Tag: weeds

Marlene McCarty at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

Rue is a herb that can be used as a contraceptive and in high doses can kill; it’s one of the plants in Marlene McCarty’s installation ‘Into the Weeds: Sex and Death’ at Sikkema Jenkins & Co which presents plants with medicinal and/or lethal properties in a dumpster outside the gallery and a pile of dirt lit by grow lights inside.  Rue also features in one of the McCarty’s large drawings, positioned in front of The Vessel at Hudson Yards (a symbol of developer’s power and more recently, death by suicide), two Roman sandals and more.  Explained in detail through histories of each plant posted to the gallery website, McCarty’s point is to highlight flora’s power to undermine established order.  (On view through July 30th.  Masks and social distancing required).

Marlene McCarty, installation view of ‘Into the Weeds: Sex and Death’ at Sikkema Jenkins & Co, June, 2021.

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.