Tag: collage

Kaloki Nyamai at James Cohan Gallery

Nairobi-based artist Kaloki Nyamai’s New York solo debut at James Cohan Gallery introduces an artist who uses acrylic paint, stitching and photo transfer to create complex surfaces that suggest complicated histories.  This painting’s title, ‘The one who stole my heart,’ features a figure leaning back into a man whose outward-looking eyes connect with our gaze.  In contrast to the couple’s intimate, relaxed moment, partially visible figures in the background raise their arms in what could be celebration or protest.  Elsewhere, photo transfers contrast happy moments of communal activity with news articles about political unrest as Nyamai juxtaposes the lives of individuals with larger social happenings.  (On view through May 4th).

Kaloki Nyamai, Ula wosiee ngoo yakwa II (The one who stole my heart), mixed media, acrylic, collage stitching on canvas, 2024.
Kaloki Nyamai, (detail) Ula wosiee ngoo yakwa II (The one who stole my heart), mixed media, acrylic, collage stitching on canvas, 2024.

Vik Muniz at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

Known for constructing replica of famous artworks from unlikely materials (a well-known image of Jackson Pollock rendered in drizzled chocolate, junk from a landfill arranged to resemble a Picasso painting), Vik Muniz’s latest exhibition at Chelsea’s Sikkema Jenkins & Co includes new images of American icons constructed from shredded US currency.  Sourced from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the bills are arranged to picture individuals including Harriet Tubman (whose image is scheduled to appear on the $20 bill staring in 2030) and the Lakota chief American Horse as well as images seen as representing the country, like the American eagle and this bison.  Once symbolic of the vast and fertile North American landscape, informed contemporary viewers might now see bison as victims of mass slaughter by European settlers. (On view in Chelsea through April 27th).

Vik Muniz, American Bison, after John James Audubon, Legal Tender, archival inkjet print, 40 x 49 ½ , 2024.
Vik Muniz, (detail) American Bison, after John James Audubon, Legal Tender, archival inkjet print, 40 x 49 ½ , 2024.

 

 

Raymond Saunders at Andrew Kreps Gallery and David Zwirner Gallery

Thought-provoking and pleasurable as it was, Andrew Kreps Gallery’s 2022 exhibition of iconic west coast painter Raymond Saunders’ work turns out to have been just a taster for the artist’s tour de force three-gallery show now on view at Kreps and David Zwirner Gallery, curated by Ebony L. Haynes.  Known for poetic compilations of text, signage, drawing, and materials from everyday life, Saunders’ paintings – mostly from the 80s and 90s – show him making layered allusions to the act of art making.  In this untitled piece from the mid ‘90s, faint drips, frost-like paint marks and a huge white brushstroke bring to mind an artist’s stylistic options.  A monumental fruit at center seems to nod to still life tradition while a page from a text on how to build a flat human figure drawing model, positioned near a text giving instruction on how to play a game, slyly suggests a calculation of artistic success.  (On view through April 5th/6th).

Raymond Saunders, Untitled, acrylic, spray paint, chalk, collage, and mixed media on canvas, 23 ¼ x 20 5/8 inches, 1995.

Luciana Pinchiero at Praxis Gallery

The striking figures of three life-sized Greek goddesses, accompanied by the silhouettes of three women adopting positions from a how-to book about drawing the nude figure pose dramatically at the center of Luciana Pinchiero’s first NY solo at Praxis Gallery in Chelsea.  Crafted from flat pieces of material, these classic and current representations of women literally lack dimensionality.  Inspired by ancient stories of idealized women from Pygmalion’s sculpture-turned-live-woman to the Venus de Capua who poses as if holding up a mirror, Pinchiero’s sculpture and her paper collages juxtapose imagery from different eras to question how much representation of women has actually changed over time.  (On view in Chelsea through March 9th).

Luciana Pinchiero, installation view of Bad Posture at Praxis International Art, Jan ’24.

Rammellzee in ‘Wild Style’ at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery

Forty years after the release of the independent film ‘Wild Style,’ a chronicle of the early days of New York hip hop culture, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery celebrates with a star-studded exhibition of writing, painting and sculpture that captures the creativity and energy of emerging urban youth cultures in the late 70s and early 80s.  Rammellzee’s sculpture Gasholear, surrounded by a cloud of spacecraft capable of producing lettering, is an astounding sight at the center of the main gallery.  Grasping a combination guitar/double halberd, this futuristic character is a machine/robot/human force to reckon with. (On view in SoHo through Jan 13th).

Rammellzee, The Gasholear (THE RAMM:ELLl:ZEE), c. 1987-1998, 180 pound exoskeleton of the RAMM:ELLl:ZEE, found objects, wireless sound system, paint and resin), dimensions variable.