Japanese art star Yoshitomo Nara is back in New York with his trademark young, female characters, but they’ve matured and become decidedly less cute in his first show with Pace Gallery. This five and a half foot tall bronze sculpture has distorted features but a benevolent expression, suggesting she’s more supreme being than pouty kid. (Through June 29th).
Yoshitomo Nara, Setsuko the Cat, bronze, 2012.
Chadwick Rantanen’s new show, ‘Bins and Loops’ at the Lower East Side gallery ‘Essex Street’ pushes his materials like no other show up at the moment. Rantanen uses the hydrographic process, in which images are applied to produce surfaces via printed film, but stops short of applying the images, instead leaving them to float on the water’s surface in an abstract pattern that dramatically updates the idea of process art. (Through June 9th).
Chadwick Rantanen, ‘Bin,’ 11 polypropylene bin bottoms and 10 tops, hydrographic film, water, 2013.
Paul McCarthy continues to subvert classic fairy-tales with his ‘White Snow’ sculpture in black walnut at Chelsea’s Hauser & Wirth Gallery. Here, McCarthy explodes a kitschy figurine into a mirrored display of gaiety ten feet high. (Through June 1st).
Paul McCarthy, White Snow, Flower Girl, black walnut, 2012-13.
Jorge Macchi’s percussive sculpture ‘fan’ entices visitors into Chelsea’s Alexander & Bonin’s main gallery space, but once inside conveys danger as wobbling ceiling fan blades chip into the gallery walls. In a show devoted to mediations on time, it’s an ominous portent. (Through June 15th).
Jorge Macchi, ‘fan,’ metal ceiling fan, 2013.
Swiss conceptual artist Ugo Rondinone has converted Barbara Gladstone’s gallery into an elegant cave featuring plaster-covered walls and stacked stone anthropomorphs. Rondinone channels his own family’s past as cave dwellers to create this clan of simple bluestone characters whose titles (‘glad,’ ‘blessed,’ ‘shocked’) add to their surprising charm. (At Barbara Gladstone Gallery’s 21st Street Chelsea space through July 3rd. See their larger cousins at Rockefeller Center through July 4th).
Ugo Rondinone, ‘soul,’ installation view at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, May 2013.
Cuban artist Kcho grew up traveling between his home on an island off the coast of Cuba and the mainland, and boats – ‘keys’ to unlocking the ‘door’ of the sea – are a frequently recurring subject. This one is a standout in the Museum of Art & Design’s ‘Against the Grain’ group exhibition of cutting edge art & design made from wood. (Through Sept 15th).
Kcho (Alexis Leyva Machado), R.E.C. (Rectifying the Course), wood, 2006.
Brooklyn-based artist Dave McDermott’s ‘The Purgatorial Moment (with Piano)’ evokes dread or nostalgia, depending on how your childhood music lessons went. Floating blocks of color and the slanting line of a player’s back suggest a zone of intense concentration in a tiny house filled with the effort of music making. (At the Lower East Side’s Thierry Goldberg Gallery through June 2nd).
Dave McDermott, ‘The Purgatorial Moment (with Piano), oil, canvas, wax, 23K gold, yarn on panel, 2013.
Amy Bessone’s pencil holder fists unite in vague protest in her current solo show at Salon94 Bowery on the Lower East Side. A nearby poster warns, ‘Don’t Truncate Me!’ Already truncated, the hands become resistance tchotchkes. (through June 14th).
Amy Bessone, installation view of ‘In the Green Room’ (foreground is ‘Number…(Numbers),’ ceramic, pencil, 2013).
Mark di Suvero’s huge new steel sculpture ‘Little Dancer’ at Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery belies its title at 19 x 36 x 15 feet. Still, in comparison to the larger structure, spiraling forms hanging from the larger, angular structure are as graceful as tons of steel can get. (Through June 29th).
Mark di Suvero, Little Dancer, steel, 2010-12.
Mika Rottenberg’s acclaimed films evoke fascination and repulsion in equal measure as we watch eccentric characters labor to create ambiguous products in claustrophobic, factory-like settings. With jagged, candy-colored sheets of polyurethane resin propped against the wall at Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery, Rottenberg transforms her signature mix of sweet and grotesque into sculpture. (through June 22nd).
Mika Rottenberg, ‘Texture 1 & 3, Texture 2, part a, Texture 3 & 4,’ polyurethane resin, acrylic paint, installed dimensions variable, 2013.
