RaMell Ross & William Christenberry at Pace Gallery

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After moving to Hale County, Alabama several years ago, writer, filmmaker, photographer and professor RaMell Ross has become known for creating contemplative portraits of the area’s Black residents in film and photography.  A selection of these images are a highlight of Pace Gallery’s dual show (curated by Ross) of Ross’s own work alongside artwork by the late photographer William Christenberry.  In this show, Ross’ focus is on place as much as people; inspired by Christenberry’s use of red-toned Alabama earth, Ross employs the material in flag boxes and picture frames and photographs dirt manipulated by man and machine.  Titled ‘Typeface,’ this piece suggests that earth can be used as a language or means of communication as it is developed to tell a new story.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 25th).

RaMell Ross, Typeface, pigment print mounted to Dibond, 59 x 73 ¾, 2021.

Renata Bonfanti at Kaufman Repetto

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Experimentation and a quest for the new has been at the heart of Italian textile designer Renata Bonfanti’s work since she traveled from her native Italy to complete her studies in Olso in the early 50s.  A selection of woven work from 1968 – 1990, now on view at Kaufmann Repetto in Tribeca, foregrounds Bonfanti’s inventive techniques and varied geometries, which she explains are always inspired by the built environment.  (On view through Feb 18th).

Renata Bonfanti, Kilim 3 (from the Bengala series), linen, wool, and meraklon, 89 x 71.5 inches, 1982.

Ryan Sullivan at 125 Newbury

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Ryan Sullivan’s abstractions invite viewers on a process of discovery in new work at 125 Newbury; what appear to be relatively straightforward non-representational paintings are in fact complicated images created by both chance and forethought.  Sullivan’s working technique is key.  Using pigment suspended in industrial grade resin, the artist makes the paintings ‘backward,’ by laying down the marks that will be seen on the surface, then continuing to add on the background layers, eventually moving the piece from its frame once set.  As much sculpture as painting, the untitled pieces foreground our own exploration of how to interpret what we’re encountering in each dynamic and complex composition.  (On view in Tribeca through Jan 28th).

Ryan Sullivan, Untitled, cast urethane resin, fiberglass, epoxy, 88 ¾ x 79 ¾ inches, 2022.

Ana Pellicer in ‘Shades of Daphne’ at Kasmin Gallery

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Titled ‘Shades of Daphne,’ Kasmin Gallery’s current group exhibition celebrates ‘resistance and revolt’ of figures who’ve changed forms, a la Daphne of Greek mythology, who morphed into a tree before being accosted by Apollo.  Mexican artist Ana Pellicer’s ‘Purepecha Rattlesnake,’ a giant chain and pendant, is intended as jewelry for the Statue of Liberty, a conceptual aspect of  the work that changes our idea of the statue’s identity.  Crafted using 500-year-old copperworking techniques from Michoacan, Mexico, Pellicer suggests that Lady Liberty has sophisticated tastes.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 22nd).

Ana Pellicer, Purepecha Rattlesnake, woven copper chain with cast copper pendant, 185 x 25 ¼ x 7 7/8 inches, 1995.

Robin Rhode, Die Strandloper – Man at Lehmann Maupin

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A man with skin composed of overlapping shells arranges his hands on a wall in Lehmann Maupin Gallery’s front room as if to peer into the vibrantly colored picture before him – a mural depicting a block of flats.  ‘Die Strandloper – Man’ or ‘The Beachwalker – Man,’ an installation by South African artist Robin Rhode, is titled after a term used to refer to one of South Africa’s oldest people groups, the Khoisan, who have lived along southwest Africa’s coasts and whose lifestyles have been under threat for centuries by European settlement and now climate change.  Resembling the streamlined forms of hotels from the game Monopoly, the structures in their non-natural colors are a sharp contrast to the figures’ close physical relationship with the natural world. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 11th).

Robin Rhode, Die Strandloper – Man (The Beachwalker – Man) and Die Strandloper – Boy (The Beachwalker – Boy), both are glass fiber reinforced plastic and shells, ’22 and Block of Flats (Wall Painting), acrylic paint, dimensions variable, ‘23

Victoria Sambunaris Photographs at Yancey Richardson

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Two tiny backpackers could almost go unnoticed in the bottom center of this photograph by Victoria Sambunaris, on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery, if Sambunaris had not framed them so carefully on the curving pathway of Death Valley National Park from her vantage point above.  Though dwarfed by natural surrounds, human presence is unmissable in the artist’s new work focusing on the California desert.  Expecting to encounter these landscapes as wastelands, Sambunaris instead witnessed all manner of human activity from camping caravans to dune buggy riding, made all the more attractive during the pandemic, when she traveled to make this body of work. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 18th).

Victoria Sambunaris, Untitled, (Zabriskie Point), Death Valley National Park, California, 2021. Chromogenic print, 39 x 55 inches.

David Hockney, iPad Paintings at Pace

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Cloudy skies do little to dampen the luminosity of this iPad drawing by David Hockney, now on view in a solo show of the artist’s new work at Pace Gallery.  Created with the help of six iPads, this garden landscape scene is both disjointed – two different elevations combine at center, rain cloud patterns repeat – and harmonious thanks to continuous views of the flat, yellow-toned foreground.  Made lively by shifting clouds and rings spreading on the water, the scene’s combination of perspectives and vivid colors turns an otherwise mundane garden scene into a delight for the senses.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 25th).

