Like finding shapes in the clouds or interpreting a Rorschach inkblot, Roy Lichtenstein’s brushstroke head sculptures from 1987 build a portrait from a few well-placed marks. Though she’s derived from Pop Art and Abstract Expressionist painting techniques, this blond muse rejects painting altogether, manifesting as a 3-D bronze sculpture. (At Castelli Gallery through Jan 28th).
A tree acts as a pedestal for a climbing figure and as a screen to stop us from seeing him or her in this painting by British artist Hurvin Anderson. To continue the theme of seeing and not seeing, the painting mimics the effect of both a photographic positive and negative, offering an ethereal image that considers the limits of perception. (At Michael Werner Gallery on the Upper East Side through Jan 14th).
David Shrigley explores a new side of the banal with his monumental stone ‘Memorial,’ a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the short-lived usefulness of the shipping list. (Presented by the Public Art Fund at the entrance to Central Park at 60th Street and Fifth Ave, through Feb 12th).
Soon after the scandal over tainted drinking water in Flint, Michigan broke in spring 2016, Matthew Brandt visited the beleaguered General Motors town, creating beautiful images using toxic water. Brandt collected river water and used it to wash over and degrade cyan, magenta and yellow sheets bearing an image of the river’s dam. Recombined in a lightbox, a damaged image represents a devastated landscape. (At Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 21st.)
Paris-based Belgian photographer Tomas Van Houtryve captured this eerie scene – dominated by long human shadows and strange white grids – by flying a drone over a school in California as kids played below. Bold geometries and stark tonal contrasts make each picture look strange, playing to Van Houtryve’s point that drones are increasingly prevalent, yet we see little of them and what they see. (At Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side through Dec 31st).
Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist shouts for help in several languages, adding, ‘I am a worm and you are a flower!’ as she reaches up from a burning pit of lava in this 1994 video at the New Museum. Part of Rist’s retrospective exhibition, it’s a tiny but powerful appeal to our empathic natures. (On the Lower East Side through Jan 15th).
For over 40 years, Neal Slavin’s photos of groups – from Hari Krishnas in the Union Square subway to burlesque performers in Philadelphia – explore the dynamics of individuals drawn together for a purpose. Here, a group of Santas who worked at Bingo and Buddies in Silver Spring, MD offer a meditation on sameness and difference. (At Laurence Miller Gallery on 57th Street through Dec 23rd).
From plant life to outer space, New York painter Terry Winter derives his dynamic abstract paintings from patterns and forms in the natural world. Here, ‘Skin’ suggests both an exotic lizard species and an abstracted architecture. (At Matthew Marks Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 23rd).
Mike Kelly makes a tongue-in-cheek jab at determining value in art by bringing two forms into a kind of balance in this pairing at Hauser & Wirth’s Upper East Side space. Part of Kelly’s Memory Ware series, for which he replicated a popular folk art form by covering objects and flat surfaces with beads, shells and other small keepsake items, this sculpture suggests that the force of personality on the right balances the abundance of work on the left. (Through Dec 23rd).
An Ellis Island clerk from 1892 to 1925, Augustus Sherman was uniquely positioned to document immigration in all its diversity. Among his photographic portraits of Scottish boys in kilts and Romanian shepherds, this shot of a Russian German family is a standout as each family member stoically waits first for the camera and later, for a new life in North Dakota. (At Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 23rd).
British artist Richard Hughes makes his own t-shirts…out of paper pulp in the case of this low-key garment. Deliberate misspellings on the shirts, and here, a disregard for even including a message, take a whatever attitude to a new level. (At Anton Kern Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 22nd).
Energized by the inauguration of President Obama in 2008, New York artist-provocateur Rob Pruitt started painting a picture of the president daily, sourcing his images from the news. All paintings completed up to the start of the show are included at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, where this unusual monument to the nation’s leader and to Pruitt’s endurance will be on view through the end of the week. (On the Lower East Side through Dec 18th).
Several years ago, Polish photographer Kacper Kowalski turned his back on his career in architecture and began a new pursuit taking photographs from a paraglider or a gyrocopter at around 500 feet above the central European landscape. This beautiful observation of nature’s seasonal transformations is part of a series documenting the onset and experience of winter from above. (At The Curator in Chelsea, through Dec 17th).
