Tag: lisson gallery

Laure Prouvost at Lisson Gallery

When female octopi guard their eggs, they stop feeding themselves, dying as their babies mature.  Multimedia artist Laure Prouvost’s latest solo show at Lisson Gallery celebrates this selfless participation in the cycle of life and connects it with human nurturing via combined imagery of human breasts and octopus arms.  Huge cephalopod limbs emerge from a layer of sand scattered on the floor, inviting gallery visitors into a tactile underfoot experience while observing suction cups that occasionally resemble breasts or in one case, end in a breast-shaped lamp.  Prouvost’s surreal mix of animal and human bodies foregrounds the importance of touch, feeling and sensuous enjoyment.  (On view in Chelsea through Oct 14th).

Laure Prouvost, installation view of ‘Laure Prouvost: Stranded By Your Side,’ at Lisson Gallery, Sept 2023.

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger in ‘Distribuidx’ at Lisson Gallery

Inspired by Helio Oiticica’s practice, Lisson Gallery’s lively summer group show ‘Distribuidx’ includes art that sees bodies and spaces as changeable; further, the show’s theme posits that people can be represented by the things around us.  For Mexico-City based artist Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, cars represent the experience of navigating being queer and in this sculptural painting, the contradictions of our relationship to consumption and the planet.  In ‘Hope the Air Conditioning is On While Facing Global Warming (part I),’ a BMW i8 opens its wing-doors to reflect both the flowers blossoming on nearby trees and an inferno of burning buildings beyond the open doors. (On view through Aug 11th).

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Hope the Air Conditioning is On While Facing Global Warming (part I), oil on canvas, overall: 88 x 176 inches, 2017.

Liu Xiaodong at Lisson Gallery

As a student, Beijing-based painter Liu Xiaodong traveled in the historically important region of Shaanbei, China; three decades later, his new body of work at Lisson Gallery considers changes not only in the area but in Chinese culture.  Several large canvases feature youth in their free time, playing in the river, drinking beer or making as if to fight while their friends look on in amusement.  Wearing counterfeit designs and clutching their phones, the youth are more connected to the bustling city behind them than nature or the monuments dotting the surrounding hills.   Prominently pictured behind the youth, the ancient Yan’an Pagoda (associated with the Communist Party for its time headquartered in the area) has been supplanted in prominence by the city’s new towers. (On view in Chelsea through June 10th).

Liu Xiaodong, Brawl, oil on canvas, 98 3/8 x 118 1/8 x 2 inches, 2018.

Tony Cragg at Lisson Gallery

Protesters and police clash in a blaze of color in British sculptor Tony Cragg’s 1987 piece ‘Riot’ a sculptural installation running the length of one of Lisson Gallery’s Chelsea spaces.  Forty years ago, Cragg made a name for himself with artworks and installations composed of found plastic elements, a material that lacked the associations carried by more traditional media like bronze, marble or wood.  Inspired by social unrest in ‘80s Britain, Cragg employs a modern material, fragmented and formerly discarded, to illustrate conflict between citizen and state. (On view in Chelsea through April 15th).

Tony Cragg, detail of installation of Riot, 1987 at Lisson Gallery in Chelsea, March ’23.

Wael Shawky at Lisson Gallery

Egyptian artist Wael Shawky once said that “…art should be running after our own ignorance…” explaining that his artistic project arises from learning, particularly about how history has been constructed.  In ‘Isle of the Blessed,’ the Egyptian artist’s current solo show at Lisson Gallery, Shawky presents a single-channel film and accompanying paintings that consider Greek mythology’s explanation of place names (e.g. Europa) as a way of deriving fact from fiction.  Mysterious, cartoonish and a little haunting, paintings such as this one, ‘Isles of the Blessed XII,’ explore the boundaries between the fantastical and the real.  (On view in Chelsea through Jan 14th).

Wael Shawky, Isles of the Blessed XII, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 1/10 x 3/5 inches, 2022.