Faces from the past materialize on young New York artist Kristina Lee’s canvas, evoking different character types from an elongated Emily Dickinson-like woman at the rear to the thoughtful girl sleuth in front of her. Other individuals provoke contemplation with their more ambiguous natures and odd features. (At Thierry Goldberg Gallery on the Lower East Side through April 2nd).
It’ll be no problem to ‘Please recycle this bag,’ in this case, as artwork. Yoonmi Nam’s plastic carrier bags are in fact lithographs on gampi paper containing not plastic food containers but glazed slipcast porcelain. They subvert the notion of disposability powerfully. (At the International Print Center’s ‘New Prints 2017/Winter’ exhibition through April 1st).
This ‘Front Door Still Life’ by New York painter Hope Gangloff updates the still life genre with invigorating blasts of color. A timepiece and flowers nod to traditional Dutch still life reminders of the brevity of life while keys and a canister of Chinese tea speak of going places and a Reagan stamp on one piece of mail references the politics of the day. (At Chelsea’s Susan Inglett Gallery through April 22nd).
Sascha Braunig’s surreal image suggests a mannequin coming to life and questioning its captivity to an unseen source on the back left. Thin grey sheets standing in for arms seem to occupy another dimension, offering the hopeful possibility that this mildly struggling figure will slip away by unexpected means. (At Foxy Production on the Lower East Side through April 2nd).
Some buttons are photographed, some are real; the fun is picking out which is which. For his recent body of work, Brazilian photographer Vik Muniz creates such skilled illusions that what might be a gimmick in the hands of others instead prompts real pleasure in physically interacting with artwork up close and in person. (At Chelsea’s Sikkema Jenkins & Co. through April 1st).
150 drawings of writers, artists, intellectuals and cultural leaders by Mexico City-based artist Pedro Reyes fill the expansive walls of Lisson Gallery’s 24th Street location. These and large stone sculptures carved from Mexican volcanic stone are art as ‘sanctuary,’ explained Reyes in a recent interview, adding, “…These are the things we are fighting for.” (On view through April 15th).
Daily for the past twenty years, New York artist Yuji Agematsu has walked the city streets collecting refuse and reforming it into artful accumulations and arrangements. Here, he has allowed lollipops to melt and deteriorate before arresting them in precise moments of decay that still recall the joy of a freshly unwrapped piece of candy while fast forwarding to the end of that pleasure. (At Miguel Abreu Gallery through April 2nd).
Romare Bearden’s ‘The Evening Meal of Prophet Peterson’ is a standout in Michael Rosenfeld Gallery’s current show of collage in American art. Combining multiple images for the faces of the main male and female characters at an abundant dinner table, Bearden invites speculation on the many facets that make up a man or woman. (In Chelsea through April 1st).
Annabeth Rosen’s curious cluster of bud-like forms titled ‘Roil,’ is a standout in this west-coast sculptor’s first solo show at Chelsea’s PPOW Gallery. Like the oil paintings behind it, the piece suggests a 3-D fingerprint or a living form that has gathered itself together from many parts to present a formidable mass. (On view through March 25th).
In Roe Ethridge’s tableau, juicy red apples are more of the poisonous, Snow White variety than the kind used to make all-American apple pie. Coupled with scattered cancer sticks and the words ‘American Spirit’ – a nod to two iconic photos titled ‘Spiritual America’ that criticized aspects of US culture –Ethridge’s assortment of objects is less innocuous than it first seems. (At Andrew Kreps Gallery in Chelsea through April 8th.)
Iraqi-born, Paris-based calligrapher Hassan Massoudy lauds the ‘gesture of one man towards another man’ as ‘better than pearls and coral’ in this elegant ink and pigment drawing at Sundaram Tagore Gallery. (In Chelsea through March 25th).
How do people manage to live in the world’s biggest cities? Dutch photojournalist Martin Roemers set out to answer this question in ‘Metropolis,’ a series that took him around the world to cities with populations of ten million or more. Roemer discovered that to survive is to focus on the details of everyday life, as he does in this colorful market in Lagos. (On view at Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side through April 26th).
Farm machinery inspired the brightly colored forms of Vermont painter Altoon Sultan’s new paintings. Created in egg tempera on calfskin parchment, this glowing instrument is an alluring piece of rural Pop art. (At McKenzie Fine Art on the Lower East Side through March 26th).
Many have pondered ‘the wages of sin,’ but few in quite the way that Michael Joo does in his Seven Sins series. Joo records the number of calories expended in pursuing anger, lust, pride and more, stamping the numbers on baking trays like these stacked floor to ceiling in Carolina Nitsch Project Room. Screen prints of the trays resemble historic photographs and ghostly traces of appetites indulged. (In Chelsea through April 1st).
While traveling near St Petersburg, Russia, photographer Cig Harvey found herself surrounded by goldfinches, and she captured this beautifully composed evocation of freedom. The photo is a highlight of the creatively curated, obliquely political group show ‘Birds of a Feather, ‘ at Chelsea’s Robert Mann Gallery. (Through March 18th).
