Valerie Hegarty’s deliciously bizarre watermelon rind takes a bite out of summer at Asya Geisberg Gallery’s fanciful summer group show of ceramic sculpture. (In Chelsea through August 11th).
Valerie Hegarty in ‘Morph’ at Asya Geisberg Gallery
Ji Zhou at Klein Sun Gallery
In his photo collages of cityscapes, shot at different times of day from the same vantage point, Bejing-based artist Ji Zhou creates a harmonious view from fragments. (At Klein Sun Gallery in Chelsea through August 3rd).
Maria Berrio in ‘All That Glitters’ at Rachel Uffner Gallery
Like a group of goddesses on Mount Olympus, Maria Berrio’s trio of milky-skinned mothers and their infants appear to lounge above the mortal realm in this collage by the New York-based Columbian artist. Accompanied by a menagerie of animals and framed by the constellations, Berrio exaults the mothers’ nurturing role. (On view on the Lower East Side in ‘All That Glitters’ at Rachel Uffner Gallery through August 2nd).
Zadie Xa in ‘How to Call the Spirits’ at Chapter NY
These extravagantly eccentric boots by London-based Canadian artist Zadie Xa (created with Benito Mayor Vallejo) are part of Xa’s costuming for a performance inspired by Korean spiritual ritual. Installed unobtrusively at Chapter NY, which is hosting an exhibition by San Juan, Puerto Rico gallery Agustina Ferreyra as part of Condo New York, they offer a glimpse of Xa’s fabulously invented performances. (On the Lower East Side through July 28th).
Liz Craft in ‘Dirge’ at JTT
Liz Craft’s speech bubbles, made into faces by the shapes of protruding ceramic mushrooms, are a standout in JTT’s summer group show, Dirge, which considers how artists engage with accounts of history. Here, Craft merges contemporary text-message bubbles with pre-electrical light (a candle). The mushroom face suggests a voice from 70s counterculture speaking from the void. (On the Lower East Side through July 28th).
Daniel Canogar in ‘Summer 2017’ at Bitforms
Real time seismic activity interrupts the shifting abstract patterns on Daniel Canogar’s curving panels, merging art and distant, powerful forces. Peeling off the wall on flexible LED tiles arranged on an armature, ‘Echo’ strains for our attention and gets it. (At Bitforms on the Lower East Side through July 30th).
Claire Zeisler in ‘The Time is Now’ at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
Known for creating fiber art without a loom, late artist Claire Zeisler sometimes evoked the natural world in works that seemed to pour and pool like water. Here, a vivid red piece evokes fire, lava, blood and more, eliciting strong and even conflicting responses. (At Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in Chelsea through August 4th).
Mairead O’hEocha at Callicoon Fine Arts
Mairead O’hEocha’s floral still life evokes paintings by 17th/18th century painter Rachel Ruysch while offering a more abstracted take on the genre. Flowers from around the world which may have bloomed at different times combined in the Netherlands to testify to Dutch trade power. Here, the rose at center signals waning strength as it begins to lose its petals. (At Callicoon Fine Arts hosting mothers tankstation limited, Dublin, for Condo New York on the Lower East Side through July 28th).
Monira Al Qadiri in ‘Ordered Dance’ at Station Independent Projects
Monira Al Qadiri’s video ‘Travel Prayer’ combines footage of a camel race with the text of a traditional prayer for travel. Once, children were regularly injured and trafficked to race the animals, now camels are directed remotely by robot jockeys with mini whips. The prayers request for traveling mercy is powerfully apt. (At Station Independent Projects through July 23rd).
Yann Gerstberger at Lyles & King
Mounting material and hand-dyed mop head strands onto vinyl, French artist and Mexico City resident Yann Gerstberger makes bold, nearly abstract textiles that suggest tantalizing stories and histories. (At Lyles and King on the Lower East Side through July 28th).
Satoshi Kojima at Bridget Donahue Gallery
Satoshi Kojima’s pastel-colored dreamscapes feature a few enigmatic characters engaging in mysterious rituals. Here, two dapper yet sinisterly blank-eyed men either wave goodbye or set out to stop any trains that might roll into a platform that looks like a stage. (On view at Bridget Donahue Gallery on the Lower East Side through Aug 4th).
