Tag: barbara gladstone gallery

Ugo Rondinone at Barbara Gladstone Gallery

Swiss conceptual artist Ugo Rondinone has converted Barbara Gladstone’s gallery into an elegant cave featuring plaster-covered walls and stacked stone anthropomorphs.  Rondinone channels his own family’s past as cave dwellers to create this clan of simple bluestone characters whose titles (‘glad,’ ‘blessed,’ ‘shocked’) add to their surprising charm.  (At Barbara Gladstone Gallery’s 21st Street Chelsea space through July 3rd.  See their larger cousins at Rockefeller Center through July 4th).

Ugo Rondinone, ‘soul,’ installation view at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, May 2013.

Marisa Merz at Barbara Gladstone Gallery

“When the eyes are shut, the eyes are extraordinarily open,” said iconic Italian Arte Povera artist Marisa Merz in 1974.  Since the 80s, she’s made loosely formed sculptures of heads like this duo, whose gold covered eyes speak to a vision beyond the purely literal.  (At Chelsea’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery through May 18th).  

Marisa Merz, Untitled, two painted unfired heads and iron tripod, 1994.

Miroslaw Balka at Barbara Gladstone Gallery

You have to shout to be heard above the roar of dyed-black water pouring into vast steel containers in Polish artist Miroslaw Balka’s installation at Barbara Gladstone Gallery.  Whether it conjures environmental destruction (with the oil-like appearance of the water) or suggests larger industrial processes, the installation, titled ‘The Order of Things,’ generates unease.  (At Barbara Gladstone’s 21st Street location in Chelsea through March 30th).  

Miroslaw Balka, 2 x (350 x 300 x 300), 36 x 36 x 29/The Order of Things, steel, water, pumps, plastic, rubber, water, food coloring and wood, 2013.

Alighiero Boetti at Barbara Gladstone Gallery

Italian artist Alighiero Boetti proved that conceptual art didn’t have to be visually dull with his Arazzi works – embroidered panels made by Afghan craftswomen in the 80s and 90s featuring Italian and Farsi text from poetry or sayings culled from around the world or authored by the artist.  (At Chelsea’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery through March 23rd).  

Alighiero Boetti, installation view of ‘La Forza del Centro,’ at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Feb 2013.

Huang Yong Ping at Barbara Gladstone Gallery

Huang Yong Ping, 'Circus,' wood, bamboo, taxidermy animals, resin, steel, cord and cloth, 2012.
Huang Yong Ping, ‘Circus,’ wood, bamboo, taxidermy animals, resin, steel, cord and cloth, 2012.

Headless animals wander in and out of a bamboo cage-like structure while a giant deity collapses into pieces in Chinese-French artist Huang Yong Ping’s latest installation at Barbara Gladstone’s 21st Street gallery.  The piece feels a little too eerie and apocalyptic for its cynical title, ‘Circus.’ (through Jan 19th.)