Tag: installation

Urs Fischer at Gagosian Gallery

Van Gogh’s flower paintings were intended to be life affirming, representing joy, appreciation of nature and mankind’s love of the divine.  In this installation view of Urs Fischer’s piece ‘Denominator’ at Gagosian Gallery, a replica sunflower painting is overlaid with a projection of talking heads sourced from the internet, a juxtaposition geared to suggest that our devotion has shifted to the virtual realm.  The painting is part of a recreation of a room in London’s National Gallery, the added heads commenting on how traditional ways of spreading culture have shifted to individuals using on-line platforms. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 15th).

Urs Fischer, Denominator, database, algorithms, and LED cube, 141 ¾ x 141 ¾ x 141 ¾ inches, 2020-22.

Kapwani Kiwanga at the New Museum

Paris-based artist Kapwani Kiwanga’s fifth floor exhibition ‘Off-Grid’ at the New Museum makes powerful use of the gallery’s high ceilings with two large-scale installations employing evocative materials.  Lengths of light-colored sisal hang in a curving grid to create what the museum calls a ‘warm cocoon,’ though with the piece, Kiwanga also references the freighted history of sisal in Tanzania, from colonial introduction to contemporary export.  The show’s other piece, a two-part combination of geometric mirrors and hanging beads, features surfaces spray coated with aluminum meticulously harvested from floodlight reflectors used by urban police forces.  The metallic surface reflects the gallery’s natural light, vs the light of nighttime surveillance.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Sept 5th).

Kapwani Kiwanga, installation view of ‘Off-Grid’ at the New Museum, July 2022.

Barbara Kruger at David Zwirner

Barbara Kruger’s iconic 1987 ‘I shop therefore I am’ image takes on new and damning forms in her powerful solo show at David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea, where she updates the piece as a single channel video.  The graphic materializes as if composed of puzzle pieces which break apart and reassemble every 57 seconds with new, provocative texts, including, “I am therefore I hate” and “I sext therefore I am.”  Surrounded by wallpaper featuring hands holding imagery and messaging culled from the Internet, Kruger questions the values evidenced in contemporary culture and on-line discourse.  (On view in Chelsea through Aug 12th).

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (I shop therefore I am), single-channel video on LED panel, sound, 57 sec, 137 7/8 x 138 ¼ inches, 1987/2019.

Emily Mullin in ‘RGB’ at Yossi Milo Gallery

Can art compete with nature?  Emily Mullin’s ceramics at Yossi Milo Gallery, presented on wall-mounted shelves and offset by a rectangle of background color, are crowned by show-stealing floral arrangements.  Yet like the flowers, which will change as the piece is displayed, Mullin sees her hand-made ceramic pieces as unique individuals, almost characters.  Together, this quirky assemblage of sculpture, support and background challenges expectations, existing, as the artist puts it, “…between the space of representation and reality.”  (On view through August 12th in Chelsea).

Emily Mullin, xtravaganza, Lime Raku fired vessels, powder coated steel, flora, 17 x 21 ¼ x 8 inches, (flora dimensions variable), 2022.

Barbara Kruger – MoMA and David Zwirner Gallery

Have you seen this eye-grabbing new installation by Barbara Kruger in the Museum of Modern Art’s atrium?  Don’t miss the rest of the show at David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea, where the gallery’s three adjoining spaces on 19th Street showcase work from a recent exhibition of Kruger’s work at the Art Institute of Chicago and the LA County Museum of Art.  Join me on a Chelsea gallery tour to see the show before it closes on Aug 12th.

Barbara Kruger, installation view of Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You at The Museum of Modern Art, July 2022.