Hildur Asgeirsdottir Jonsson in ‘Brushless’ at Morgan Lehman Gallery
Brain scans, microorganisms and landscapes inspire Hildur Asgeirsdottir Jonsson’s woven silk textiles. In this detail from the towering, ten foot tall Dynjandi #2, Jonsson evokes the powerful force of a waterfall in her native Iceland. (At Morgan Lehman Gallery in Chelsea through July 28th).
Alex Bradley Cohen at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
Tariq’s multi-colored shirt and the explosion of lines on the wall behind him – not to mention his colorful crown – merge a man and an abstract artwork in young Chicago-based artist Alex Bradley Cohen’s painted portrait. (In ‘Elaine, Let’s Get the Hell Out of Here’ at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery through Aug 18th).
Myranda Gillies at Susan Inglett Gallery
Two types of chilis, lemongrass and an emergency blanket are some of the unconventional materials Myranda Gillies sourced from stores in her Brooklyn neighborhood to create this loomed work at Susan Inglett Gallery in Chelsea. Granddaughter of famed assemblage artist George Herms, Gillies shares the gallery with his sculpture, inviting a comparison between two artists whose materials are something to talk about. (On view through July 28th).
David Benjamin Sherry at Salon94 Bowery
Working blind in the dark room, David Benjamin Sherry exposes cardboard templates, acetates printed with patterns, his own body and that of his dog, Wizard to light sensitive paper. The vibrantly colored results don’t bear a recognizable likeness of the artist, but they feel intensely personal nonetheless. (At Salon94 Bowery on the Lower East Side through July 27th).
Veronika Pausova at Simone Subal Gallery
Geometry rules this painting by Toronto-based painter Veronika Pausova, who alludes to domestic environments by picturing curtains, cupboards and flower vases in still life paintings that are both tranquil and tense. This standout from her current show at Simone Subal Gallery, titled ‘Neighbour,’ suggests a nosy neighbor twitching her stylish curtains or the reverse – a neighbor tantalizingly out of our view. (On the Lower East Side through July 28th).
John Williams at Brennan and Griffin Gallery
John Williams eschews the cutting edge by repurposing old technology, using overhead projectors to create a series of bold sculptures that recall the experimental quality of Man Ray’s photograms with an extra measure of playful inventiveness. Here, car parts affixed to the gallery wall become hair and a smile, a projected straw is a nose and a slinky funnels light upward into a bright white eye. The other eye must be winking at us as we share the joke. (At Brennan and Griffin on the Lower East Side through July 21st. )
Susan Siegel, Big Hair at Flowers Gallery
The New York Academy of Art’s annual summer exhibition brings together a variety of artwork for sale at accessible prices – a rare proposition in Chelsea’s booming mega-gallery scene. Susan Siegel’s ‘Big Hair’ is a tiny painting at eight by eight inches, but it packs a humorous punch. Substituting a cow for one of the delicate creatures normally populating Baroque painting, Siegel subverts our pleasure in consuming images of excess. (At Flowers Gallery through July 15th).
Bennett Vadnais in ‘Cityscapes’ at George Billis Gallery
New York painter Bennett Vadnais’ ‘House’ is a standout in George Billis Gallery’s summer group exhibition of cityscapes. Several of the show’s paintings zero in details of urban life – a water tower, a segment of a bridge – but Vadnais adds a focus on the passage of time by contrasting buildings from different eras. (On view in Chelsea through July 22nd ).
Marcus Webber in ‘Painting in Due Time’ at Thomas Erben Gallery
German painter Marcus Webber draws inspiration from odd moments experienced in daily street life; his paintings titled after public places, like ‘N-Platz (Nolli)’ include odd characters like the robed figures with triangular heads who attract a stare from a circular-headed shopper in the foreground. (In ‘Painting in due time’ at Thomas Erben Gallery in Chelsea through July 28th.)
Eva Lake at Frosch & Portmann
Eva Lake’s small collages at Lower East Side gallery Frosh & Portman elegantly remix Egyptian and 20th century fashions in a strangely congruous merger of the ancient and modern. (On view through July 16th).
