Paris-based artist Kapwani Kiwanga’s fifth floor exhibition ‘Off-Grid’ at the New Museum makes powerful use of the gallery’s high ceilings with two large-scale installations employing evocative materials. Lengths of light-colored sisal hang in a curving grid to create what the museum calls a ‘warm cocoon,’ though with the piece, Kiwanga also references the freighted history of sisal in Tanzania, from colonial introduction to contemporary export. The show’s other piece, a two-part combination of geometric mirrors and hanging beads, features surfaces spray coated with aluminum meticulously harvested from floodlight reflectors used by urban police forces. The metallic surface reflects the gallery’s natural light, vs the light of nighttime surveillance. (On view on the Lower East Side through Sept 5th).
Kapwani Kiwanga, installation view of ‘Off-Grid’ at the New Museum, July 2022.
Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education.
For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine.
Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)
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