooper

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Certain ornamental patterns – waves, helices – appear across cultures, perhaps pointing to fundamental structures of our universe. New York artist Tauba Auerbach delves into these forms in a display of sculptures with rotating shapes titled ‘Altar/Engine.’ Like a display of sacred objects or an explosion diagram of an engine, these 3D printed shapes relate to twisting wave forms inscribed in the paintings behind. (At Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallerythrough Feb 13th).

Tauba Auerbach, Altar/Engine (foreground), 3D printed nylon and plastic, an array of several dozen parts ranging from 18 x 18 x 10 inches, 2015.


Tauba Auerbach at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Certain ornamental patterns (waves, helices) appear across cultures, perhaps pointing to fundamental structures of our universe. New York artist Tauba Auerbach delves into these forms in a display of sculptures with rotating shapes titled ‘Altar/Engine.’ Like a display of sacred objects or an explosion diagram of an engine, these 3D printed shapes relate to twisting wave forms inscribed in the paintings behind. (At Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery through Feb 13th).

Tauba Auerbach, Altar/Engine (foreground), 3D printed nylon and plastic, an array of several dozen parts ranging from 18 x 18 x 10 inches, 2015.


Christian Marclay, Surround Sounds at Paula Cooper

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Christian Marclay’s 24-hour video of collaged clock-related film clips from 2010 was so engaging that his subsequent photo projects and onomatopoeia paintings have sometimes seemed bland by comparison. The standout piece in his latest solo show at Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery corrects that trend, however, by animating words from cartoons in an eye-popping immersive installation that, though soundless, communicates loudly. (Through Oct 17th).

Installation view of Christian Marclay’s ‘Surround Sounds,’ at Paula Cooper Gallery, September 2015.

Rudolf Stingel at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Opening on Oct 31st and closing a month later, this one-painting show by Rudolf Stingel at Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery appears to be a month long celebration of spooky DIY Halloween decorations or a visitation from a frightening specter, perhaps warning against the excesses of giant paintings in huge gallery spaces. (Through Nov 29th)

Rudolf Stingel, Untitled, oil on canvas, 176 x 120 inches, 2014.

Hans Haacke at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Ever politically minded, New York based artist Hans Haacke presents new work at Paula Cooper Gallery targeting the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new fountains, funded by political conservatives, the Koch Brothers. Flanked by pictures of the fountain and seemingly buoyed by doctored $100 bills, Haacke’s Met façade offers businesses the opportunity to park a corporate name on the building. (Through Nov 22nd).

Hans Haacke, The Business Behind Art Knows the Art of the Koch Brothers, UV matted laminated color inkjet photo mounted on aluminum, photo-collaged hundred dollar bills, 2014.

Mark di Suvero, Luney Breakout at Paula Cooper

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The title of New York sculptor Mark di Suvero’s latest monumental steel sculpture, ‘Luney Breakout,’ says it all. Resembling a zany all-elbows-and-knees character with wild swooping hair, the 22 foot tall piece is either mad, exuberant or both. (At Paula Cooper Gallery’s 534 West 21st Street location, through Oct 22nd.)

Mark di Suvero, Luney Breakout, 22 ft, 3 inches, x 22 ft, 6 inches x 12 ft, 6 inches, steel, 2013.

Carl Andre Sculpture at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Minimalist art pioneer Carl Andre accompanies his current Dia:Beacon retrospective with a show of work from the past thirty years at Paula Cooper Gallery. Here, two sculptures use cedar beams as building blocks, making an additive sculpture of strong, industrial materials. (Through July 25th).

Carl Andre, 4 x 4 Cedar Solid, 16 Western red cedar units, each 36 x 12 x 12 inches, 2008 (foreground). Bar, Douglas Fir (36 unit row), each 12 x 12 x 36 inches, 1981 (background).

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen’s ‘Soft Harp’ is a standout in Paula Cooper Gallery’s current exhibition of music-themed visual art. Despite being hung out as if on a wash line or strung across a flagpole, the instrument retains its elegance and beauty. (In Chelsea through May 31st).

Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen, Soft Harp, Scale C, Harp Sail, wood, steel, aluminum, clothesline, feathers, latext paint, 1992.

Kelly Walker at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Using Volkswagen Beetle ads from the ‘50s to ‘70s and the 3D modeling program Rhino, New York-based conceptual artist Kelly Walker brings flat images of a real life object into the 3D world in literal sculptural shapes like this one in the foreground, which whimsically recalls a different mode of transportation – the paper airplane. (At Paula Cooper Gallery’s 521 West 21st Street space through March 29th).

Kelly Walker, Bug_156S, four-color process silkscreen on aluminum, 2013-14 (foreground).

