Tag: gallery

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.

Lindsay Adams in ‘Arcadia and Elsewhere’ at James Cohan Gallery

Spread over James Cohan Gallery’s three spaces, the immensely enjoyable group exhibition ‘Arcadia and Elsewhere’ features paintings of nature from the realist to the abstract, the mundane to the sublime.  Many pieces portray idyllic natural landscapes, other scenes get more complicated, especially when humans or their traces appear. Here, Lindsay Adams’ Lonely Fire excites feeling through the fiery tones of the background and the lush colors of individual flowers that stand apart from each other while contributing to a whole that speaks to the beauty of variety. (On view through Feb 10th).

Lindsay Adams, Lonely Fire, oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches, 2023.

John O’Connor at Pierogi Gallery

John O’Connor’s enticingly colorful drawings at Pierogi Gallery’s Chelsea popup take viewers down the rabbit hole into surreal scenarios told with endlessly inventive typography and icons.  Here, the eye-grabbing ‘Car Crash’ pictures a fictional multi-car pileup in which cars of lesser value crash into increasingly more expensive vehicles, starting with a Honda Civic and reaching a Lotus and continuing with fictional cars (Dukes of Hazzard, Flintstones).  O’Connor explains that the spiraling drawing represents the transfer of kinetic energy from car to car, a stand-in for a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.  At the center of this dynamic, pulsing vortex is a worm hole, ready to transport cars, viewers and all into another place and time. (On view at 524 West 19th Street through Feb 10th).

John O’Connor, Car Crash, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 85 x 69.75 inches, 2023.

El Anatsui, Garnett Puett and Lyne Lapoint in ‘Echoes of Circumstance’ at Jack Shainman Gallery

Material generates form in ‘Echoes of Circumstance,’ a visually rich group exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery of work by three artists (El Anatsui, Garnett Puett and Lyne LaPointe) whose work is driven by the non-traditional art materials they employ.  Hawaii-based 4th generation beekeeper Puett partners with bees who create honeycombs around steel structures, resulting in surreal forms.  Also using a (handmade) beehive, Canadian artist Lyne LaPointe’s ‘The Song of the Queen Virgin’ presents a mystical figure shrouded in fabric.  Internationally renowned Ghanaian artist El Anatsui draws inspiration from Kente cloth to make patterned, wall-mounted textiles of aluminum liquor bottle caps stitched together by copper wire.  (On view in Chelsea through March 2nd.)

Garnett Puett, (foreground) Forged Dance; Entropic Subconscious Matris (3), wax, forged steel, 40 ½ x 20 x 20 inches, 2019. … El Anatsui, (background) Skin of Earth, found aluminum and copper wire, 180 x 192 inches, 2006.
Lyne LaPointe, The Song of the Queen Virgin, antique handmade beehive, cotton mesh, ink, paper and varnish on linen in an artist frame, 83 x 44 ½ x 2 ¼ inches, 2022-23.

 

Pipilotti Rist at Hauser & Wirth Gallery and Luhring Augustine Gallery

Iconic Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist is acutely attuned to the comfort of her audiences.  Visitors to her atrium-filling video installation at MoMA in 2008 might have lounged on a low couch while another level of relaxation – beds – awaited at the artist’s New Museum retrospective in 2016.  Rist’s current show at Hauser & Wirth Gallery in Chelsea offers both a bed and assorted furniture, enticing the public into the artwork itself to be bathed in constantly morphing patterns and images.  Rist (seen in this photo conversing with visitors) conceived of Hauser & Wirth’s back gallery space as a living room; her simultaneous show at Luhring Augustine Gallery is a projection-filled back yard.  (On view at Hauser & Wirth through Jan 13th and at Luhring Augustine through Feb 3rd).

Pipilotti Rist, (installation view) Welling Color Island West, video installation with projector skirt, projection on carpet, plants and furniture, silent, unique, dimensions variable, 2023.