Draped curtains, sparkling suits and partial viewers of singers’ faces summon the magic of the stage in British artist Louise Giovanelli’s paintings at GRIMM Gallery’s new Tribeca space. Here, a carefully coifed wave of blond hair creates a bold, organic geometry that suggests a force of nature while testifying to the artifice of show-biz. (On view through Oct 23rd).
Divisions both stark and subtle dominate Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s drawing ‘Double-Barreled Shotgun,’ a standout in his current show at Gagosian Gallery’s uptown location. Prompted by a bad experience with a family member, this piece unites two figures only to show their differences. Created with a technique that appears to be collage, yet is entirely hand drawn in charcoal, gouache and soft pastel on Coventry vellum paper, the work manifests invisible hurt in disfigured faces. (On view through Oct 30th).
Beneath an overlay of doodles depicting the Wojak meme in various iterations including Martin Luther, an executioner and a victim of the guillotine, the hulking face of Maximilien Robespierre exudes menace in Avery Singer’s painting at Hauser & Wirth Gallery. Reintroduced to the bloodthirsty leader of the French revolution’s ‘Reign of Terror’ via the game Assassin’s Creed, Singer blends adopts this oversized historical personage to consider modern-day digital expressions of violence. Titled ‘Edgelord,’ the piece draws parallels between the destruction wrought on-line today and by extreme characters of the past. (On view through Oct 30th).
Two towering heads are positioned back-to-back in Raven Halfmoon’s powerful monumental stoneware sculpture ‘Bah’hatteno Nut’tehtsei (Red River Girl in Caddo).’ A standout in ‘Claypop,’ Jeffrey Deitch Gallery’s new group show of contemporary ceramic artwork curated by director Alia Williams, the work’s textured surface suggests rock carved from the landscape while Halfmoon’s spray-painted face-markings and signature on the side connects the piece to contemporary urban artistic expression. (On view in SoHo through Oct 30th.)
Alison Elizabeth Taylor creates new natural wonders at James Cohan Gallery with her latest solo show of 2-D artworks crafted in a blend of marquetry, paint and photographic media. Here, an affectionate couple in the Covid era have beautifully rendered hair – composed of various types of wood veneer – and a bandana that amazingly manages to be believable as both cloth and wood grain. (On view in Tribeca through Oct 23rd. Masks and social distancing required.)
When Philip Guston stopped painting in an abstract expressionist style and adopted a new, faux-naïve look in 1970, art world response was so negative that the artist relocated to Rome for the better part of the following year. ‘Pittore,’ part of a major show of Guston’s late work at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, expresses some of the anxiety that Guston must have felt as a painter, as well as his need to change to a representational style to engage in a more overt way with the politics of the day. Here, the artist lies awake in bed at night, his paint and brush beside him. Smoking, his eyes bloodshot, and with a clock rising behind him like a moon dominating a landscape, the pressure is palpable. (On view in Chelsea. Proof of vaccination, photo ID and masks are required).
Alice Neel’s desire to ‘bear witness’ to the humanity she encountered resulted in a range of portraits, from bohemian downtown artists to her Harlem neighbors to colorful characters seen on the street. ‘Conversation on a Bus’ from 1944 exaggerates the features of two chattering friends but at the same time lures us into their animated conversation and, in the eyes of the woman in the brown hat, hints at the pleasure of intimacy with a friend. Despite the Met’s recent extensive survey of Neel’s work, this selection of paintings from Neel’s early decades at David Zwirner Gallery feels fresh and full of revelation. (On view on 20th Street in Chelsea through Oct 16th.)
“Do not fit into the glass slipper like Cinderella did, shatter the glass ceiling,” reads the text (quoting Indian actor Priyanka Chopra?) covering Ghada Amer’s portrait of her friend, Elizabeth. Though Amer has changed her subjects from women in erotic magazines to friends, family and collaborators, she has not altered her habit of citing truisms from a feminist perspective. Her latest Chelsea show – her first at Marianne Boesky Gallery – features texts intended to build up women and their capabilities. (On view through Oct 23rd).
Often painted from memory and incisively capturing aspects of a sitter’s emotional life, Beauford Delaney’s portraits at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery feel strikingly immediate. Showcasing 25 portraits and 7 abstractions from the artist’s Greenwich Village days to his decades in Paris, the exhibition’s highlights demonstrate how (as the gallery puts it in a handout), “the physical description of the sitter is secondary to their psychological essence.” Here, in a portrait titled ‘Untitled (Young English Lieutenant),’ the tones of Delaney’s multi-colored background direct our eyes towards a vivid encounter with a young Englishman. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 13th. Masks and proof of vaccination are required.)
Whether they crown an ice cream Sunday or nestle between burger buns, late sculptor David Gilhooly’s recurring ceramic frogs humorously disrupt classic dishes. A member of the California-based Funk Ceramic Movement, Gilhooly embraced the grotesque while picturing foods that should be tempting. Here, a tower of bagels and donuts along with an about-to-topple coffee cup are delivered by a frog with skin resembling bread covered with poppy seeds. (On view in ‘Craft Front and Center’ at the Museum of Art and Design through Feb 13th.)
Martine Syms fans expect a stream-of-conscious outpouring of text and image (as in her recent diaristic book, ‘Shame Space’) and her latest solo at Bridget Donahue will not disappoint. Videos housed in custom, laser-cut cardboard boxes covered in fragments of commercial imagery or even inserted into a corner of a hanging dry cleaning bag run counter to typical sleek gallery video presentations. Positioned in front of one video wall, this chair titled ‘Bonnet Core’ sports frilly lace at the edges, abundant text and a high heeled pink boot next to one chair leg. Accompanied by a press release written by Alissa Bennett detailing enthusiastic engagement with an auction of Janet Jackson’s belongings earlier this year, the show speaks to our deeply personal yet shared experience of pop culture. (On view through Sept 25th on the Lower East Side).
Dogwood flowers are known for their ‘delicate yet tough appearance’ the Brooklyn Museum explains; Sugiura Yasuyoshi’s sculptural version of a dogwood bloom adds another contrast by presenting transient beauty in solid stoneware. Known for his ceramic sculptures of flowers, Yasuyoshi’s blooms may seem an unusual choice for ‘The Slipstream,’ the museum’s current show of work from the permanent collection that reflects on the turbulence of 2020. But the flower is often associated with rebirth, making it a symbol of hope. (On view through March 20, ’22. Masks and vaccination proof required.)
Prior to the pandemic, artists Alice Hope, Bastienne Schmidt and Toni Ross decided to make artwork in response to one object at the Met; improbably, they each focused on a navigational chart from the Marshall Islands. Known for creating abstract sculpture and installation composed of repeated objects, Hope’s contribution to the three artists’ current joint exhibition at Ricco/Maresca Gallery includes this accumulation of ball chains. A kind of counterpoint to navigating social space through distancing, theses crowded forms resemble natural fibers but are made from mass produced keychains. (On view in Chelsea through Sept 11th).
