Gregor Hildebrandt at Galerie Perrotin

What do you do as a tune-loving artist with no talent for making music?  German artist Gregor Hildebrandt’s answer has been to make art with music-related objects, creating walls with records pressed into clam-shell shapes and ‘paintings’ with cassette tape replacing brush strokes or lines.  In the background of this installation view, VHS tape stretched against the wall creates a fluttering surface, as ephemeral as a musical note.  (On view on the Lower East Side at Galerie Perrotin through Dec 22nd).

Gregor Hildebrandt, installation view of ‘In My House, There are Many Rooms,’ at Perrotin, New York, Dec 2018.

 

Haegue Yang at Greene Naftali Gallery

Haegue Yang continues her ‘Trustworthy’ series – made from the patterned interiors of security envelopes – with this installation of abstract diagrams set against deeply soothing Yves Klein blue walls at Greene Naftali Gallery. Just as Klein offered a portal into the sublime, Yang points to the mystical with her eye-like shapes and totemic figure covered in bells. (In Chelsea through April 16th).

Haegue Yang, installation view of ‘Quasi-Pagan Minimal’ at Greene Naftali Gallery, March 2016.
Haegue Yang, installation view of ‘Quasi-Pagan Minimal’ at Greene Naftali Gallery, March 2016.

Walid Raad at Paula Cooper Gallery

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.

Jose Parla at Mary Boone Gallery & Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery

Once a street artist, now an artist inspired by the
histories of the built environment, Jose Parla adds layers of posters, grime
and brightly colored paint to faux fragments of wall currently on view at Bryce
Wolkowitz Gallery and Mary Boone Gallery. 
Considering that the block on which these galleries stand has been
largely rebuilt in the past several years, Parla’s treasuring of fragments from
the past has particular resonance. 
(Through Oct 31st).

Jose Parla, installation view at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery,
Sept 2015.

Ross Bleckner at Mary Boone Gallery

Titled ‘(In)Security,’ this detail-view of an enticing if creepy new painting by New York artist Ross Bleckner offers the unnerving suggestion that we’re being watched, albeit by a range of characterful eyes. (At Mary Boone Gallery in Chelsea through April 26th).

Ross Bleckner, “(In)Security,” 27 x 144 inches, oil/linen, 2013-14.