Olive Ayhens at Bookstein Projects

Olive Ayhens meets the abundance of people and buildings in New York with a profusion of recorded detail in her new series of ink and watercolor paintings at Bookstein Projects. Painted in a topsy turvy style combining multiple perspectives, Ayhens’ dynamic cityscapes look as if the buildings are in movement, perhaps shuffling down the sidewalk shoulder to shoulder like New York’s notably absent human residents. Painted in her new West Village neighborhood during the pandemic, Ayhens work reflects a sense of jittery nervousness via its architecture.  (On view on the Upper East Side through Jan 7th.  Note holiday hours and closures).

Olive Ayhens, Orange Luxury, watercolor and ink on paper, 23 x 30.5 inches, 2020.

Daniel Heidkamp at Derek Eller Gallery

The huge portal dominating Daniel Heidkamp’s hotel room painting leads us into more than we might expect. From what looks to be one of the Maritime Hotel’s distinctive windows, Heidkamp shuffles the New York skyline and offers glimpses of a ballet rehearsal in a building that only exists in this painting. It feels surprisingly daring to rearrange New York’s built environment and particularly appropriate as construction booms in the city. (At Derek Eller Gallery through Feb 5th).

Daniel Heidkamp, Dreams, oil on linen, 96 x 72 inches, 2016.
Daniel Heidkamp, Dreams, oil on linen, 96 x 72 inches, 2016.

Pierre Huyghe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The most understated Met Museum Roof Garden commission in recent memory, French artist Pierre Huyghe’s installation features a chunk of bedrock set on the museum’s stone tile roof within site of a tank populated with primordial-looking tadpole shrimp. In contrast to the spectacle of luxury condo growth seen just south of the park, the low-key intervention on the Met’s roof is almost disorienting. Weeds sprouting from removed floor tiles suggest a dereliction far from the norm, a crack in the Met’s perfect public face. (At the Metropolitan Museum of Art through Nov 11th).

Pierre Huyghe, Roof Garden commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015.