New York Art Tours celebrates the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s reopening to the public today with a look at this Seated Male Figure from the museum’s current ‘Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara’ exhibition. Fueled by global trade and transformed by the arrival of Islam, the region’s empires produced masterpieces like this terracotta figure whose identity is unknown. (On view through Oct 26th. View the Met’s new guidelines before visiting.)
New York Art Tours celebrates the Museum of Modern Art’s reopening to the public today with a closer look at a panel by Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT’s Media Lab Neri Oxman from her reopened exhibition, ‘Material Ecology.’ This wax and resin panel is the first piece visitors encounter in an exhibition that showcases materials and processes that collaborate with nature. The panel’s attractively undulating structure is determined by the need to transmit light and accommodate heat change. (On view through Oct 18th. View MoMA’s new guidelines before visiting.)
New York galleries may have reopened in July and part of August, but most have now closed for an end-of-summer break before regrouping in early September. New York’s street art is ready to step in for our daily viewing pleasure, however, as proven by Brazilian street-art star Sipros Sipros’ delicious mural. Part of Bushwick Collective’s sprawling program in Bushwick, Brooklyn, this big-eared character (the artist’s signature) enjoys a sticky moment in donut-paradise. (On view on Troutman Street between Cypress Ave and St Nicholas Ave).
In a recent review, New York Times critic Robera Smith praised Warren Isensee’s new abstract paintings at Miles McEnery Gallery for having ‘taken a sharp turn for the better’ citing a new energy that almost transcends paint on canvas. Isensee’s ‘Skin and Bones,’ pictured here, leaps off the wall, turning color and shape into subject matter and sending the viewer’s eye bouncing around the picture’s lively geometry. (On view in Chelsea through Aug 28th. Appointments are not necessary but masks and social distancing are required.)
London-based German artist Nicole Wermers juxtaposes an ashtray with four tiers of sorted sea-shells in this provocative piece from Tanya Bonakdar Gallery’s current summer group show. Do the shells stand in for nature, dominated by human-produced toxins? Or should the cigarettes signal rebellious freedom that might not be at odds with a shell-strewn shoreline? Wermers leaves it up to us to sort through our associations in a piece that’s ripe for a variety of interpretation. (On view Tues – Fri by appointment through August 28th. Masks and social distancing required.)
Changing light and the effect of light on architecture are two recurring themes in Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s work and in his new sculpture ‘Return of the Arctic light sphere,’ on view in its own gallery at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea. A strong LED light inside the sphere passes through blue glass and Fresnel glass, a material once used in lighthouses to increase the intensity of light. Walk around the suspended sphere and the shadows change constantly, creating mesmerizing effects and giving viewers pause to consider the complexities of the sculpture’s geometry. (On view Tues – Fri by appointment through August 28th. Masks and social distancing required.)
New York painter Grace Weaver describes the sidewalk as a stage in a new body of paintings at James Cohan Gallery that showcases young people in awkward situations. Falling down stairs, exchanging glances or crashing into each other on the street, Weaver’s characters self-consciously deal with what life serves up. Here, Weaver humorously recreates a romantic meeting scene as two individuals round a corner and crash into each other. Their immediate intimacy suggests that we know where this story is headed. (On view Tues – Fri at James Cohan Gallery’s locations on the Lower East Side and in Tribeca by appointment through Sept 12th. Masks and social distancing required.)
Humor and wonder meet in Matt Johnson’s sculptures, which appear to fantastically adapt unlikely materials. Whether it’s a t-shirt rising up of its own accord with no wearer or a garden hose twisting in the air, Johnson’s bronze and metal creations initially fool the eye, then entertain. A standout in 303 Gallery’s summer group show ‘Alien Landscape,’ this cast bronze alien cactus is a new take on space invasion. (On view by appointment, Tues – Fri, through August 20th. Masks and social distancing required.)
Created in Hangzhou, China last summer and now on display just outside of New York City at the Nassau County Museum of Art’s ‘Blue’ exhibition, Han Qin’s ‘The Direction of Migration’ was inspired by the artist’s own journeys between China and Long Island. Using a cyanotype process that involves exposing treated paper to sunlight, Han Qin – a professional dancer who choreographed a dance to accompany this work – arranged emigrant friends in dance poses on the paper. Ethereal and suggesting natural upward movement, the piece pictures hopeful journeys. (On view through Nov 1st. Tickets must be purchased in advance).
Audience interaction is key to activating Spanish/Argentinian artist Felipe Pantone’s optically sizzling sculpture, so how will viewers engage his latest work? Though Pantone’s current exhibition at Chelsea’s albertz benda gallery won’t involve touching the work (and is even titled ‘Contactless’), Pantone has created an online exhibition that allows manipulation of this patterned, pixelated grid and other sculptures in the show. If not quite as satisfying as interacting with the art in person, the digital component is still a huge boost and worth checking out. Visitors who are hooked can download Pantone’s interactive app @configurableart for more optical play. (On view through August 28th. Appointments are not necessary, masks are required and guests must sign a Covid release and submit contact info.)
New York photographer Erin O’Keefe’s beguiling photographs in Paul Kasmin Gallery’s summer group show are an immediate knockout for their bold color contrasts and rich, saturated hues. They get more complex on close viewing – when viewers look at the top portion of this image, it’s unclear if we’re looking at a painting or a photo. Lower down, where the sculpted wooden block meets the surface on which it’s resting, the dimensions of this photographed space become clear. That this is a photo and not a painting or sculpture allows a delayed legibility that creates a provocative open-endedness to this image. (On view by appointment, Tues – Fri, through August 21st. Masks and social distancing required.)
Under the rubric of ‘vamped Surrealism and Symbolism,’ Petzel Gallery’s summer group show considers contemporary artwork that channels the power of the subconscious. At the gallery entrance, Florencia Escudero’s disembodied eyes and face greet visitors like a digital mirage. Hand sewn and printed on satin and spandex, the sculpture’s material qualities are as evocative as the impossibly odd character herself. (On view in Chelsea Tuesday – Friday, 10am – 6pm through Aug 14th. Masks and social distancing are required.)
Conflict is at the heart of Tony Cragg’s 1983 sculpture ‘Spectrum,’ from which Lisson Gallery’s new summer show takes its title. Beautiful in its variety of color and inspired by the natural phenomenon of the color spectrum, it was assembled from sea plastic found on the shore, a decidedly ugly and unnatural phenomenon. Part of a series, this iteration spreads objects out on the floor like a carefully presented anthropological display that implicates throw-away culture. (On view in Chelsea Mon-Thurs, 11am – 4pm through August 27th. Masks and social distancing are required and visitor numbers are limited to 10 at a time.)
