Saif Azzuz at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

After traversing a mini-maze of metal barricades decorated with sharply cut outlines of foliage, visitors to Saif Azzuz’s installation in Tribeca at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery reach a painting of an idyllic scene representing downtown Manhattan prior to European arrival.  Inspired by his Yurok family’s connection to the land in California, Azzuz considers how access to and use of the land has shifted over time around what’s now Collect Pond Park, once downtown’s major source of drinking water and now an area occupied by Manhattan’s vast court buildings and jail.  (On view through March 25th).

Saif Azzuz, installation view of ‘Says Who,’ featuring (back wall) Under the willow tree (let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitter), acrylic on canvas, 96 x 160, 2022.

Sherrill Roland at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

After serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, now-exonerated artist Sherrill Roland makes artwork that reflects on the physical limits and daily realities of prison life.  At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, his geometric sculptures trace the outline of a cinder-block cell wall and lightboxes present text of letters written to family.  Here, two acrylic glass cubes-within-cubes recall the basketball tournament Roland helped organize while incarcerated and include a hoop and three bags inside one cube containing commissary items as awards for tournament winners.  Recalling Damien Hirst’s freestanding steel and glass vitrines, Roland’s less heavy-seeming cubes bear greater psychological weight, conveying personal suffering caused by confinement. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 5th. Masks and social distancing required.)

Sherrill Roland, Home and Away, acrylic glass, steel, primer, basketball, basketball rim, basketball net, three plastic bags with commissary goods, two cubes: 97 ½ x 97 ½ x 97 ½ inches, 2021 – 22.

Gil Batle at Ricco/Maresca

Gil Batle is back with a second solo show at Ricco/Maresca of ostrich eggs carved with stories of various inmates encountered during the artist’s past prison sentences. Every bit as absorbing as his first show here in 2016, this exhibition features eggs like ‘Abducted,’ which explores a murdering dentist’s tales of alien interference in his life. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 24th).

Gil Batle, Abducted, carved ostrich egg shell 6.5 x 5 x 5 inches, 2017.

Debi Cornwall at Steven Kasher Gallery

Photographer Debi Cornwall’s goal in visiting the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay three times in ’14-’15 was to draw the public into looking at the camp again. Ironically, in some of the most effecting photos in her resulting series, her subjects look away. Men who were detained for years, in many cases with out ever having charges filed, refuse another interrogation – this time by viewers. (At Chelsea’s Steven Kasher Gallery through Dec 23rd. )

Debi Cornwall, Mourad, French Algerian, Lyon, France, 26 x 30 inches, archival pigment print, printed 2017.

Annie Leibovitz at the former Bayview Correctional Facility

98 year old mathematician, physicist and NASA scientist Katherine Johnson strikes a regal pose in a photograph by Annie Leibovitz, who has relaunched her ‘Women’ series, highlighting the achievements of remarkable women. Images from Leibovitz’s the series are currently on view in the gym at Chelsea’s former women’s prison, offering an uplifting vision of women’s many roles in society. (Sponsored by UBS, hosted by the NoVo Foundation and Lela Goren Group on view through Dec 11th).

Installation view of ‘Women’ at the 550 West 20th Street, the former Bayview Correctional Facility and future home of the NoVo Foundation, Dec 2016.
Installation view of ‘Women’ at the 550 West 20th Street, the former Bayview Correctional Facility and future home of the NoVo Foundation, Dec 2016.