Tag: garth greenan

Esteban Cabeza de Baca at Garth Greenan Gallery

Queens-based artist Esteban Cabeza de Baca’s parents met while working as union organizers for United Farmworkers founders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta; in Cabeza de Baca’s colorful narrative paintings at Garth Greenan Gallery in Chelsea, he pays homage to both family and labor history.  Here in ‘Huelga,’ or ‘Strike,’ Chavez and Huerta walk down a row of grapes, a reference to a nation-wide boycott of the fruit led by the duo as they fought for fair wages and decent working conditions for farm workers.  (On view through July 21st).

Esteban Cabeza de Baca, Huelga, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 2023.

Cannupa Hanska Luger at Garth Greenan Gallery

Only a year and a half ago, Cannupa Hanska Luger’s standout show at Garth Greenan Gallery presented costumes and video that posited Native American practices of adaptability in the environment as a model in a world increasingly effected by climate change.  Luger’s back again already with a strong new body of work that reminds viewers of Native American ingenuity via a series of paintings in the form of large-scale tipis, which the gallery calls ‘spaces of resistance.’  Decorated with graphics reminiscent of art painted on WWII airplanes – large eyes and a set of shark teeth – the tipis are ironically not tools to alter or possess the land but instead to remain mobile within it.  (On view through Feb 25th).

Cannupa Hanska Luger, Blood Lust, acrylic on canvas and mixed media, 109 x 190 inches, 2022.

Gladys Nilsson at Garth Greenan Gallery

Twenty-six vividly colored new watercolors by Gladys Nilsson lining the walls of Garth Greenan Gallery are an intense dose of visual pleasure and irreverent fun.  In this piece titled ‘Wheee,’ Nilsson tones down her focus on the body parts we tend to keep private (with the exception of a prominent derrière), instead featuring a large figure in jester-like clothes who dangles from a fleshy-pink tree branch. From on high, the individual above makes eye contact with a similarly boneless-looking character below, each as curious about each other as they are to us.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 17th).

Wheee, watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper, 30 x 22 ¾ inches, 2021.

Brad Kahlhamer at Garth Greenan Gallery

Human or animal, alive, dead or in spirit form, the most haunting and memorable aspect of Brad Kahlhamer’s current solo show at Garth Greenan Gallery are the many faces that populate his graphically strong paintings.  In this untitled canvas, several heads have hair that extends down and out like roots, joining stylized figures and a modified dream catcher to create connections across space and between characters.  This half-human, half raptor individual appears tranquil but the figures around her suggest intense inner life.  (On view in Chelsea through June 18th).

Brad Kahlhamer, detail from Untitled, mixed media on canvas, 104 ¾ x 138 inches.
Brad Kahlhamer, Untitled, mixed media on canvas, 104 ¾ x 138 inches.

Al Loving at Garth Greenan Gallery

Renowned in the ‘60s for his hard-edge abstraction, Al Loving introduced softer geometries in textile works from the ‘70s, like this dynamic assemblage now on view at Garth Greenan Gallery in Chelsea.  Inspired by African American quilting tradition and Romare Bearden’s collage, Loving created works of ripped, braided and dyed fabric, which the gallery likens to pennants, streamers, tattered flags and garments.  In this piece, a colorful pattern spreads from the top right, traveling down and across a dark surface creating a feeling of work in progress and complex depth. (On view in Chelsea through May 7th.)

Al Loving, Untitled, mixed media on canvas, 83 x 106 inches, 1975.