Resembling a disco ball and wrecking ball, Robert Longo’s dramatic 1.5 ton sculpture ‘Death Star’ draws viewers into Metro Pictures in Chelsea to discover a sphere covered with 40,000 inert assault rifle bullets. Referring to the number of deaths by gun violence in the US in 2017, the number has more than doubled from those included in a similar piece by Longo from 1993. (On view through May 25th).
Nick Cave, famous for his part-armor, part-costume sound-suits, meditates on gun violence in America in a sobering, symbol-laden show at Jack Shainman Gallery. Here, Cave nestles found sculptures of African heads amongst hands paired in prayer or raised in a solitary gesture of greeting, surrender or a caress. Flowers in the background offer hope of renewal. (On view at Jack Shainman’s two Chelsea locations through Dec 22nd).
Nina Chanel Abney’s electrifying new paintings take gun violence, racial conflict, and protests turned violent as subject matter. Their dynamic jumble of forms echoes the constant stream of alarming news supplied 24/7 by the media. (Nina Chanel Abney is showing new work at Jack Shainman Gallery’s 20th Street location through Dec 20th and Mary Boone Gallery’s 24th Street location through Dec 22nd).
Last November, a former guard at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio entered the Center shortly after it opened, shooting and spray painting artworks before killing himself. Rachel Harrison’s sculpture ‘Valid Like Salad,’ which features a portrait of Al Pacino in Scarface and indirectly questions who we validate as heroes, was one of the targeted artworks. Now on display at Greene Naftali Gallery, it is a chilling witness to our current epidemic of gun violence. (In Chelsea through June 18th).
Dana Schutz’s ‘Fight in an Elevator,’ the title piece for her show at Chelsea’s Petzel Gallery, recalls NFL player Ray Rice’s scandalous attack on his fiancée in a hotel elevator but levels the playing field as an abstracted man and woman give as good as they get in a futurist-inspired rumble. (Through October 24th).
Dana Schutz, Fight in an Elevator, oil on canvas, 96 x 90 inches, 2015.
