The party continues in the Museum of Modern Art’s atrium (which this fall has housed group dance sessions and a monumental garage sale) with British designer Philip Worthington’s interactive installation, ‘Shadow Monsters.’ When visitors stand in front of a lightbox, vision recognition software tracks their movements and adds teeth, tongues, eyes and more to their shadows in two huge projections on the atrium walls. (Through January 2nd.)
Artist Nicholas Party is aptly named considering his mixed media installation, ‘Dinner for 24 Dogs’ which he designed for a dinner party at Salon 94 this fall. Seen here afterwards at Salon94’s Freemans Alley space, 24 hand painted ceramic plates that once held artistically arranged edibles rest on a sliced, patterned table while wooden dogs wait patiently below to support the diners who complete this participatory artwork. (At the LES’s Salon 94 Freemans through Dec 22nd).
Rodney Graham is the artist behind this brightly colored lightbox titled ‘Sunday Sun, 1937,’ but who is the character hidden by the Technicolor funnies surrounded by gentile flowers on wallpaper and bedspread? Male or female, kid or adult, this character maintains his/her private world of reading pleasure with an upturned paper. (At 303 Gallery, Chelsea, through Dec 21st).
The sheer size of ‘Wandering Songs I (Canti errabondi I)’ from 1983 makes it a standout in ‘Mario Merz: Major Works from the 1980s’ at Sperone Westwater Gallery on the Lower East Side. The Arte Povera artist’s natural materials abound in an oil painting of leaves and pine cones on a 25’ long canvas, accompanied by a block of beeswax formed around a tree branch. The contrast between nature depicted (the painting), sampled (the branch) and made (wax made by bees) gives the piece its energy. (through Dec 22nd).
Here’s a look at Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream,’ a version of the iconic artwork from 1895 in pastel-on-cardboard, currently installed at the Museum of Modern Art. Recently purchased at auction for nearly $120 million, its owner has anonymously loaned it to the museum for six months. (Arrive early to avoid a new nonmembers line just to get into the fifth floor galleries.)
Does anything say ‘elegant urban funky construction worker’ like a workman’s shirt with embroidered logo, workman’s jeans, a fur coat and a chicken bone necklace? This outfit from artist collective Bernadette Corporation’s mid-90s fashion label turns the street into a runway by merging everyday fashions with haute couture. (BC’s retrospective is in SoHo at Artists Space through Dec 16th).
Artist Mark Barrow and textile designer Sarah Parke (partners in art and life) turn the weave of a canvas into a work of art itself by devising loom patterns from red, green and blue thread to make a support. Barrow then applies additional paint to the surface in tiny dot patterns creating a kind of secondary artwork on top of the woven fabric. (At Elizabeth Dee Gallery, Chelsea through Dec 15th.)
Headless animals wander in and out of a bamboo cage-like structure while a giant deity collapses into pieces in Chinese-French artist Huang Yong Ping’s latest installation at Barbara Gladstone’s 21st Street gallery. The piece feels a little too eerie and apocalyptic for its cynical title, ‘Circus.’ (through Jan 19th.)
Four parallel rows of twenty-five Western Red Cedar timbers extend out from the walls of Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery in Carl Andre’s 1977 piece ‘Redoubt.’ As much as it suggests a stronghold, the piece also recalls architectural ruins on the order of Roman ruins near Hadrian’s Wall. (through Dec 15th).
This collage by Fred Tomaselli (seen here in detail), is hidden away in James Cohan Gallery’s back viewing room but has been a big attention grabber on tours lately, and no wonder. Its color, pattern and mesmerizing detail give your eyes (all 20 of them?) and brains a workout.
Titled ‘Nova: Canopy,’ this meticulously detailed painting by Isabella Kirkland (an artist and a research associate in the department of aquatic biology at the California Academy of Sciences) brings together plants and creatures found in the rainforest canopy, though not all in the same geographic location. All discovered in the past twenty years, they’re a powerful testament to earth’s profusion. (At Feature, Inc’s group show ‘Punt’ on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd.)
Step into the entrance of Turkish artist Kutlug Ataman’s latest solo at Sperone Westwater and you step into the flow of the Iguazu Falls in Argentina…or at least a projection of them in ‘Mayhem,’ a seven channel installation on screens and the floor. Ataman explains the piece as a response to the Arab Spring as it symbolizes cleansing and destroying power. (At Sperone Westwater on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd).
Not every piece of art commissioned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority ends up looking great in the subway system, but that’s not the case with this instantly enticing new installation by noted light artist Leo Villareal titled ‘Hive (Bleeker Street)’ on the uptown 6 platform at Bleeker. Created from LED tubes, aluminum and stainless steel, the honeycomb patterned lights constantly shift color, creating a welcome distraction for worker bees. (On permanent display).
Never one to shy away from controversy, Daniel Joseph Martinez’s latest body of work at Simon Preston Gallery features a hunchbacked figure in a Pope’s mitre, praying on an Afghan prayer rug, and tattooed with ‘blasphemous inscriptions in Hebrew, Arabic and Latin’ (according to the gallery handout). Is this social commentary or overkill? (Through Dec 23rd.)
Why does Kent Rogowski’s light sculpture ‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About Yesterday’ strike me as having excellent gift potential (for the right situation)? Too bold to be a declaration of love, it could be a stunningly straightforward way of starting an apology. (At Jen Bekman on Spring nr Bowery, through Dec 9th).
Lin Tianmiao ‘s installation at Chelsea’s Galerie Lelong, titled ‘Badges,’ features sixty embroidered American and Chinese slang terms for women, most of which aren’t particularly flattering. When asked for a recent Artnews article if she’d call herself feminist, Lin’s great reply was “…in China, we don’t have that tradition…but no matter how you look at it…it is better to have respect in mind and equality in mind.” (through Dec 15th).
Jules de Balincourt’s soldiers have a dazed, world-weary expression and, like Andy Warhol’s ‘Triple Elvis,’ each has at least one shadow character in near proximity. In this detail from the larger painting ‘Off Base,’ the artist turns the mens’ face paint camouflage into Fauvist masks that resonate with a reinterpreted Matisse painting nearby. (At Salon94 Bowery, on the Lower East Side, through January 13th.)
Mickalene Thomas is having her moment in New York, with gallery shows at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in Chelsea and on the Lower East Side while her retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum continues. This landscape, now on view on the Lower East Side and titled ‘Vertical View of Jardin D’Eau’ was inspired by Thomas’ residency at Monet’s residence and garden at Giverny, home of his famous water lilies. (At Lehmann Maupin Gallery through Jan 5th).