Tag: installation

Lauren Halsey at David Kordansky Gallery

The architecture and people of South-Central Los Angeles inspire LA artist Lauren Halsey’s sculptures at David Kordansky Gallery’s new Chelsea location, from low relief carvings of barbershop advertising to this sprawling mixed media installation titled ‘My Hope.’  Featuring a version of Kindle’s Do-nuts colossal signage, a doll-sized version of a church service, mini-pyramids and much more, the assemblage speaks to the vibrancy of life in Halsey’s neighborhood.  A collector of images since youth, Halsey expands her archives in daily early morning walks through the streets of South-Central; here, her findings from all over combine to create an architecture of pride and promise.  (On view through June 11th).

Lauren Halsey, My Hope, mixed media, installation dimensions variable approximate installation dimensions: 152 x 214 x 125 inches, 2022.

Glenn Kaino at Pace Gallery

Just as this fifty-foot-long sculpture by Glenn Kaino at Pace Gallery multiplies and extends Olympic gold winner Tommie Smith’s raised fist on the podium at the 1968 Olympics, the athlete’s gesture for social justice continues to impact protest in and beyond the sports world. The installation – Kaino’s first at Pace Gallery – comes on the heels of his ‘Pass the Baton’ NFT project, through which digital renderings of a baton used by Smith in record-breaking races have been sold to raise funds for activist organizations.  The piece is on view through Saturday, but if you don’t catch it at Pace Gallery, an earlier, larger sculpture from the Bridge series will go on view next year in the Smithsonian’s permanent collection in Washington DC.  (On view through June 11th in Chelsea).

Glenn Kaino, installation view of Bridge (Raise Your Voice in Silence) at Pace Gallery, June 2022.

Ebony G Patterson at Hales Gallery

In the darkened space of Hales Gallery’s Chelsea location, Ebony G. Patterson’s ‘night garden’ entices with elaborately cut works on paper and wall-mounted tapestry installations decorated with strings of beads, glitter and other alluring objects. Each features a female figure (here in pink) with missing face or other body parts, a representative of loss who is literally no longer whole herself.  Patterson explains that on occasions of mourning, it’s often women who are the public face of their family or community; as such, this central, sequined figure, like the garden around her, represents ‘beauty concealing trauma and violence.’ (On view through June 18th).

Ebony G. Patterson, ‘….in the swallowing…she carries the whole…the hole’ (partial view), hand-cut jacquard woven photo tapestry with appliqué, fabric, plastic, beads, feathers, trim, glitter, and wood mounted on wallpaper in two (2) parts, 50 3/8 x 86 1/4 x 5 7/8 in, 2021 – 2022.

Doug Aitken at 303 Gallery

In his latest multi-screen video installation, ‘Wilderness’ at 303 Gallery, renowned artist Doug Aitken asks, “How far we will continue to evolve, and at what cost?”   Aitken’s last major show in ‘18 at his Chelsea gallery featured communications expert and cell-phone pioneer Martin Cooper pondering how connected we actually need to be.  Here, the artist takes this train of thought further, shooting footage on the beach near his Venice home to suggest land’s end as a kind of metaphorical end to pre-digital life.  Beachgoers mouth phrases like ‘You sound so sweet and clear but you’re not really there,’ but the audio is from AI generated digital voices.  Alluring and alarming, Aitken’s scenes give pause for thought as we witness hands photographing the sunset becoming hands that hail the new.  (On view through May 27th).

Doug Aitken, Wilderness, installation view, eight-channel composited video, 2022.

Camille Norment at the Dia Art Foundation

Norway-based American artist Camille Norment conceives of social relationships past and present in terms of sound in two new commissions at the Dia Art Foundation in Chelsea.  For this untitled piece, microphones in the gallery pick up ambient sound and send it down the stem and into the bell below.  As sound creates more sound and feeds back into the loop, auditory events in the room become, in Norment’s words, “an exponential saturation of voice, existing and experienced as a negotiation of control.” (On view through Jan 2023).

Camille Norment, Untitled, brass, sine waves, autonomous feedback system, and archival radio static, 2022.