Paul Anthony Smith at Jack Shainman Gallery

Titled ‘Tradewinds,’ Paul Anthony Smith’s latest show of hand-worked photos at Jack Shainman Gallery celebrates home, memory and the act of celebration itself.  More contemplative than some of the artist’s images of parties and get-togethers, this image suggests thoughts as a kind of cloud-cover or camouflage around this young man.  Here, Smith’s signature picotage technique – involving a series of tiny rips on the surface of the image – becomes a kind of simultaneous damage and decoration.  (On view in Chelsea through April 3rd).

Paul Anthony Smith, detail of Islands #2, unique picotage with spray paint on inkjet print, mounted on museum board and sintra, 60 x 40 inches, 2020-21.

Nari Ward on the High Line

Smart cars snag great parking spaces in New York; this one, created by Harlem-based artist Nari Ward, enjoys a privileged place on the High Line where an admiring audience regularly surrounds it. Inspired by an abandoned car that hosted a lime tree in his father’s yard in Jamaica, Ward planted an apple tree in this car, lining the exterior with rubber tire treads and turning a symbol of nimble urban driving into a stationary support for nature. (On the High Line through March 2017).

Nari Ward, Smart Tree, Smart car, cinder blocks, tire treads, soil, apple tree, 106 x 61 x 120 inches, 2016.
Nari Ward, Smart Tree, Smart car, cinder blocks, tire treads, soil, apple tree, 106 x 61 x 120 inches, 2016.