Cecily Brown on The Brooklyn Rail and from New York Art Tours Archive

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

Figures emerge and recede in Cecily Brown’s energetic gestural expressionism; this Nov ’17 photo from New York Art Tour’s archives features a face so subtle it seems to have emerged by chance from the drips and lines of paints surrounding it.  It’s a great moment to catch up with Brown’s latest work on Instagram @dellyrose – where she’s been posting paintings featuring far more direct characters – and via The Brooklyn Rail’s daily live lunchtime conversation tomorrow, April 1st with Jason Rosenfeld, Editor-at-large. (Access is free and by Zoom.  Visit Eventbrite to book).

Cecily Brown, detail from Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band, oil on linen, 97 x 151 x 1.5 inches, 2016.

Jennifer Guidi at Gagosian Gallery

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With galleries and museums shut down, what are artists doing these days?  Jennifer Guidi’s recent Instagram posts show her doing what she always does – logging hours in the studio.  This image from her now-shuttered show at Gagosian Gallery ponders the impact and attraction of color and form.  Originally inspired by a diagram illustrating Goethe’s color theory, Guidi was also influenced by Austrian naturalist Ignaz Schiffermuller’s color wheel, remaking here it as a painting that dominates one of Gagosian’s huge walls.  It’s her meticulous mark-making, however, that has generated such excitement over her work.  Here, two Instagram posts demonstrate the repetitive processes underlying Guidi’s work.

Jennifer Guidi, Your Colors Are Eternal (Schiffermuller), sand, acrylic and oil on linen, 144 x 2 ½ inches, 2019.

Bharti Kher at Perrotin Gallery

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New Delhi-based British artist Bharti Kher breaks and recombines clay figures she’s collected over the years, inventing hybrids that combine supposed opposites – male and female or divine figures from different faiths.  Her show at Perrotin Gallery on the Lower East Side is no longer open to the public, but Kher shared her process in an insightful video shot during a residency in the UK.  This piece, Ardhanarishvara, represents a manifestation of the Hindu divinities Shiva and Parvati.  Roughly joined from mass produced figurines, they’re far from divine perfection.  Instead, they represent the artist’s ability to remake the known world, in this case with mysterious materials packed into conjoined bodies.

Bharti Kher, (foreground) Ardhanarishvara, cement, clay, wax, bronze, 54 1/8” x 9 5/8”, unique, 2016.

Larry Bell at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

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Operating under the premise that, “Art makes a positive difference at all times and in all circumstances” Hauser & Wirth Gallery has reverted to on-line exhibitions and other Internet-accessible strategies to make art available.  The gallery’s recently released exhibition walk-through with Light and Space artist Larry Bell wonderfully conveys Bell’s exploration of how glass ‘reflects, absorbs and transmits light.’   We can’t visit the artist’s reflective glass panels right now (seen here in a smaller sculpture), but the next best thing is watching him activate his ‘Standing Wall’ installations to shift the space around him.

Larry Bell, Iceberg SS, French Blue, Capri Blue, Periwinkle, and Turquoise laminated glass, 4 parts, unique, dimensions variable, 2020.

Farah Al Qasimi with Public Art Fund

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Waiting for the bus (or just walking past the bus stop) isn’t quite so mundane if you’re fortunate enough to encounter one of 100 bus shelters in all five boroughs currently hosting Farah Al Qasimi’s photographs.  Brooklyn-based Al Qasimi cites her upbringing in the Emirates for her attraction to an abundance of color and pattern and explains that in her series ‘Back and Forth Disco,’ presented by the Public Art Fund, personal style choices combat anonymity in the city.  In this image, spotted on Graham Avenue in Brooklyn, a woman performs a beauty treatment, blocking the procedure but enlivening the salon’s subtle décor with her own vibrant outfit.  (On view through May 17th.)

Farah Al Qasimi, from the series Back and Forth Disco, presented by Public Art Fund, 2020.

Allison Schulnik at PPOW Gallery on and Vimeo

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‘Moth,’ a 3-minute stop motion animation by Allison Schulnik was a highlight of her PPOW Gallery show in Chelsea and is also available on Vimeo.  Over 14 months, Schulnik painted gouache on paper frames for the piece, following a moth’s unconventional metamorphosis into a variety of creatures.  Created after a move from LA to the desert landscapes of Sky Valley, CA, and while becoming a mother, Schulnik’s personal transformation inspired an engrossing mediation on change.  (Chelsea’s PPOW Gallery is closed to the public to help stop the spread of COVID-19, but Moth can be seen on Vimeo).

Allison Schulnik, still from ‘Moth,’ 2019.

Wangechi Mutu’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Facade Commission

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

The Metropolitan Museum of Art may be closed to deter the spread of COVID-19 but one of its most exciting new commissions is still on view outside.  In never-filled niches designed to hold statuary, Wangechi Mutu has installed four bronze sculptures of powerful women wrapped in coiled garments that the artist describes as ‘living, tactile and fleshy’ but which also act protectively.  Polished disks (here, at the back of this figure’s head) echo traditional ornament worn by women of status in many African cultures.  Though inspired by caryatid sculptures in which women support a burden (from prestige stools to the Vanderbilt mantlepiece) these queenly and otherworldly figures are leaders, not servers.  (On view outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art through June 8th, 2020).