Wave patterns appear to literally rise up from the surface of Ara Peterson’s acrylic-on-wood surfaces. Here, a shifting spectrum of hot and cool colors ripples like the surface of water. (At Derek Eller Gallery through Dec 23rd).
Young Toronto-based painter Vanessa Maltese has a different take on the shoe as object d’art. In a show titled, ‘Company,’ it appears that she has invited guests who have removed their shoes in an empty gallery, then disappeared. In fact, each piece of footware is cast aluminum, painted in oil. Too clean to compare to Van Gogh’s famous paintings of heavily used shoes, these sneakers have some travels yet to complete. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd).
German painter Katharina Wulff depicts the dusty byways of her adopted city of Marrakech in paintings that harness the strong sun to illuminate bodies and the landscape. Inside the peeling façade of this gym, bodybuilders strive for perfection while feral dogs rove outside. (At Greene Naftali Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 23rd).
This stunning aerial view of irrigation systems in Cadiz, Spain is part of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky’s Water series, which examines human use of the planet’s most valuable resource, specifically as it is harnessed for aquaculture. (At Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 23rd).
Veteran painter Susan Rothenberg’s huge red bird is an arresting standout in a solo show stocked with tense paintings of animals in intense, fraught colors. (At Sperone Westwater Gallery through Dec 20th).
98 year old mathematician, physicist and NASA scientist Katherine Johnson strikes a regal pose in a photograph by Annie Leibovitz, who has relaunched her ‘Women’ series, highlighting the achievements of remarkable women. Images from Leibovitz’s the series are currently on view in the gym at Chelsea’s former women’s prison, offering an uplifting vision of women’s many roles in society. (Sponsored by UBS, hosted by the NoVo Foundation and Lela Goren Group on view through Dec 11th).
New Yorker painter Yvonne Jacquette fell in love with the aerial view while on commercial flights, eventually chartering her own aircraft to make art from the sky. After a trip to Hong Kong in the early 90s, she incorporated various views of Hong Kong harbor into this piece, including a floating restaurant, speeding cars and reflections of neon on the water. (At DC Moore Gallery through Dec 17th).
Iranian American artist Siah Armajani pays homage to New York School poet Frank O’Hara in this sculptural concept for a tomb. The table is a resting spot for a coffin and a gathering place for a collection of free-spirited chairs that merge with the table and resist sitting still. (At Alexander Gray Gallery through Dec 17th).
History and abstraction come together in Tomashi Jackson’s hanging panel at Jack Tilton Gallery as the young artist subtly explores ‘color perception’ in terms of abstract painting and race. Amongst mid-20th century geometric designs, Jackson inserts prints of documentary photos relating to landmark court cases disallowing racial segregation. (On the Upper East Side through Dec 23rd).
Rome-based artist Giacinto Occhionero creates his atmospheric abstractions by applying orbs of spray paint to the back of Plexi, then adding layers of color. Here, he evokes both a moonlit night and a fiery sunset as seen from a terrace. (At Kristen Lorello Gallery through Dec 22nd).
Race cars and trucks were the late photorealist painter Ron Kleemann’s vehicle for exploring light and color in the world around him. Here, a surveyor’s tripod, a first responder’ pickup and a helicopter seem to merge together by virtue of their common color. (At Bernarducci Meisel Gallery on 57th Street through Dec 17th).
A wallpaper of surveillance cameras and the Twitter logo by artist/activist Ai Weiwei at Mary Boone Gallery’s Chelsea space refer to the consequences of his on-line criticism of the Chinese government. On a similar theme, a tree cobbled together from several once-majestic plants suggests disaster and endurance. (On view through Dec 23rd).
Shrunken and placed in a jar by the evil genius Braniac, the capital city of Superman’s home planet exists but just out of reach. Mike Kelly takes up the theme of past trauma as ever-present influence on the present in an installation of mixed media installations and lightboxes based on drawings of Kandor culled from comics. (At Venus Over Manhattan through January 28th).
Scrap metal, vividly colored steel tubing and shiny, black cylindrical disks compete for attention in Carol Bove’s ‘Polka Dots,’ now on view at Chelsea’s David Zwirner Gallery. Here, the show’s titular sculpture brings to mind the powerful forces required to bend steel while reveling in a burst of yellow and the smooth perfection of black ‘polka dots.’ (On view through Dec 17th).
