An invitation to create a permanent installation for Inhotim, the Brazilian garden and art collection, was the prompt for this exhibition by New York artist R.H. Quaytman at Gladstone Gallery’s 21st Street location. Working with architect Solveig Fernlund on the exhibition design, Quaytman creates mini galleries that foregrounds ordering and sequence in both the gallery’s space and the art. (Through Dec 20th).
R.H. Quaytman, installation view of ‘O Topico,’ Gladstone Gallery, November 2014.
As surreal as ever, Leipzig-based painter Neo Rauch’s latest canvases intrigue with their somnambulant cast of characters and dream-like scenarios. In ‘Guardians of the Night,’ pictured here, a crab-clawed woman who approaches a sleeping man seems more like a healer more than a menace; meanwhile, a drummer and a custodian linger near. (At Chelsea’s David Zwirner Gallery through Dec 20th).
Neo Rauch, Hueter der Nacht (Guardians of the Night), oil on canvas, 118 3/8 x 98 ¾ inches, 2014.
San Francisco-based Spanish artist Rosana Castrillo Diaz revels in the pleasures of minimal forms and pure white color in her untitled composition created with cotton on paper at Chelsea’s Ameringer McEnery Yohe Gallery. (Through Dec 13th).
Rosana Castrillo Diaz, Untitled, 58 x 58 inches, cotton on paper, 2013.
160 posters make up a 40-foot wall installation by New York artist Gary Simmons that commemorates historic boxing matches while blurring their memory with the artist’s signature ‘erased’ texts. (At Chelsea’s Metro Pictures through Dec 13th).
Gary Simmons, Untitled, ink jet posters on CDX plywood, installation dimensions variable, 2014.
Opening on Oct 31st and closing a month later, this one-painting show by Rudolf Stingel at Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery appears to be a month long celebration of spooky DIY Halloween decorations or a visitation from a frightening specter, perhaps warning against the excesses of giant paintings in huge gallery spaces. (Through Nov 29th)
Rudolf Stingel, Untitled, oil on canvas, 176 x 120 inches, 2014.
Using the same skywiper virus that damaged Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, New York artist James Hoff creates gorgeous abstract images that hover between abstraction and representation, hinting at below-the-surface activities. (At Callicoon Fine Arts on the Lower East Side.)
James Hoff, Skywiper No. 3, chromaluxe transfer on aluminum, 20 x 16 inches, 2014.
In a 1979 collaboration with Pierre Cardin, Lebanese artist Huguette Caland created these and other caftans that continue her focus on the female form. In the foreground, ‘Tete-a-tete,’ represents the melding of two bodies as one. (At Chelsea’s Lombard Freid Gallery through Dec 20th).
Huguette Caland, Tete-a-tete, thread on fabric, 73 x 19 x 12 inches, 1971.
Brooklyn Museum’s eye-popping ‘Killer Heels’ exhibition isn’t just for ladies who teeter. As well as design feats (pun intended) and works of art, the show includes architect Zaha Hadid’s NOVA shoe, created from vacuum-casted fiberglass with chrome plated external uppers. Vaguely resembling the sloping exterior of her first New York building currently under construction on the High Line in Chelsea, the shoe might be seen as a mini architectural rendering. (Through Feb 15th).
Zaha Hadid X United Nude, chromed vinyl rubber, kid napa leather, fiberglass, 2013 (left). Tea Petrovic, Wings/Variation, polyamide, faux leather, rubber, 2013 (right).
Reconstructed images from the Internet form the basis for Brooklyn artist Daniel Gordon’s riotous digital still life collages at Chelsea’s Wallspace Gallery. Vivid color and abundant patterns rival Matisse’s most energetic interiors in this delightfully wacky artistic accumulation of imagery. (Through Dec 20th).
Daniel Gordon, Root Vegetables and Avocado Plant, chromogenic print, 60 x 50 inches, 2014.
A shaved ice cart, community notice board in the form of an equestrian sculpture and more project-based artwork characterizes Brooklyn Museum’s brief survey of some art trends coming from local artists. Miguel Luciano’s ‘Amani Kites’ – pictured here – originated in a kite-making workshop he directed for kids in Nairobi, Kenya. (Through Jan 4th).
Installation view of ‘Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy and Beyond,’ at Brooklyn Museum, Nov 2014. Featuring: Miguel Luciano, Amani Kites, paper, string, wooden dowels, photograph on vinyl, Kanga cloth, video, 2012-14.
