Human-created pollution vies with a vividly colored frog to attract the eye in Alexis Rockman’s 2012 watercolor titled ‘Effluent,’ now on view at Sperone Westwater Gallery. Rockman’s artful activism appears alongside new field drawings from New Mexico of plants and animals from the region that are extinct, living or threatened. (On view on the Lower East Side through August 3rd).
Taking flowers or nature as the theme for a summer group exhibition isn’t particularly original or necessarily avant-garde. Still, nature’s beauty and uplift as symbol of regeneration is irresistible to audiences and to the curators of ‘A Rose is a Rose is a Rose’ at Jack Hanley Gallery, who apologetically admit that painting flowers is ‘embarrassing.’ This paper sculpture by Daniel Gordon, which recalls still lives throughout art history (think Cezanne and Matisse) and pushes the possibilities of photography as sculpture, suggests that the show’s organizers have nothing to worry about. (On view on the Lower East Side through August 3rd).
Chelsea Seltzer & Theo Rosenblum reduce a kid’s party to essentials – cake and pizza – then bring the refreshments to life in this wonderfully absurd sculpture at Asya Geisberg Gallery. Both delicious and disgusting, funny and disturbing, innocent and sinister, Seltzer and Rosenblum’s character pushes all kinds of buttons. (On view in ‘Alive with Pleasure’ at Asya Geisberg Gallery in Chelsea through Aug 3rd).
Soap suds, sand and spaghetti are the mundane subjects of Helene Appel’s extraordinary new paintings at James Cohan Gallery. A muted palette and minute detail make it necessary to draw close to finely detailed renderings of beach sand and glistening soap bubbles. From a few feet away, this painting (seen in detail) delights as a trompe l’oeil rendering of a delicately colored fishing net while doubling as an energetically free, grid-busting abstraction. (On view on the Lower East Side through July 27th).
Jamal Nxedlana’s portrait of South African stylist Bee Diamondhead leaps off the wall in Aperture Gallery’s ‘Summer Open,’ offering a tantalizing glimpse of South Africa’s fashion elite. (On view in Chelsea through August 16th).
Hein Koh’s ‘Big Mother of Pearl’ sculpture injects a note of humor in Paul Kasmin Gallery’s summer group show, ‘Seed,’ curated by Yvonne Force. Force identifies a spiritual generative force in the act of creating art; Koh’s curvy, colorful and rhinestone-glittery shell has just produced a pearl that resembles an eye and a portal into other galaxies. (On view in Chelsea through August 10th).
True to its name, British octogenarian Phillip King’s dynamic ‘Swirl’ suggests a sudden levitation of two perforated sheets of polyurethane foam from two anchoring black triangular shapes. It’s vivid color that gives this lively new work its lift though, including the bold tones on Luhring Augustine’s gallery walls. (On view in Chelsea through August 10th).
Whether they’re teeth or a quadrupled epiglottis, the line of metal balls in each of these three mouth sculptures by Julie Bena suggests ways in which language might follow Newton’s laws. If each of these joyous, dismayed or just loud mouths spoke, would their words have a momentum that wouldn’t diminish? How would the energy of each person’s thoughts change form as it manifested in each individual? (At Chapter NY as part of the multi-gallery group exhibition Condo New York. Chapter is hosting Adams and Ollman).
A huge, flawless bar of soap in Carrara marble acts as an icon of purity in Rachel Lee Hovnanian’s current solo show at Leila Heller Gallery. The third in a series of consecutive exhibitions by the artist at this Chelsea gallery, the show encourages introspection and the chance to ‘clean up’ some mental baggage. Assistant by gallery staff, a visitor can write down something (s)he’d like to eliminate from her/his life on one of the cast plaster soaps stacked against the gallery wall, then smash the soap with a mallet. (On view in Chelsea through July 20th).
Seated figures and seats themselves comprise the surprisingly engaging theme of Marc Straus Gallery’s summer group show, which includes Red Grooms’ 1974-5 ‘The Minister of Transportation.’ Long arms languidly crossed and propped up on a skinny knee, the art-deco styled ‘minister’ offers a small case of cigarettes as he puffs away himself atop a parade float featuring images of vehicles on the ground, in the sky and on the water. (On view on the Lower East Side through July 28th).
Art & design merge in British artist Jonathan Trayte’s otherworldly habitat at Friedman Benda, where a chaise longue doubles as a lamp and a pink bedframe made out of pipes questions the use-value of sculpture. Here, an irresistible painted bronze, steel, foam and neon sculpture titled Kandi defies explanation while enticing with its organic forms and pink glow. (On view in Chelsea through July 27th).
The world fractures into patterns and planes in Chie Fueki’s energetic rendition of a redhead (painter Ellen Altfest) on her bike, a standout in DC Moore Gallery’s excellent summer exhibition. In other works by Fueki in the show, women take the wheel in futuristic vehicles that traverse otherworldly landscapes. (On view in Chelsea through August 10th.)
Without putting pencil or brush to paper, Beijing-based artist Fu Xiaotong created this enigmatic cityscape, seen as if in a fog or snowstorm. Created entirely by piercing a thick piece of paper with a needle, the scene’s suggestion of nature (even in the built environment) is appropriate, given Fu’s signature subject matter of mountains, water and other organic elements. (On view at Chambers Fine Art in Chelsea through August 17th).
Congresswoman Barbara Lee literally opens her hands to the issues that matter to her constituents in this quilted artwork by Bay Area artist Alice Beasley. Beasley’s tribute is a standout in Robert Mann Gallery’s summer group show ‘In Her Hands’ (curated by Orly Cogan and Julie Peppito), an exhibition that celebrates female political leaders. (On view in Chelsea through August 17th).
“Stand-up comedy and painting are both performative acts,” explains Brooklyn painter Peter Schenck, who has first-hand-experience of both. Titling his latest show at Freight and Volume ‘Comedy Cellar,’ after the West Village club, Schenck creates colorful but tense scenarios in which various characters must make good under the spotlight. Here, a wide-eyed, robed painter grins wildly next to a giant scull and floating paint brushes. (On view on the Lower East Side through July 8th).