Marianne Vitale’s ‘Diamond Crossing’ at Zach Feuer Gallery is one of the most minimal and therefore surprising installations in Chelsea right now and consists entirely of a five-ton section of decommissioned railroad track meeting in a junction. Like the burnt bridge and a bullet-riddled outhouse in her last show, it’s an iconic relic of the American landscape. (through June 15th).
Marianne Vitale, Diamond Crossing, steel, installation view, 2013.
British artist Marc Quinn has referred to his gargantuan bronze seashell sculptures as Venus’ pedestal (from Botticelli’s famous painting), a spiraling symbol of the world in motion, and a ‘symbol of a woman’s sex.’ Towering at over eight feet high, what they most symbolize (along with Jeff Koons’ and Paul McCarthy’s current Chelsea shows) is enormous production values. (At Mary Boone Gallery through June 29th).
Marc Quinn, Map of the Space-Time Continuum, bronze, 2013.
For a recent four year project titled ‘Neue Welt,’ Berlin and London-based photographer Wolfgang Tillmans traveled off the beaten track in what he called an ‘aimless’ journey to “…find subject matter that in some way or other speaks about the time I’m in.” A sampling from the resulting book is at Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery, offering disorientingly diverse glimpses of people and places around the planet. (through June 22nd).
Wolfgang Tillmans, ‘young man, Jeddah, b,’ inkjet print on paper, clips, 2012.
Suspended above a steel and plywood table, a row of lanterns illuminates the dim space of Chelsea’s Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, suggesting an evening summer party staged in a design museum. Yet titles like ‘Against the Night’ and ‘The Sun Comprehending Glass’ tie Glasgow-based artist Martin Boyce’s enigmatic sculpture to the outdoors. (Through May 25th).
Martin Boyce, Against the Night, perforated steel, steel chain, plywood, wood stain, wood oil, galvanized steel, wired electrical lights, 2013.
Cartagena, Spain, Shanghai, LA and Havana have hosted globe-trotting street artist JR and his ‘The Wrinkles of the City’ project, for which he interviews and photographs senior citizens, then blows up their images and applies them with glue to the city’s walls. Chelsea’s Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery showcases the monumental Havana photos and an entertaining video through July 12th.
JR and José Parlá, The Wrinkles of the City, Havana, Cuba, Man with a Jerry Can, color print on metallic paper mounted on aluminum, 2012.
By lifting phrases like ‘This is it with it as it is,’ from Gertrude Stein’s 1914 book ‘Tender Buttons,’ LA-based artist Eve Fowler moves Stein’s creative language play into a more public realm, as seen here on the windows of Feature, Inc. on the Lower East Side. (Through June 2nd.)
Eve Fowler, from ‘A Spectacle and Nothing Strange,’ letterpress posters with texts from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons (1914), 28 x 22 each, set of 21, 2011-12.
When his grandparents’ Missouri farmhouse burned, Josh Tonsfeld’s family salvaged some things and left the rest. In a creative act of excavation, the New York based artist returned to remove more objects from the debris, including this book, ruined furniture and correspondence, which he arranges in the gallery in a kind of provocative but inconclusive personal archeology of a past American life. (At Simon Preston Gallery through June 2nd).
Josh Tonsfeld, Untitled, book, 2013.
Madrid-based painter Jeronimo Elespe’s tiny oil on aluminum paintings seem to be dematerializing before our eyes, as in this hazy view of a working artist titled ‘The Short Painter.’ Elespe works at night, capturing shimmering light and ghostly blue lines that speak of mysterious possibilities. (At Eleven Rivington’s 195 Chrystie location on the Lower East Side through June 14th).
Jeronimo Elespe, The Short Painter, oil on aluminum, 2011-13.
Wim Delvoye’s twisted Gothic tower and a bronze crucifix distorted into a Möbius band flirt with potentially provocative subject matter; ultimately, however, his spectacularly distorted swirls of laser-cut metal are all about the wow factor. (At Sperone Westwater on the Lower East Side through June 28th).
Wim Delvoye, Dual Möbius Quad Corpus, polished bronze, 2010.
In her latest photo series, ‘In the Company of Mothers,’ British artist Hannah Starkey portrays young urban moms as tender, nurturing and chic – perfect for celebrating Mother’s Day today. (At Chelsea’s Tanya Bonakdar Gallery through May 25th)
Hannah Starkey, Untitled, July 2012, c-print, 2012.
When Aiko Hachisuka doesn’t want a piece of clothing any more, she doesn’t just bag it for the thrift shop. The LA-based artist’s bulging cloth sculptures are made from clothing she’s folded, screenprinted, stuffed and stitched together in large, exuberant forms. (At Eleven Rivington on the Lower East Side through June 14th)
Aiko Hachisuka, Pro Weight, silkscreen on clothing and foam, 2011.