Wangechi Mutu, ‘The Seated’ (one of four sculptures in the series), bronze, 2019.

Vanessa German at Rockefeller Center

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Pittsburgh-based artist, poet and performer Vanessa German’s vibrant installations of photo and sculpture stand out around Rockefeller Center, luring viewers with their dramatic color and abundant detail.  Initially puzzling for their lack of commercial message in an environment designed to sell, photos of fabulously dressed women and sculptures of German’s signature power figures convey feminine power.  The Center’s shows and attractions have ground to a halt due to COVID-19, but German’s semi-divine, haloed figure remains.  (On view in Midtown through April 5th.  Organized by Art Production Fund).

Vanessa German, view of the installation ‘The Holiest Wilderness is Freedom,’ March 2020.

Guanyu Xu at Yancey Richardson Gallery

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Born and raised in Beijing, Chicago-based artist Guanyu Xu was unable as a youth to openly express his queer identity.  Returning from the US to Beijing to visit, he transformed his parent’s apartment with photo installations that tell the story of his identity in some of its complexity.  Captured in photos, the arrangements appear to be digitally collaged but are in fact staged in real time and space, temporarily occupying an environment in a fleeting moment of openness that took place while his parents were away from their home. (Originally planned to be on view to the public in Chelsea at Yancey Richardson Gallery through April 4th, Xu’s work can be see on the gallery’s website and his own website.)

Guanyu Xu, My Desktop, archival pigment print, 26 ½ x 32 1/2, 2019.

Rita Ackermann at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

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A haze of cool colors hovers over and obscures energetic line drawings featuring human figures in Rita Ackermann’s new paintings at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, creating a juxtaposition between painterly gesture and drawing.  Titled ‘Mama,’ each painting links in title to a feminine source while channeling an Ab Exp style better known for its male adherents.  Simple drawings of circles and an occasional animal add in a child’s touch, further complicating the family relationships alluded to in the paintings. (On view in Chelsea through April 11th).

Rita Ackermann, Mama, Midsummer Night’s Dream, oil, acrylic, and ink on linen, 77 x 65 inches, 2019.

Becky Suss at Jack Shainman Gallery

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The deep impact of children’s literature on young imaginations is the subject of Becky Suss’s marvelously detailed new paintings at Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery, each of which focuses on a particular text.  Here, Suss calls on her own childhood experience of acting out Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Egypt Game with neighborhood friends, her memories of the book and the actual play mingled together in her recollection. (On view through March 28th).

Becky Suss, Behind the A-Z (Set vs Isis/Nefertiti), oil on canvas, 84 x 60 x 1 ½ inches, 2020.

Doug Wheeler, 49 Nord 6 Est 68 Ven 12 FL at David Zwirner

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Light and space artist Doug Wheeler’s installation at David Zwirner Gallery makes light a transformative medium, turning the white cube into a glowing and changeable environment to challenge the senses.  Light disperses before our eyes as it fades from the bright glow of neon tubes installed in a recessed space to the darker areas of the wall, floor and ceiling at the end of the long rectangular gallery.  (On view in Chelsea through March 21st).

Doug Wheeler, 49 Nord 6 Est 68 Ven 12 FL, installation view at David Zwirner Gallery, Jan 2020.

Jane South at Spencer Brownstone Gallery

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A metal panel bolted closed on a grimy subway wall, a garage door and barred windows of an industrial building and other snapshots of the built environment are among the inspirations for Jane South’s new wall-mounted assemblages at Spencer Brownstone Gallery.  Posted to her Instagram account as #streetsources and #subwaysources, the photos speak to the long and varied life of the structures surrounding us as translated into canvas, tarp, batting and other materials.  (On view on the Lower East Side through April 5th).

Jane South, Mark, acrylic, canvas, batting, fabric, thread and mixed media, 105 x 109 inches, 2019.

Gladys Nilsson at Matthew Marks Gallery

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Proto-surrealist James Ensor and the fantastical Netherlandish painter Hieronymous Bosch figure as influencers on Chicago Imagist Gladys Nilsson’s odd characters, no surprise, given their pervading oddness and ambiguous identities.  This symmetrically arranged meeting of two couples, elderly, possibly blind, and with facial features straight out of a folk tale challenges belief even before spotting the tiny horns tucked into their mouths.  Are they communicating in honks?  Are they tooting at each other to avoid colliding on the sidewalk?  The fun is in the guessing.  (A selection of work from 1963 to 1980 is now on view at Matthew Marks Gallery in Chelsea through April 18th).

Gladys Nilsson, Honk, acrylic on panel in artist’s frame, 13 1/8 x 15 ¾ inches, 1964.