New York artists Mira Dancy and Sarah Peters compliment each other’s interest in picturing female bodies in a joint show at Asya Geisberg Gallery that pairs Dancy’s energetic expressionist painting with Peter’s pleasingly strange mannerist sculptures. Here, an erotically posed nude in shades of pink, peach and a vivid yellow contrast a composed character exuding thoughtful calm. (In Chelsea through Nov 26th).
Mira Dancy, Dream of the Unicorn Tapestry, acrylic on canvas, 44 x 40 inches, 2014 (left) and Sarah Peters, Portrait with Long Neck, plaster, 13 x 9 x 8 inches, 2014 (right).
A never-ending scroll of words runs on all four walls of Metro Pictures‘ upstairs gallery, naming National Security Agency and Government Communications Headquarters surveillance program code names, gathered and presented by New York artist Trevor Paglen. Minimal and in black and white, the piece resembles a memorial, perhaps to freedom from observation. (In Chelsea through Dec 20th).
Trevor Paglen, installation view of ‘Code Names of the Surveillance State,’ November, 2014 at Metro Pictures.
A selection of 365 dust jackets mounted to linen supports by Brooklyn-based Brazilian artist Valeska Soares at Eleven Rivington muses on the passing of time. Not only do the titles refer to temporality, but dated fonts and designs act as a measure of change over a few decades. (On the Lower East Side through Nov 23rd).
Valeska Soares, installation view of ‘Any Moment Now,’ at Eleven Rivington, 195 Chrystie Street, November 2014.
Known for fantastical, druggy, sci-fi environments created temporarily in art venues, Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe’s current show at Chelsea’s Marlborough Gallery continues their practice of “…using the room as the vehicle for an ethno-fictional display of the remnants of the built world.” This claustrophobic space – one of several distinctly different rooms in the installation – combines store display with tacky domestic furnishings and dated technology (on the floor) to question what might transpire here. (Through Nov 29th).
Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, installation view of ‘Floating Chain (High-Res Toni) at Marlborough Chelsea, November 2014.
Does it matter if artists make their own work or act as managers in a studio? Arkansas-based artist Shea Hembrey not only makes a point of hand-making his own work, he’s invented five fictional artist/makers for a solo show at Chelsea’s Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery. Here, ‘Pawnee Calhoun’ explores physics with a ‘super collider anomaly’ made from altered hornets nests. (Through Dec 13th).
Pawnee Calhoun, untitled (supercollider anomaly), altered hornet nests, 28 x 35 x 21 inches, 2014.
IT professor and artist E.M. Saniga explains that his professional focus – mathematical model building – and his passion for painting are not so dissimilar, both involving abstracting reality in inventive ways. Saniga’s recent series at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects was inspired by objects unearthed in an 18th century Quaker home and items from museum collections and the imagination. (On the Lower East Side through Nov 16th)
E.M. Saniga, ‘Early Shoes and Quaker Moths,’ oil on panel, 2012-2014.
Using maps of the night sky as background, New York artist Jessica Rankin adds phrases and words from her own thoughts and found texts in a fragmented, poetic mediation on cosmic forces and personal experience. (At Salon94 Freemans through Dec 21st).
Jessica Rankin, The Ancient Seat of Indescribable You, graphite, ink and collage on paper, 42 x 42 inches, 2014.
Now based in Toronto, ‘80s downtown art influencer Alan Belcher makes a New York comeback at Marlborough Gallery this month with work including this ceramic plaque of a .jpg file kept tantalizingly closed. (On the Lower East Side through Nov 16th).
Alan Belcher, ____.jpg, glazed ceramic plaque, 10 x 7 ½ x 1 ½ inches, 2014.
Working from torn billboard posters, Johannesburg-based artist Kay Hassan created this monumental untitled piece at Jack Shainman Gallery over ten years ago. Explaining that it represented dispossessed people, Hassan points to the eye in the middle as a symbol of looking and praying for justice. (Through Nov 15th).
Kay Hassan, Untitled, paper construction, 268 ½ x 132 inches, 2001-03.
Ever politically minded, New York based artist Hans Haacke presents new work at Paula Cooper Gallery targeting the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new fountains, funded by political conservatives, the Koch Brothers. Flanked by pictures of the fountain and seemingly buoyed by doctored $100 bills, Haacke’s Met façade offers businesses the opportunity to park a corporate name on the building. (Through Nov 22nd).
Hans Haacke, The Business Behind Art Knows the Art of the Koch Brothers, UV matted laminated color inkjet photo mounted on aluminum, photo-collaged hundred dollar bills, 2014.