Meschac Gaba Installation at Tanya Bonakdar
Buildings and monuments in the U.S. capital inspired Rotterdam & Benin-based artist Meschac Gaba’s latest synthetic-hair sculptures. Including (right to left) the White House, the U.S. Capitol and St John Episcopal Church, the sculptures represent a merger of African craft and sites of power. (On view at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery through July 28th).
Mernet Larsen in ‘Dream Machines’ at James Cohan Gallery
Part of ‘Dream Machines,’ an exhibition that ponders how in daily life, ‘the real and imaginary cease to be contradictory,’ Mernet Larsen’s surreal ‘Sunday Drive’ is both plausible and impossible at once. Her orange-toned factory fresh figures are perfect but creepy, giving viewers pause to reconsider the serendipity of an American tradition. (At James Cohan Gallery’s Chelsea location through July 28th).
Dieter Roth at Hauser & Wirth Gallery
Six hundred binders hold plastic sleeves filled with studio waste in a huge installation of books and other material created by Dieter Roth and his son and collaborator, Bjorn Roth currently at Hauser & Wirth Gallery in Chelsea. Every piece of trash less than 5mm thick found its way into a binder in the years 1975-76, resulting in a portrait of the artist told through postcards, cigarette butts, packaging and more. ‘The worse it looks, the better,’ Roth noted on one binder. (On view through July 29th).
Susan Lichtman at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects
The canvas barely manages to contain an angled view of a screened window by painter Susan Lichtman, reflecting an outdoor scene from her Massachusetts home. With one window panel opening toward viewers, the painting appears to project itself into Steven Harvey Fine Art Project’s narrow gallery space, an arresting and dynamic move that belies an apparently tranquil domestic scene. (On the Lower East Side through July 15th).
Joanna Pousette-Dart in ‘Aspects of Abstraction’ at Lisson Gallery
Though abstract, Joanna Pousette-Dart’s paintings are inspired by landscapes she has experienced in her travels to New Mexico. In this new piece created for Lisson Gallery’s summer survey of select abstract painting, the bright light of day fades to dark night in a progression of curving canvases. (On view in Lisson Gallery’s 10th Avenue location through August 11th).
Lino Tagliapietra at Heller Gallery
Bold color and abundant detail prompt Heller Gallery to compare master glassmaker and artist Lino Tagliapietra’s pieces to a mini-fireworks display. This vibrant vessel demonstrates many of the techniques that Tagliapietra used as a glassmaker in Murano and which he has generously shared in his world-wide travels. (At Heller Gallery in Chelsea through August 11th).
Robert Longo in ‘A New Ballardian Vision’ at Metro Pictures
From huge charcoal drawings to weighty bronzes, Robert Longo has returned to images of the U.S. flag throughout his career in an on-going exploration of power and politics. Here, the mirrored surface of this flag makes viewers part of an object and a symbol. (At Metro Pictures Gallery in Chelsea through August 4th).
Ceal Floyer at 303 Gallery
The bottom is about to fall out of 303 Gallery, or so it seems to judge by Ceal Floyer’s ‘Saw,’ a blade projecting from the gallery floor by a painted black circular line. With the menace of a shark’s protruding dorsal fin and a comedic quality of a Wile E Coyote blunder, the sculpture begs the question of what will surface. (On view in Chelsea through July 14th).
Betty Parsons at Alexander Gray Associates
Famed art dealer Betty Parsons never gave up on her own artistic practice; this piece from her later years references Native American art, referring in its title to the Oglala Lakota. Created from driftwood she scavenged from the beach near her Long Island home, this colorful organic abstraction demonstrates her interest in mysticism that takes us beyond the every day realm. (At Alexander Gray Associates in Chelsea through July 14th).
Wendell Castle at Friedman Benda Gallery
These three dynamically twisting wooden seat sculptures by Wendell Castle come from a series titled Free Form, a musical reference that speaks to the artist’s & musician’s life-long interest. Though their solid forms are weighty, they appear to twist like a quick-growing vine. (On view at Friedman Benda through August 11th).