Liz Glynn at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Liz Glynn’s latest solo show is full of loot.  Before visitors reach this suspended, damaged vessel, they pass Ming porcelain, Julius Caesar’s robes and more, all comically rendered in paper mache and suggesting alternate takes on history.  (At Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery through Feb 8th).  

Liz Glynn, Vessel (Ravaged, Looted and Burned,) hardwood with bronze and steel hardware, rope, 86 x 246 x 73 inches, 2013.

Christian Marclay at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Visitors expecting more of Christian Marclay’s enormously popular video work will get a shock from his latest solo show – a selection of paintings in which silkscreened, Roy Lichtenstein-like cartoon text meets Abstract Expressionist splashes of color.  (At Paula Cooper Gallery through Jan 18th.  Check website for holiday season opening hours.)  

Christian Marclay, Actions:  Whaak Plop Plooch Sooosh (No 4), screenprint and acrylic on canvas, 2013.

Sophie Calle, Absence at Paula Cooper Gallery

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‘Souci’ (worry) was French conceptual artist Sophie Calle’s mother’s last word, uttered several years ago on her deathbed as she told her daughter not to worry about her.  Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery is now showing a selection of Calle’s projects directly or indirectly relating to her mother, including one for which she traveled to the North Pole to bury her mother’s jewelry.  While not as powerful as Calle’s last show, it’s a must-see for fans.  (Through Nov 16th).  

Sophie Calle, installation view of ‘Absence’ at Paula Cooper Gallery, Oct 2013.

Sol LeWitt at Paula Cooper Gallery

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When iconic Minimalist/Conceptualist artist Sol Lewitt moved to Italy in the 70s, his palette veered dramatically toward the colorful, evident here in what the New York Times has called ‘2,448 sq ft of visual sumptuousness.’  The huge installation is one of the approximately 1,200 wall drawings the artist conceived of in his lifetime, and is an arresting blast of color and form.  (at Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery through October 12th.    

Sol LeWitt, installation view of ‘Wall Drawing #564:  Complex forms with color ink washes superimposed,’ (1988) Paula Cooper Gallery, Sept 2013.

Ugo Rondinone in ‘Lightness of Being,’ at City Hall Park

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In a more intimately-scaled followup to Swiss-American artist Ugo Rondinone’s powerful installation of stone characters at Paula Cooper Gallery this spring, the artist revives his recurring clown figure as a performer at City Hall Park.   Even asleep, this character is imposing and mysterious with his colorful nylon costume, collar of feathers and thick shawl.  (Through December 13th).   

Ugo Rondinone, dog days are over, performance, 1996/2013.

Wayne Gonzales at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Wayne Gonzales’s past paintings of crowds looked like they were made from surveillance camera footage zeroing in on particular individuals who appear in multiple paintings.  Here, in a crowded California parking lot, a recurring SUV turns from being an everyday car to a suspicious vehicle by virtue of being depicted repeatedly from different angles. (At Paula Cooper Gallery’s 534 West 21st Street location through April 27th).  

Wayne Gonzalez, Untitled, acrylic on canvas, 2012.

Justin Matherly at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Known for cast concrete sculptures that relate to ancient literary or historical characters, often propped up on walkers, New York artist Justin Matherly was inspired by the Turkish archeological site of Nemrud Dagi to create these huge stelae (actually three sculptures end-to-end).  Accompanying monoprints featuring the site bring to mind Smithson’s site and non-site as Matherly forges a mental connection between us and a distance place and time. (At Paula Cooper Gallery’s 521 W. 21st Street location through April 27th).  

Justin Matherly, Handbook of inner culture for external barbarians (we nah beg no friend), concrete and ambulatory equipment, 2013.

Carl Andre at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Carl Andre, Redoubt, 100 Western Red Cedar timbers, 1977.
Carl Andre, Redoubt, 100 Western Red Cedar timbers, 1977.

Four parallel rows of twenty-five Western Red Cedar timbers extend out from the walls of Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery in Carl Andre’s 1977 piece ‘Redoubt.’  As much as it suggests a stronghold, the piece also recalls architectural ruins on the order of Roman ruins near Hadrian’s Wall. (through Dec 15th).

Paul Pfeiffer at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Paul Pfeiffer, 100 Point Game, digital video transferred to 16mm film, 2012.
Paul Pfeiffer, 100 Point Game, digital video transferred to 16mm film, 2012.

Paul Pfeiffer continues to manipulate footage of sporting events in his latest solo show at Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery; though he makes welcome forays into new areas, the show’s most entertaining piece collages footage of basketball games from the 50s through the 90s, only with the players and ball digitally removed.  What’s left are bright lights and a ghostly, swishing net as Pfeiffer turns a popular game into a magic act. (Through October 13th).