Jon Pylypchuk at Petzel Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

LA’s trash is Jon Pylypchuk’s treasure, transformed via glitter and wood glue into a series of humorous portraits of alien-like creatures now on view at Chelsea’s Petzel Gallery.  The family trio featured in this panel is quirky and cute with their big eyes (actually cue balls) on cartoonishly large heads but also grotesque with their sagging and twisting flesh (composed of pants).  The title, ‘I used to be your internet kids,’ jokingly suggests that the passage of time wears on everyone, human and alien alike as offspring grow up and move on.  (On view through Feb 29th).

Jon Pylypchuk, I used to be your internet kids, fabric, wood glue, watercolor, glitter, black cue balls, polyurethane, wood on linen on panel, 2019.

Issy Wood at JTT Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Stars swirl around a young woman in this painting by Issy Wood as if the Paramount logo or the European Union flag’s emblems had risen to encircle her.  Though she appears to be calmly shielding herself, the painting’s title ‘Study for me getting nostalgic’ suggests that the doughy, green stars are moving away from the London-based artist in an image that depicts a mental navigation of Brexit. (On view at JTT Gallery on the Lower East Side through Feb 9th).

Issy Wood, Study for me getting nostalgic, oil on linen, 60 x 81 inches, 2019.

Pieter Hugo Photographs at Yossi Milo Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest Show, Inside ViewPosted on Comments are Disabled

Invited by curator Francisco Berzunza to make new work to show in Mexico on the themes of sex and death, South African photographer Pieter Hugo spent months meeting people from all walks of life including this community theater group formed by sanitation workers in Oaxaca de Juarez.  Here, they reenact a scene from a mural painted in the 50s by David Alfaro Siqueiros at Chapultepec Castle, bringing revolutionary attitudes into the present day.  (On view at Chelsea’s Yossi Milo Gallery through Feb 29th).

Pieter Hugo, After Siqueiros, Oaxaca de Juarez, archival pigment print, 47 1/8 x 63 inches, 2018.

Robin F. Williams Painting at Marianne Boesky Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Enormous, reptilian eyes and rough-hewn features give Robin F. Williams’ female characters – named Siri and Alexa – a memorable boldness that runs contrary to the perky helpfulness of their digital namesakes.  Titled ‘Siri Defends Her Honor,’ this painting casts Apple’s assistant into the role of a mob boss’s wife as played by Uma Thurman in an iconic scene from ‘Pulp Fiction,’ examining constructed AI personalities via female roles in cinema.  (In ‘Xenia:  Crossroads in Portrait Painting’ at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea, on view through Feb 15th).

Robin F. Williams, Siri Defends Her Honor, oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 60 inches, 2019.

Dan Walsh at Paula Cooper Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

The painting furthest from the door is the first to attract attention at Paula Cooper Gallery’s show of recent work by New York abstract artist Dan Walsh.   Glowing like a tower-top beacon, a stylized ziggurat resembling the pinnacle of the Empire State Building lures visitors into minimalist painting by a self-styled ‘maximalist.’ (On view in Chelsea on 26th Street through Feb 15th).

Dan Walsh, Expo III, acrylic on canvas, 110 ¼ x 110 ¼ inches, 2019.

Christina Nicodema at Hollis Taggart Contemporary

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

It’s hard to look away from New York artist Christina Nicodema’s vividly colored paintings, packed with brightly plumed birds, a dramatic mandrill baring its teeth and piles of edibles designed to entice.  Like a contemporary interpretation of traditional Dutch genre painting, the images bring together plants and creatures from different environments in a celebration of excess, but Nicodema’s addition of porcelain, a painted egg and a cake dangerously ablaze with candles hints at the costs of luxury and human desires.  (On view at Hollis Taggart Contemporary through Feb 22nd).

Christina Nicodema, detail from The Tower of Babel, Mandrill, oil and archival ink on canvas, 55 x 55 inches, 2019.

‘Taking Stock of Power’ at the Walther Collection

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

After encountering a box of photos of the Berlin Wall taken by East German border guards in the mid-60s shortly after the wall was erected, photographer Arwed Messmer and writer Annett Groschner turned their research toward the topography of the 140km long structure, resulting in the sobering images now on view at Chelsea’s Walther Collection.  Thirty years after the fall of the Wall, the photos speak to a failed effort at social control.  This grid of ladders left behind in successful escape attempts, are an uplifting element in a show that otherwise expresses the grim realities of the wall. (On view through April 25th).

Detail from ‘Ladders,’ selection from 20 archival pigment prints, 1966/2016.

Viola Frey in ‘The Circle’ at Nancy Hoffman Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Late California-based sculptor Viola Frey’s huge standing man is a highpoint of the Whitney’s current exhibition rethinking the presence of craft in fine art; three tondos by the iconic artist at Nancy Hoffman Gallery are a more human-scaled exploration of humanity.  This strikingly colorful, theatrical character whose face resembles a tragedy mask, holds a circular form that appears to be a plate or similar artwork, suggesting a tongue-in-cheek portrait of an artist.  (On view in ‘The Circle’ through Jan 30th).

Viola Frey, Untitled (Mask with Pink and Orange Arms), ceramic, 26 inch diameter, 2001-02.