David Hockney, 10th – 22nd June 2021, Water Lilies in the Pond with Pots of Flowers, six iPad paintings comprising a single work, printed on two sheets of paper, mounted on Dibond, 82 ½ x 78 ½ inches, 2021.

Simone Leigh at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Simone Leigh’s monumental ‘Large Jug’ in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition ‘Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina’ draws on the historic and influential pottery produced by enslaved Africans in Old Edgefield prior to the Civil War.  The Met’s current show includes vessels used for food preparation and storage as well as a selection of face jugs, pottery vessels bearing human likenesses and having ritual significance.  In Leigh’s version, facial features have been replaced by large cowrie shells that hint at eyes or mouths but also point to the past use of the shells as currency.  (On view through Feb 5th, 2023).

Simone Leigh, Large Jug, glazed stoneware, 62 1/2 × 40 3/4 × 45 ¾,’21 – 22.

Wael Shawky, Isles of the Blessed XII at Lisson Gallery

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Egyptian artist Wael Shawky once said that “…art should be running after our own ignorance…” explaining that his artistic project arises from learning, particularly about how history has been constructed.  In ‘Isle of the Blessed,’ the Egyptian artist’s current solo show at Lisson Gallery, Shawky presents a single-channel film and accompanying paintings that consider Greek mythology’s explanation of place names (e.g. Europa) as a way of deriving fact from fiction.  Mysterious, cartoonish and a little haunting, paintings such as this one, ‘Isles of the Blessed XII,’ explore the boundaries between the fantastical and the real.  (On view in Chelsea through Jan 14th).

Wael Shawky, Isles of the Blessed XII, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 1/10 x 3/5 inches, 2022.

Bethany Collins in ‘Visual Record: The Materiality of Sound in Print’

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Bethany Collins’ artwork is about language, specifically its potential to communicate or to completely fail to do so.  In the Print Center’s engaging fall/winter group exhibition ‘Visual Record,’ Collins presents ‘America:  A Hymnal,’ a book featuring one hundred songs set to the tune of ‘My Country Tis of Thee.’  Since the 18th century, new lyrics have been written for this song in support of such divergent causes as temperance, suffrage, abolition, and the Confederacy.  In Collins’ book, printed lyrics run below notes that have been burnt away by laser cutting, demonstrating that the classic tune has itself become a battleground for various ideologies.  (On view through Jan 21st).

Bethany Collins, America: A Hymnal, book with 100 laser cut leaves, 6 x 9 x 1 in, 2017.
Bethany Collins, America: A Hymnal, book with 100 laser cut leaves, 6 x 9 x 1 in, 2017.

 

 

 

Rico Gatson at Miles McEnery Gallery

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Like two huge eyes or dual portals into the unknown, Rico Gatson’s ‘Untitled (Double Consciousness)’ is dominated by two intersecting sets of concentric circles, a repeated motif in his current show of painting titled ‘Spectral Visions’ at Miles McEnery Gallery.  The work’s title suggests a simultaneous looking outward and inward; its vibrant color indicating a state of heightened awareness.  Inspired by mathematician Ron Eglash’s study of fractal forms found in African patterns and spiritual expressions in the work of artists like Hilma af Klint and Emma Kunz, Gatson harnesses geometry to express kinds of order that exist beyond the conscious realm. (On view through Jan 28th).

Rico Gatson, Untitled (Double Consciousness), acrylic paint and glitter on wood, 36 x 48 inches, 2022.

Deborah Butterfield at Marlborough Gallery

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Though told as a student that horses weren’t ‘serious’ subjects for contemporary art, Deborah Butterfield persevered to become renowned for sensitive and powerful sculptures of horses created in materials from salvaged metal to sea plastics.  Best-known are her bronze pieces that still appear to be made of the wood from which they were cast, an enticing illusion.  In a show of new work at Chelsea’s Marlborough Gallery, Butterfield sourced wood from near her home/working horse ranch in Montana and property in Hawaii to create towering horses like this one titled ‘Sweetgrass,’ which, though its assembled form is light like a sketch created in wood, has a powerful presence in keeping with its weighty bronze manufacture.  (On view through Jan 14th).

Deborah Butterfield, Sweetgrass, cast bronze, unique, 90 x 108 x 33 inches, 2021 – 22.

Billy Childish, Tree – Seattle at Lehmann Maupin Gallery

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Though Billy Childish is known for his stunningly prolific production of punk and garage albums, volumes of poetry and thousands of paintings, his latest show of canvases at Lehmann Maupin Gallery exudes tranquility.  Here, a lone shore pine dominates the canvas, reaching out to the blue and white strata of sky with its branches.  In other paintings, solitary figures navigate canoes or swim in frigid-looking waters, suggesting a journey that must be undertaken alone.  (On view in Chelsea through Jan 7th).

Billy Childish, tree – seattle, oil and charcoal on linen, 96 x 72 x 2 inches, 2022.