A cement truck crashes on an empty highway whose grey surface is mirrored in the air, the red color from the hood bleeds onto the roadway, forming a colorful abstraction, while a skinny kid in an astronaut’s helmet looks on. It could only be a painting by David Humphry, whose signature mix of abstraction and realism, saturated colors and colliding stories awaken possibilities for strange stories. (At Fredricks & Freiser through Jan 19th).
From Belgium’s colonial past to The Disney Company’s practices, Luc Tuymans’s past paintings have obliquely referenced the exercise of power and control. By contrast, his latest body of work presents fragments from his own life, including this ominous image of a zoo building and a jacket, which looks like a modernist abstraction plus or minus a body. (At David Zwirner Gallery, 519 West 19th Street through Feb 9th).
There’s more amazing artwork in New York than we can feature! Join Merrily on a small group gallery tour and be inspired by all that the city’s galleries have to offer. Please visit New York Art Tours’ website for a schedule and to book your spot.
For her last Chelsea solo show in the fall, Andrea Zittel’s carpet, garments, and wall hangings asked how many ways a rectangle can be manipulated to create art & design. In MoMA’s 53rd Street windows, her quasi-minimalism object/humanoid characters sport coverings that could be dress or artwork.
Monika Sosnowska’s ‘Fir Tree,’ a 40 foot tall steel sculpture currently located at the southeast entrance to Central Park is just a step beyond the park’s trees but is more in keeping with the solid, man-made structures surrounding the park. It belongs to neither world, however, and its lack of cheer and melted, post-disaster appearance lend it an ominous intrigue. (Through Feb 17th).