Robin F. Williams, Speak of the Devil at PPOW

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

Women have been pictured as merging with the natural world throughout art history, but not quite in the subversive and sometimes sinister way that Robin F. Williams pictures the spritely athletes that populate her latest paintings at PPOW Gallery.  Using oil, airbrush, poured paint, marbling and staining, Williams creates bodies that both compliment and stand out from their environments.  Here, in a piece titled ‘Speak of the Devil,’ two characters with glowing, inhuman eyes reveal hands with flattened fingertips that match the tone of nearby leaves suggesting intriguing hybrid identities.  (On view in Tribeca through Nov 13th.  Masks required.)

Robin F. Williams, Speak of the Devil, acrylic on canvas, 57 x 57 inches, 2021.

John Chamberlain at Gagosian Gallery

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

At over nine feet tall and titled TAMBOURINEFRAPPE, this 2010 sculpture by John Chamberlain at Gagosian Gallery pulses with the percussive rhythms and energy.  Vertical lengths of steel placed parallel to each other create a base like a fluted classical column or pleated dress while diagonal strips of metal raise the eye up to a crown of shiny steel decorated with colorful curving lines.  Featuring work from the ‘50s to the ‘00s, this exhibition demonstrates Chamberlain’s expressive manipulation of his material. (On view on 21st Street in Chelsea through Dec 11th.  Masks and vaccination proof required).

John Chamberlain, TAMBOURINEFRAPPE, painted and chrome-plated steel, 116 ¾ x 90 x 86 ½ inches, 2010.

Stefana McClure in ‘Hand in Hand’ at Bienvenu Steinberg & Partner

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Irish artist Stefana McClure’s ‘Protest Stones’ are a clever twist to the theme of ‘Hand in Hand,’ a group exhibition at gallerist Josee Beinvenu’s and curator, advisor and publisher Michael Steinberg’s new Tribeca gallery, Bienvenu Steinberg & Partner.  Featuring artwork that relates in some way to the human hand, the show brings together work by over 30 artists in a variety of media.  Alluding the violence in Northern Ireland during her upbringing, McClure’s stones are for throwing.  Covered in battered text from American poet Adrienne Rich’s text ‘What Kind of Times Are These,’ the words question how we treat each other and who is paying attention.  (On view through Oct 30th).

Stefana McClure, Protest Stones: What Kind of Times Are These: a poem by Adrienne Rich, poetry-wrapped stones, waxed twine, cut nail, 18h x 8w x 4d inches, 2021.

Ruby Sky Stiler, Blue Bathers at Nicelle Beauchene

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

Portraiture is about decoding the identity of a sitter and the relationship between sitter and artist.  Ruby Sky Stiler’s figure group at the entrance to her current solo show at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery flummoxes familiar, easy-to-read relationships as it positions a petite, female artist as the active member of this assembly.  Pared down to silhouettes of spare geometric forms, including a single circular shape that identifies the artist as a woman, the nude figures recall yet crucially differ from Cezanne’s, Renoir’s or Matisse’s bathers and myriad scenes of male artists in their studios with nude female subjects.  (On view in Tribeca through Oct 30th.  Masks required.)

Ruby Sky Stiler, Blue Bathers, Baltic birch plywood, paint and hardware, 78 x 155 x 3 inches, 2021.

Ernie Barnes at 55 Walker

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

An artist from his childhood and an NFL player for five years in the early 60s, late painter Ernie Barnes merged his talents in the visual arts and sports to create the powerful paintings now on view at 55 Walker in Tribeca.  Barnes saw body language and movement on the field in visual terms, using time outs to sketch the game’s lines and shapes on paper.  Here, three towering figures are no less dynamic for standing still; crowding together with oversized elbows and hands, they convey the danger of contact sports.  (On view in Tribeca through Oct 30th.  Masks required).

Ernie Barnes, Blood Conference aka Three Red Linemen, acrylic on canvas, 1966.

Bertozzi & Casoni at Sperone Westwater

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Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s ‘Four Seasons’ series from 1563 continues to inspire artists and capture the imagination as it displays the abundance of the seasons.  In this polychrome ceramic sculpture at Sperone Westwater on the Lower East Side, Italian sculptors Bertozzi & Casoni recreate Spring in vibrant color, manifesting a creature that represents the abundance and promise of new life.  (On view through Oct 30th.  Masks required.)

Bertozzi & Casoni, Primavera, polychrome ceramic, 25 ½ x 26 x 14 ½ inches, 2021.

Sarah Cain at Broadway

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Sarah Cain pushes the boundaries of what painting can be, literally extending beyond the canvas onto gallery floors and walls and adopting unexpected materials like sequined backpacks and an easy chair.  Her current solo show at Broadway in Tribeca features traditional, framed 2-D artworks but also this installation, a combination of expressionist and hard-edge painting that invites the audience to step in and feel the color.  (On view through Oct 16th).

