Tag: sculpture

Mary Carlson at Kerry Schuss Gallery

Modeled after El Greco’s ‘The Penitent Mary Magdalene,’ Mary Carlson’s small-scale sculpture of one of Christ’s most devoted followers is both delicate in her tiny features and monumental in her seated, robed body. Now on view at Kerry Schuss Gallery, displayed on wall-mounted wooden shelves amid scrolling copper piping, Carlson’s new sculptures evoke the figures and decorative designs on the pages of medieval manuscripts.  Characterized by world-weariness vs El Greco’s doe-eyed young woman, Carlson’s saint is pictured in the process of receiving a revelation and puts a hand to her bare chest.  Less erotic than El Greco’s version, Carlson’s Mary is a substantial woman engaged with the life of the mind and spirit.  (On view in Tribeca through April 27th).

Mary Carlson, Mary Magdalene (after El Greco), glazed porcelain, wood, copper, 29 x 36 x 8.75 inches, 2024.
Mary Carlson, Mary Magdalene (after El Greco), glazed porcelain, wood, copper, 29 x 36 x 8.75 inches, 2024.

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.

Apollinaria Broche at Marianne Boesky Gallery

To a soundtrack featuring readings from Charles Baudelaire’s ‘Flowers of Evil,’ Apollinaria Broche’s ceramic and bronze flowers strike gangly poses in her solo show at Marianne Boesky Gallery, exuding both wonky charm and maleficence.  Like an insect to nectar, viewers are drawn into the center of colorful ceramic flowers that feature tiny bronze sculptures – a winged horse, a contented-looking cat – of cavorting magical creatures.  More ominous figures – snakes, flies – appear as well, suggesting that the flowers inhabit a garden less welcoming than it first appears.  In this detail image of ‘I hid my tracks Spit out all my hair,’ skulls and daggers mingle with the seeds of this lush blossoming plant, summoning a specter of death and violence where it might least be expected.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 24th.)

Apollinaria Broche, (detail) I hid my tracks Spit out all my air, glazed ceramic, bronze, 63 x 21 x 18 inches, 2023.

Madeline Hollander at Bortolami Gallery

Initially trained as a ballet dancer, Madeline Hollander incorporates movement into her artistic practice in surprising and delightful ways.  Her current solo show at Bortolami Gallery in Tribeca titled ‘Entanglement Choreography’ presents a grid of six mirrored pods on round pedestals which at first glance belie the magic of peering inside.  Each sculpture houses a tiny rotating dancing figure, abstracted like a Matisse nude, which at a certain angle appears to both float above the pod and be contained within it.  Nodding in the title to the notion in physics of quantum entanglement, when two separate particles demonstrate a connection with each other as if moving as if in a dance, Hollander’s partners manifest what Einstein called ‘spooky action at a distance.’ (On view in Tribeca through March 2nd).

Madeline Hollander, Entanglement Choreography VI (figs. 6, 12, 18, 24), 24 x 24 x 32 ½ inches, 2023.

Rammellzee in ‘Wild Style’ at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery

Forty years after the release of the independent film ‘Wild Style,’ a chronicle of the early days of New York hip hop culture, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery celebrates with a star-studded exhibition of writing, painting and sculpture that captures the creativity and energy of emerging urban youth cultures in the late 70s and early 80s.  Rammellzee’s sculpture Gasholear, surrounded by a cloud of spacecraft capable of producing lettering, is an astounding sight at the center of the main gallery.  Grasping a combination guitar/double halberd, this futuristic character is a machine/robot/human force to reckon with. (On view in SoHo through Jan 13th).

Rammellzee, The Gasholear (THE RAMM:ELLl:ZEE), c. 1987-1998, 180 pound exoskeleton of the RAMM:ELLl:ZEE, found objects, wireless sound system, paint and resin), dimensions variable.