Raqib Shaw’s richly imagined scenes at Pace Gallery are dominated by the verdant Kashmiri landscape and a tribe of cavorting and lounging peacock-headed characters, who echo the poses of picnicking Parisians lounging in a park in Manet’s 1862 painting Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe. Intricately painted in vibrant enamel colors, Shaw’s new paintings are a feast for the eyes. (On view in Chelsea through May 18th).
Titled after the Japanese dolls that return to an upright state if knocked over, Spanish artist Jorge Palacios’ sculpture ‘Okiagari-Koboshi’ is so strikingly shaped, it’s viewers eyes that will keep returning. Resembling a muscle-bound arm extending a slender fist or an oversized 3-D piece of punctuation, the tension between slim and full organic forms offers many interpretations. (On view at Danese Corey Gallery in Chelsea through May 4th).
Starting with a 3D scan of a boulder, Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade gradually transforms the large rock into a sphere and a square, morphing through different materials along the way and separating each phase by a mirror. At rear, a steel framework supports three more stones, identical in mass and weight but shaped and positioned to look otherwise. Kwade’s intention – to challenge viewers to question what they perceive – results in a puzzling and provocative exhibition. (On view at 303 Gallery in Chelsea through May 18th).
From her studio on a former coffee plantation in rural Guatemala, Argentine-Brazilian artist Vivian Suter created the large-scale paintings currently hanging from the ceiling, covering walls and extending to the floor at Gladstone Gallery’s 21st Street location. Inspired by nature and literally created outdoors, sometimes in conjunction with the elements, Suter aims to subordinate art to the power of nature. (On view in Chelsea through June 8th).
Tankers arrayed like a minimalist piece of land art in this photograph by Victoria Sambunaris turn an otherwise drab landscape near Salt Lake City into study in form and function. Ringed by a barely visible mountains and spread out under voluminous clouds, the trains in their tight formation dominate the natural world in this image. (On view at Yancey Richardson Gallery through May 11th).
Part installation, part performance, Cameroonian-French artist Barthelemy Toguo’s ‘Urban Requiem’ begins with a room of charcoal drawings of African Americans killed by police and culminates in a gallery of heavy, wooden, torso-shaped stamps marked with messages. Against the back wall of the show, prints made using the stamps advocate for peace and respect for human life. The stamp in the foreground incites hope for ‘All the world’s futures.’ (On view at Galerie Lelong in Chelsea through May 11th).
A male authority figure crumbles as he leads three young women toward a shattered monolith in Arghavan Khosravi’s lushly painted ‘Mesmerized, Listen to the Big Brother’ at Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea. Though eerily uniform and restrained by shackles connected to earbuds around their necks, the women are real and may free themselves as the illusion ahead of them breaks apart. (On view through April 27th).
North Carolina potter Jim McDowell channels the ceramic styles of enslaved craftsmen from the mid-19th century in face jugs with a message. ‘War Ends Nothing’ says the text written into the side of ‘War ‘n’ Peace’ on the left, while ‘Trayvon’ at center carries words that expresses anger at and healing after the death of Trayvon Martin. (On view at Cavin Morris Gallery in Chelsea through April 20th).
Nikki Maloof puts her audience right in the cage with these canaries while free pigeons cavort outside. Newspaper headlines on the pages papering the cage alternate between self-help and anxious messages while a dynamic twisting branch and electric colors of the yellow birds against a pink wall suggest pleasure and danger. (On view at Jack Hanley Gallery on the Lower East Side through April 21st).
The back glow behind the woman in Amanda Baldwin’s ‘Blushing Orchid’ and the neon-like outline of flowers against the wall suggest that the artist has a paintbrush in hand and her mind in the digital realm. The surreal, collage-like effect of pairing a realistic eye with Photoshop features or delicate blooms with blanched fern fronds deliberately juxtaposes the pleasure of looking in the digital and analogue realms. (On view at Thierry Goldberg Gallery through April 28th.)
This nearly ten-foot high bamboo and rattan sculpture by Sopheap Pich is a standout in the second iteration of the Cambodian artist’s two-part solo show at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in Chelsea. Inspired by a Louis MacNeice poem about reconciling opposites, Pich suggests seed pods and lungs with a piece that is 2-D, 3-D and larger than life. (On view through April 19th).
Worlds collide in Beijing-based artist Jia Aili’s huge, apocalyptic paintings at Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea. An ominous, oval-shaped portal appears to generate flashes of lightning and cause a disruption in space and time while to the left, a puffy, cloud-like figure shoots up toward a mysterious black orb. Whether this is an alien-invasion or some kind of terrestrial catastrophe, the drama is deeply absorbing. (On view at Gagosian Gallery’s 21st Street location in Chelsea through April 13th).
LA based artist Luis Flores deliberately employs the feminized craft of crochet to create self-portraits which undermine the concepts of masculinity he learned as a boy from his male relatives. Here, he fights with himself in an installation featuring a series of wrestling moves enacted by his body doubles and observed by his passive and skeptical wife. (On view at Salon94 Bowery on the Lower East Side through April 20th).
Vermont-based painter Susan Jane Walp cites early Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca and 20th century great Giorgio Morandi as influences on her painting style. Accordingly, Walp’s carefully tilted pummelo and spoon exude alertness, suggesting the objects depicted are literally poised for a diner. A cropped wine cork, pewter jug and glass egg cup extend off the canvas to allude to a wider spread of items in this measured yet rich array. (On view at Tibor de Nagy Gallery on the Lower East Side through April 14th).
Berlin-based artist Michael Sailstorfer’s tear-themed show at Galerie Perrotin aims to convert sadness to fun. Here, a rickety farm building is destroyed by wrecking balls in the shape of teardrops (cables were removed post-production). Elsewhere, the artist prepares tear-shaped lumps of coal for burning and morphed Bavarian beer bottles into tear-shapes with the help of a glass-blower. (On view on the Lower East Side through April 13th).
