Lucy Puls at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

Bay Area artist Lucy Puls has returned over the course of her decades-long career to the question of what society values and what it discards.  Her photos of bank-owned homes, printed on huge sheets of fabric-like paper and hung high on the walls of Nicelle Beauchene Gallery feature images of places once personally meaningful and now neglected. Weighed down by discarded household items, in this case a metal folding chair, images and objects speak to the passing of time, to change and moving on.  (On view in Tribeca through Jan 22nd).

Lucy Puls, Delapsus (Bedroom, Mirrored Closet Door, Mini Blinds, Movie Poster), pigment ink on paper, floor standing lamp, metal folding chair, DVD movie, stickers, reflective glass beads, binder, steel hardware, 130 h x 85 w x 84 d inches, 2021.

Hong Hao in ‘Turn of the Century: Photography in China’ at Chambers Fine Art

For over a decade, item by item, Beijing-based artist Hong Hao scanned his belongings for ‘My Things,’ a series of digitally constructed collages detailing his possessions, from the orderly spines of hundreds of books to more chaotic-seeming arrangements like this one that combine elements from different aspects of life.  The abundant objects in each image of the series speak to consumption, but Hong Hao explains that the act of scanning is meaningful as well as it ‘embodies a calm observation without any pre-judgement, a plain testimony, a relevant context for aesthetic exploration.’ (On view in ‘Turn of the Century:  Photography in China’ at Chambers Fine Art in Chelsea through August 31st.)

Hong Hao, My Things No. 3, scanned color photograph, edition 9/15, 2001-2002.