Post-war German ZERO group leader Heinz Mack carries his decades-long interest in color right up to his recent work, including this nearly 20-foot long abstract painting at Sperone Westwater on the Lower East Side. Titled ‘The Garden of Eden (Chromatic Constellation),’ Mack’s colors conjure verdant earth and the colors of the hot sun and cool night. (On view through March 25th.)
British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare celebrates ethnic diversity in British literature with ‘The British Library,’ an installation of books written by British authors from around the globe. Wrapped in Shonibare’s signature fabric – Dutch prints derived from Indonesian batik and sold to West African markets – the volumes bear silent testimony to the beauty of difference. (At James Cohan Gallery’s Chelsea location through March 18th).
Paul Resika’s current solo show, ‘Empty’ at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects defies its title by engaging color field abstraction and also representational painting. A rich blue night sky and curiously intimate sailboats invite enjoyment of saturated color and the beginning of a narrative. (On the Lower East Side through March 19th).
To create the Rorschach-like image on this tapestry, German painter Gerhard Richter quartered and flipped a section from a 1990 abstract painting. At around nine feet tall and twelve feet wide, the complexity of its large surface boggles and its presence is both powerful and yet more ephemeral than the artist’s paintings. (At FLAG Art Foundation in Chelsea through May 13th).
Christine Brache’s flesh-colored domino table swaps cards for playing pieces and features Brache’s face as queen and king. This mash-up speaks to the artist’s comparison of her own post-colonial genetic makeup to a VHS tape recording of a family event that has been repeatedly taped over. (At Fierman through March 19th).
Known for her masterful use of repeated materials, New York artist Tara Donovan has been busy lately with styrene cards, intuitively stacking the plastic slips in patterns that hint at the natural world, digital patterns and more. (At Pace Gallery’s 24th Street location through March 18th).
Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu’s hybrid bodies enter a new chapter in her latest solo show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, where this bronze mermaid merges animal and human. The reference taps into E. African folktales of dugongs – a manatee-like creature – manifesting as female sirens who’d lure men into the sea. (In Chelsea on 21st Street through March 25th).
The chemical smell of ‘Stockpot’ – a Porta potty on rockers – hits immediately at Nathaniel de Large’s solo show at 247365 on the Lower East Side. This surprising sculpture opens a show inspired by de Large’s time spent camping in a Brooklyn parking lot. Further in, the artist displays a puffer jacket the size of a camper (which serves as a screening room) and freshly poured concrete ‘sidewalks’ into which friends have carved their marks. (On view through March 10th).
Johannes VanDerBeek’s thick aqua-resin paintings at new Lower East Side gallery Marinaro look like highly colored views from under the microscope. Looser than Joan Miro and freer and more abstract than Yves Tanguy, the work still channels Surrealism and early 20th century abstraction. (On view through March 19th).
Though he has focused on the female form in past, pared down representations, a large, pink-hued highlight of John Finneran’s latest solo show at 47 Canal features three kings. Resembling archaic designs and featuring universal geometries, they appear both ancient and contemporary. (On the Lower East Side through April 2nd).
Richard Mosse pictures European refugee camps like you’ve never seen them in monumental new photos taken with a military grade telephoto camera. Normally used for combat and border surveillance, the camera detects thermal radiation, turning individuals into ghost-like presences. (At Jack Shainman Gallery’s 20th Street location in Chelsea through March 11th).
Inspired by the light in her adopted home-city of LA and by the still life arrangements of Italian painter Giorgio Morandi, Uta Barth employs everyday glassware as lenses. Transparent objects in various shapes, colors and combinations shift light to harness the properties of nature in service of art. (At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea through March 11th).
Brooklyn-based artist Natalie Baxter’s glitzy flag hangs from the ceiling of Mulherin New York’s compact space like a disco ball, adding humor to the flag-centric group show ‘Old Glory.’ (On the Lower East Side through March 5th).
Jennifer Rubell continues to turn hospitality into art in this standout sculpture from her solo show at Sargent’s Daughters. A five-foot tall, resin pants suit doubles as a cookie jar holding treats baked from Hillary Clinton’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe, offered to the public in 1992 after she’d commented on wanting to pursue her career rather than bake cookies. Twenty-five years later, questions about women’s roles in society are a continued hot topic. (On the Lower East Side through March 5th).
A woman calmly looks out from a storm of activity in this detail from a new collage by Elliott Hundley at Andrea Rosen Gallery, suggesting that she is uniquely adapted to life in an environment of overload. Countless masks, eyes and assorted circular shapes – from lotus slices to flowers – are equal parts portal to another world and big brother. (In Chelsea through March 11th).
This well-worn tome isn’t a book at all but a meticulous painting by the artist Steve Wolfe. Not only does it memorialize a classic novel but serves as a tribute to Wolfe himself, who passed away last year. Well-known for creating trompe l’oeil paintings of favorite books and records, Wolfe indirectly created a portrait of himself and his era. (At Luhring Augustine Gallery through March 11th).