Hans Haacke, Helmsboro County at Paula Cooper

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

If you can’t get to politically-oriented artist Hans Haacke’s New Museum retrospective before it closes on Jan 26th, check out his huge pack of Marlboros in Paula Cooper Gallery’s tiny 21st St vitrine-like space, a sculpture about the relationships between art, politics and commerce.  Made in 1990, the piece highlights cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris Company’s contradictory support both for the arts and for North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, who was famously critical of government support for the arts.  Each five-foot long cigarette features a copy of the constitution (the company offered to supply a copy to anyone who asked), while the packaging bears the statement that the company’s ‘fundamental interest in the arts is self-interest.’  (On view through Jan 25th).

Hans Haacke, Helmsboro County, silkscreen prints and photographs on wood, cardboard and paper, 30 ½ x 80 x 47 ½ inches, 1990.

Crystal Z. Campbell in ‘A Field of Meaning’ at Callicoon Fine Arts

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

By revisiting historical events through one individual’s point of view, Crystal Z. Campbell reconsiders the 1921 race massacre that devastated Tulsa, Oklahoma’s burgeoning African American Greenwood District.  The artist personalizes this archival photo of a Tulsa woman, adding color and patterning and thereby making it impossible to overlook this peaceful scenario as ordinary or every day.  (On view in ‘A Field of Meaning’ at Callicoon Fine Arts on the Lower East Side).

Crystal Z. Campbell, Notes from Black Wall Street: Receptive, Soft and Absolute, mixed media on birch wood panel, 24 x 30 inches, 2019.

Nicolas Party at FLAG Art Foundation

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Visitors to Nicolas Party’s optically lush installation at FLAG Art Foundation encounter this intriguing pairing of a 18th century woman by French painter Jean-Baptiste Perronneau with a background still life mural painted by the celebrated young Swiss artist.  Both artworks were created with pastel, Party’s favored medium and Perronneau’s specialty.  Here, Party places ‘decadent’ court style in proximity to plump, slouching fruits with wan little stems that enact a kind of excess and pampering akin to the lady in her finery.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 15th).

Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, Portrait of a woman with pink ribbons, n.d., pastel on paper, 17 5/8 x 25 5/8 inches and Nicolas Party, Still Life, soft pastel on wall, 84 inches, 2019.

Joanne Greenbaum Paintings at Rachel Uffner Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Joanne Greenbaum’s paintings do what words can’t, conveying relationships that don’t translate easily into verbal language.  Watching the artist find a balance between lines and shapes, of color spread across the canvas, and of lighter vs bolder marks is the attraction in paintings that pleasurably upend expectations.  (On view at Rachel Uffner Gallery on the Lower East Side through Jan 12th).

Joanne Greenbaum, Untitled, oil, acrylic, neo-color and marker on canvas, 88 x 77 inches, 2018.

Jonathan Schipper at Pierogi Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

A charred tree trunk overtaken by a crystalline-looking mass or spreading fungal growth dominates Pierogi Gallery’s Lower East Side space.  At close range, the lightly colored substance materializes into thousands of tiny 3-D printed human figures locked in what could be combat or an interconnected embrace, acting out love-hate relationships en masse.  With the piece, New York State artist Jonathan Schipper contemplates the consequences of human drives, specifically consumption, that come at the cost of our habitat.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Jan 12th).

Jonathan Schipper, At Any Given Moment, wood, UV cured resin, approx. 53 (h) x 131 (w) x 55 (d) inches, 2019.

Selected Works from the Arnett Collection at Marlborough

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

This quilt by an unknown South Carolina maker is a standout among innovative textiles from the 1930s to the 1970s from the Arnett Collection now on view at Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea.  Working in a variety of styles and creatively adapting traditional techniques, the quilters produced vibrantly colored and patterned textiles in designs that jump off the wall.  (On view through January 18th).

Maker unknown, South Carolina (Strip Quilt), cloth, 71 x 74 inches, c. 1960s.

John Dowell at Laurence Miller Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

In his photographic images featuring cotton plants now on view at Chelsea’s Laurence Miller Gallery, John Dowell aims to ‘evoke the remembering, feeling and sense of wonder in African American ancestral strategies of survival.’  Dowell inserts cotton fields in photos of Central Park, Wall Street, Trinity Church and other famous New York sites, creating haunting images and recalling injustices inflicted on African American communities at these places and elsewhere.  The show’s centerpiece, ‘Lost in Cotton,’ invites visitors to enter an enclosure of hanging panels that recall the artist’s grandmother’s frightening childhood experience of getting lost among tall cotton plants.  (On view through Jan 25th).

John Dowell, Lost in Cotton, 18 digital prints on taffeta, 10 x 12 x 10 feet, 2017.

Zipora Fried at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Though her lined-based, labor-intensive drawings have been described as resisting language in favor of the emotional potential of color, Zipora Fried’s own words best describe the inspiration for her latest work.  She explains that the ‘sky and mud colored lizards, soft-toned cicada shells, sunsets echoing exploding worlds…,” the tides and sands of Lamu Island, Kenya prompted her vivid color choices.  Short repeated pencil strokes and tonal variety make each image appear to shimmer in an unfixed meditation on her experience of the island.  (On view in Chelsea at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. through Jan 18th).

Zipora Fried, To Those Who Know How to Laugh, colored pencil on archival museum board, 80 x 54 inches, 2019.