Sarah Cain, installation view at Broadway Gallery, Oct 21 featuring (back wall) Jamillah, acrylic, color copies, uv seal, and backpack on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, 2021 and (floor) Untitled (NYC), acrylic on floor, 237.5 x 262 inches, 2021.

Anthony Cudahy at Hales Gallery

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Medicinal or deadly depending on its use, Antiaris toxicaria (aka the Anti-bausor tree) is the missing presence in this painting by Brooklyn-based painter Anthony Cudahy at Hales Gallery.  Partly inspired by an antique woodcut featuring two men lying on the ground under the fruit-bearing tree, here it’s the artist and his husband who lie prone.  But while it’s uncertain if the characters in the original woodcut are alive, Cudahy and partner appear to enjoy a peaceful sleep, occupying a subconscious realm complicated by the spider and webs in the upper register.  Alluding to Kate Bush’s ‘Coral Room,’ a song featuring a web-spinning ‘spider of time,’ the references place the couple in a poetic realm of dreams and memory.  (On view through Oct 30th in Chelsea.  Masks required).

Anthony Cudahy, Anti-bausor tree (protected sleepers, wolf’s-bane and spider around), Oil on canvas, 96 x 72 in, 2021.

Gauri Gill at James Cohan Gallery

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Since 2015, New Delhi-based artist Gauri Gill has worked with indigenous communities and craftsmen in the Indian state of Maharashtra to create arresting photographs of masked people in everyday situations.  In recent work at James Cohan Gallery’s new Tribeca location, Gill continues to be inspired by the masks worn in annual, entire-community performances of religious rituals but has commissioned secular versions that deviate from the normal look and use of such masks.  Collaborating with the individuals in the photos, Gill devises uncanny scenarios that momentarily bridge fictional and real worlds.   (On view at 52 Walker, 2nd floor through Nov 13th.  Masks required.)

Gauri Gill, detail of Untitled (64) from Acts of Appearance, archival pigment print, 60 x 40 inches, 2015 – ongoing.

Tyler Mitchell at Jack Shainman Gallery

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Towering over visitors to Jack Shainman Gallery, four young women in clothes from JW Anderson’s autumn/winter 2019 campaign, shot by Tyler Mitchell, look otherworldly as they almost hover above the ground in commanding fashion statements.  Referred to by the gallery as an ‘Edenic exploration of…a Black utopia in the everyday,’ Mitchell’s work complicates his subjects as he literally elevates them.  “I’m caught between wanting to let the mind imagine what that idea meant and spelling it out,” the photographer told i-D.  “I think I’ll do the former.”

Tyler Mitchell, 2021 installation view at Jack Shainman Gallery of ‘Untitled (Stilts II),’ 2,134 ¾ x 166 7/8 inches, wall vinyl, 2019.

Kay Rosen, Queue Up at Sikkema Jenkins

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‘Stay Away’ reads an enormous latex sign on the wall of Sikkema Jenkins and Co in Chelsea, not warning visitors away but welcoming them to Kay Rosen’s new show of text-based artwork.  Seeing words as found material, Rosen repeats word fragments (such as the ‘ay in ‘stay’ and ‘away’) in a play on language that highlights unnoticed connections.  Here, ‘Queue Up’ speaks to the experiences of lining up during the pandemic.  (On view through Oct 16th.  Masks required).

Kay Rosen, Queue Up, latex on wall, installation dimensions variable, 2020 – 21.

Channing Hansen at Susan Inglett Gallery

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‘60s performance art gets a radical update in LA-based artist Channing Hansen’s algorithm-derived hand-knit constructions at Susan Inglett Gallery.  Conceived of as instructions or ‘scores,’ each artwork in his latest solo show is a kind of event; the 2-D pieces are shaped by an algorithm trained to produce ‘Channing Hansen artworks,’ based on the characteristics of his previous work.  (On view in Chelsea through Oct 16th. Masks required).

Channing Hansen, Tangible Engine, California Variegated Mutant (Myth), California Variegated Mutant (Rhea), California Variegated Mutant (Sriracha), California Variegated Mutant (Talia), Jersey Wooly (Miss Maple), Romeldale (January), Romeldale (Qassiopeia), Romedale (Saffron), Romedale (Shelby), and Teeswater (F2019-0339) fibers; Tussah silk, and Mulberry silk; holographic polymers, and photo-luminescent recycled polyester fibers; Ingeo corn, and pineapple fibers; Sequoioideae Redwood, 50 x 45 in., 2020.