Simone Leigh continues to merge bodies and architecture in provocative ways in her debut at Luhring Augustine in Chelsea. Highlights include the raffia-skirted figure on the left, a maternal character elevated by her tall, tent-like garment and commanding respect with her hands-on-hips pose. Natural materials contrast the delicate porcelain flowers clustered in a wreath around her face, suggesting a woman equally at ease with the ready-made and refined. (On view through Oct 20th).
Ceramics get comic and weird in The Hole NYC’s sprawling exhibition of art made from clay. Theo A. Rosenblum’s ‘King Carrot’ grins enthusiastically in the main gallery, setting the tone for a show that includes Alice Mackler’s amorphous female figures, a delinquent Bart Simpson portrait by FriendsWithYou and much, much more. (On view on the Lower East Side through May 6th).
Bosco Sodi’s hand-formed ceramic cubes at Paul Kasmin Gallery are new but appear weathered, evoking mankind’s ancient and ongoing relationship with clay. Behind, a mixed media painting continues Sodi’s signature practice of mixing pigment, sawdust, glue and other materials into an explosive, vividly colored abstraction. (On view at Paul Kasmin Gallery through Jan 6th).
Like models strutting down a catwalk, a row of abstracted ceramic figures by nonagenarian LA artist John Mason exude confidence and style. Recalling Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, Brancusi’s sculpture and Lygia Clark’s bichos they combine Cubist form, Futurist dynamism with a suggestion of moveability often alien to ceramics. (On view at Albertz Benda Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 13th).
Young LA-based sculptor Brian Rochefort takes inspiration from nature, modeling his ceramic vessels after a giant underwater sinkhole off the coast of Belize and a series of water-flooded caves in tropical climes among other natural wonders. Building up organic shapes from mud and clay, Rochefort covers their surfaces with ceramic, glass and glaze to create a wonder-inspiring experience of his own. (On view at Van Doren Waxter on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd).