In 1846, Henry David Thoreau took soundings to measure the depth of Walden Pond, disproving local legends that claimed it was bottomless. A century and a half later, Spencer Finch’s soundings recorded location, depth and surface color at hundreds of different points on Walden Pond, creating a visual record of both surface and depths. (At Chelsea’s James Cohan Gallery through June 15th)
Spencer Finch, Walden Pond (surface/depth), rope, cloth, twine, 298 watercolors on watercolor paper, 120 feet long, 2013.
Rodney Graham’s ‘Old Punk On Pay Phone’ may not be part of the Met’s much anticipated punk couture exhibition opening today; instead seen downtown at Chelsea’s 303 Gallery it begs the question of what punk counterculture means to this aging character, played by the 64 year old artist. (Through June 15th)
Rodney Graham, Old Punk on Pay Phone, painted aluminum light box with transmounted chromogenic transparency, 2012.
Each of LA-based artist Tim Hawkinson’s new sculptures at Pace Gallery is named after a girl-scout cookie, with this piece provocatively titled ‘Cartwheel.’ Featuring spinning wheels on each toe and the heel, this giant foot looks ready to roll around town popping eyes. (At Pace Gallery’s 508 W. 25th Street location through June 29th)
Tim Hawkinson, Cartwheel, fiberglass, steel, Bondo, motor & extension cord, 2013.
Austrian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Maria Petschnig terms her videos ‘raw’ and ‘psychological,’ terms which still apply to her videos and installation at On Stellar Rays on the Lower East Side, as she transforms the white cube gallery into a dimly lit, wood-paneled maze punctuated by mattress sculptures featuring eerily unknowable lumps. (Through June 16th).
Maria Petschnig, Mycroft, mattress, jersey, polyester, padding, 2013.
Does greater technology result in greater progress? Machines and giant-sized virtual humans tower over futuristic cities in Washington D.C.-based painter Benjamin Edwards’ provocative new series ‘System,’ ominously answering in the negative and suggesting that chaos will overtake us. (At Kravets/Wehby Gallery through May 11th).
Benjamin Edwards, Toy, acrylic on canvas, 2012.
Austerely minimal and elegantly, Rachel Whiteread’s Untitled (Pair) from 1999 is based on the shape of a mortuary slab. One part is curved to allow bodily fluids to drain. The other is an upside down cast of the first part. Standing quietly side by side, they suggest partnership through eternity. (At Luhring Augustine through 6/16).
Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Pair), bronze and cellulose paint, 1999.
“We cannot live alone.” “We need you.” “We are sick of our own similar faces.” These pleas and more come from the central actor in Yael Bartana’s riveting trilogy about a Polish leader who implores the over 3 million Jews who lived in Poland prior to WWII to return and transform 40 million Poles. Here, returnees establish a Kibbutz-like compound that looks uncomfortably like a concentration camp as they sit to learn Polish words like ‘Freedom.’ (At Chelsea’s Petzel Gallery through May 4th).
Yael Bartana, Mary Koszmary (Nightmares), one channel video and sound-installation, 16mm transferred to DVD color/sound, 10:50 min, 2007.
Andrew Kuo makes geometric abstraction emote in a series of paintings that map his feelings and experiences as blocks of color. This painting documents the breakup of a seven year relationship; the key to the large yellow patch reads ‘Everything has changed! (Except everything actually worth changing.)” It’s bookmatched with the thought in grey, “All I want is to be like how I was before.” (At Chelsea’s Marlborough Gallery through May 4th).
Andrew Kuo, I Forget (on 12/12/12), acrylic and carbon transfer on panel and laminated paper, 2012.
At over four feet tall, this huge earring may be designed for a giant…but what kind of giant would wear it, or the enormous black t-shirts sliced to ribbons and hung from the gallery walls? Amanda Ross-Ho blows up cheap fashions to attention-grabbing size, but her intention seems founded less criticism of the merchandise than in curiosity at what happens when banal products were presented as monumental. (At Chelsea’s Mitchell-Innes & Nash through May 18th).
Amanda Ross-Ho, Gone Tomorrow, aluminum and steel plated in gold and brass, 2013.
“When the eyes are shut, the eyes are extraordinarily open,” said iconic Italian Arte Povera artist Marisa Merz in 1974. Since the 80s, she’s made loosely formed sculptures of heads like this duo, whose gold covered eyes speak to a vision beyond the purely literal. (At Chelsea’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery through May 18th).
Marisa Merz, Untitled, two painted unfired heads and iron tripod, 1994.