As a founder of the post-war European ‘Zero’ Group, Heinz Mack explored the effects of light and various reflective materials in an attempt to take his art back to an experimental stage, or conceptual ground zero. Here, a ‘light relief’ sends the eye shooting around a surface of raised patterns as the light conditions and reflections in the gallery define the viewing experience. (At Sperone Westwater Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 13th).
Licht-Relief (Pyramide), aluminum and wood, 29 1/8 x 34 x 2 5/8 inches, 2004.
The title of this towering sculpture in graphite-rubbed cedar by Ursula von Rydingsvard – ‘Dumna’ – implies dignified pride. Ending with –a indicates the feminine form of the word. Solid as a geological formation yet seeming to sway in graceful contrapposto, the title seems appropriate. (At Galerie Lelong through Dec 13th).
Ursula von Rydingsvard, Dumna, cedar, graphite, 130 x 97 x 64.5 inches, 2014.
Trained in dance, Brooklyn-based artist Jennifer Paige Cohen translates her experience with bodies in movement into lively sculptures made with colorful plaster-cast garments that echo arrangements of body parts. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery on the Lower East Side through Nov 9th).
Jennifer Paige Cohen, Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures), sweater, plaster, stucco, 2013.
Though it’s tempting to dismiss New-York based artist Gedi Sibony’s new works – rectangles cut from aluminum semi-trailers – as gimmicky abstraction, scrapes, dents and gashes lend each a certain authenticity. Redacted text, as in the covered up letters ‘ALL,’ suggest a hasty attempt at erasing the past. (At Greene Naftali Gallery through Nov 8th).
Gedi Sibony, All, aluminum semi-trailer, 101 ¾ x 104 ¾ inches, 2014.
Known for abstract art crafted with a superabundance of non-art materials, Judy Pfaff outdoes herself in two solo shows at Chelsea’s Pavel Zoubok Gallery and Loretta Howard Gallery. Here, she uses paper lanterns, honeycombed paper and expandable foam in a floor-to-ceiling artwork that suggests explosive force, high temperatures, decay and fossilization. (This piece included in Pavel Zoubok’s installation, both shows through Nov 15th).
Judy Pfaff, Belle Starr/Blue Duck, paper, pigmented expanded foam, acrylic, resin and honeycomb, 118 x 132 x 24 inches, 2014.
Anxious greyhounds greet visitors to Elizabeth Jaeger’s debut solo show at LES gallery Jack Hanley, setting an oddly expectant mood. Though the space is too large and bright to convey much angst, Jaeger’s weirdly proportioned animals are winningly lively. (Through Nov 9th).
Elizabeth Jaeger, installation view of ‘Six-Thirty’ at Jack Hanley Gallery, October 2014. (Includes ‘Yet to be Titled (Dog),’ ceramic, hydrocal, loose graphite, house paint/latex paint, leather, brass.)
In signature strong colors and geometric abstraction, Berlin-based artist Thomas Scheibitz’s new painting series riffs on the endless possibilities for creativity in the artist’s studio. Here, a small table seems to support a letter, a number, various experiments and a giraffe-like form also resembling an electrical plug that energizes the whole arrangement. (At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 20th).
Thomas Scheibitz, Studio Imaginaire, oil, vinyl, pigment marker on canvas, 114 1/5 x 70 7/8 inches, 2014.
Ghanaian artist El Anatsui continues to work magic on discarded materials with a new show of textile-like wall hangings crafted from liquor-bottle tops. Though abstract, the gorgeous designs recall maps or luxurious fabrics. (At Jack Shainman Gallery’s 24th Street Chelsea location, through Nov 15th).
El Anatsui, Another Place, 110 x 123inches, found aluminum and copper wire, 2014.
Danish artist Rose Eken lovingly recreates an imagined punk rock venue cum anthropological display with her ‘Remain in Light’ installation at The Hole. Here, she’s arranged cigarette lighters, butts, matches, beer bottles, amps and many, many more artifacts handmade from paperclay in what the gallery calls, ‘…a personalized memorial to NYC’s dwindling lawless zones and the mayhem they contained.’ (Through Nov 2nd).
Rose Eken, installation view of ‘Remain in Light’ at The Hole, Oct, 2014.
Found paintings, shopping bags, books and more items gathered from his everyday life in Berlin and New York inspired the abstract collage-paintings in Arturo Herrera’s latest solo show. (At Sikkema Jenkins in Chelsea through Nov 15th).
Arturo Herrera, Untitled (Liebe), mixed media on canvas, 43.25 x 22.5 inches, 2014.
