Barbara Hepworth’s pierced organic abstractions, Henry Moore’s curvilinear reclining figures and the undulating forms of Chinese scholar stones come to mind when viewing Sarah Crowner’s attractive new bronze sculptures at Luhring Augustine Gallery’s Tribeca space. Reflecting Crowner’s vibrant paintings, which have fittingly vivid titles like ‘Red Oranges Over Orange with Curve,’ or ‘Violets Over Reds,’ the sculptures are enhanced by and enhance their environment. (On view through May 4th).
To a soundtrack featuring readings from Charles Baudelaire’s ‘Flowers of Evil,’ Apollinaria Broche’s ceramic and bronze flowers strike gangly poses in her solo show at Marianne Boesky Gallery, exuding both wonky charm and maleficence. Like an insect to nectar, viewers are drawn into the center of colorful ceramic flowers that feature tiny bronze sculptures – a winged horse, a contented-looking cat – of cavorting magical creatures. More ominous figures – snakes, flies – appear as well, suggesting that the flowers inhabit a garden less welcoming than it first appears. In this detail image of ‘I hid my tracks Spit out all my hair,’ skulls and daggers mingle with the seeds of this lush blossoming plant, summoning a specter of death and violence where it might least be expected. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 24th.)
When female octopi guard their eggs, they stop feeding themselves, dying as their babies mature. Multimedia artist Laure Prouvost’s latest solo show at Lisson Gallery celebrates this selfless participation in the cycle of life and connects it with human nurturing via combined imagery of human breasts and octopus arms. Huge cephalopod limbs emerge from a layer of sand scattered on the floor, inviting gallery visitors into a tactile underfoot experience while observing suction cups that occasionally resemble breasts or in one case, end in a breast-shaped lamp. Prouvost’s surreal mix of animal and human bodies foregrounds the importance of touch, feeling and sensuous enjoyment. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 14th).
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).
In Greek mythology, Narcissus broke hearts and in turn had his own heart broken by falling in love with his reflection in a pool of water. Related imagery appears throughout Mexico City-based duo ASMA’s current show at Deli Gallery in Tribeca, along with a sculpture of the flower that Narcissus was said to have turned into upon his death. Working in a variety of materials including platinum silicon and cast bronze, the artists ponder this posthumous transformative act, considering life between fixed states. Here, a wall-mounted bronze bust of a male torso skews upward and to the side, as if being tugged out of conventional space and time. (On view through Feb 19th).
