Two fabulously colored fighting cockerels by London-based painter Allison Katz dominate Luhring Augustine’s summer group show. Titled ‘Noli Me Tangere!’ or ‘don’t touch me’ after Christ’s post-resurrection instruction to Mary Magdalene, the birds seem less about divine mystery than hysterical escalation of conflict. Flowing feathers create dynamic patterns, echoing the clouds in the sky and lending beauty and urgency to a scene both captivating and absurd. (On view in Chelsea through August 6th.)
Allison Katz, Noli Me Tangere!, oil, acrylic and rice on canvas, 78 ¾ x 86 5/8 inches, 2021.
In their first New York solo show in 40 years, the Boyle Family (father Robert Boyle, mother Joan Hills and their adult children Sebastian and Georgia Boyle) considers relationships between humans and the environment with wall mounted mini-landscapes. Meticulous recreations of sites chosen at random, each ‘earthprobe’ is a recreation of a segment of the earth’s surface in an urban or rural area. How to interpret these slices of mediated reality? The Boyles explain that they want to consider whether it’s possible to look at the earth and not think of ‘myths and legends, art of the past or present, art and myths of other cultures.’ Thankfully, it seems it is not, as each will prompt historical connections and personal memories. (On view at Luhring Augustine in Chelsea through April 24th).
The Boyle Family, Kerb Study with Filled in Basement Lights and Cobbles, Westminster Series, mixed media, resin, fiberglass, C 66 x 66 inches, 1987
Areas of darker and lighter blue in jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran’s bold new abstractions at Luhring Augustine suggest intervals of energy and calm, control and freedom. Moran made the works by placing pigment on Gampi paper, laid atop a keyboard, then enacting private performances – ‘surrogates to the concerts I was unable to perform in 2020,’ he explains. Paired with tracks from his new album, the works suggest both transcendence and engagement with the challenges of life over the past year. (On view at Luhring Augustine’s Tribeca space through Feb 27th).
Jason Moran, Went wild and left in Silence, pigment on Gampi paper, 25 1/8 x 37 ½ inches, 2020.
One of Dutch artist Guido van der Werve’s best known performances involved walking just 16 yards in front of an ice breaking ship in the Baltic sea, an example of the physical punishment and risk he’s willing to endure for his art. Now for a new on-line exhibition, Luhring Augustine Gallery, GRIMM Gallery and Monitor Gallery are teaming up to present still photographs from the artist’s mind-bending 2012 performance ‘Nummer Veertien, home,’ for which he swam, biked and ran 1,200 miles across Europe. Van der Werve’s journey began at the location of Chopin’s interred heart (Warsaw) and ended at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris where the rest of the composer’s body is buried. In Paris, the artist delivered a small container of soil from outside Chopin’s childhood home, connecting the two places and creating a profound link between his own history and that of his favorite composer. (On view through June 19th).
Guido Van Der Werve, Nummer acht, Everything is going to be alright, 16mm to HD, 10 minutes, 10 seconds, 2007.
Philip Taaffe’s latest body of work serves up an almost overpowering optical experience, even seen in detail, as in this segment of a painting at Chelsea’s Luhring Augustine Gallery. Inspired by natural history and Japanese paper-working technique that involves dipping folded paper in strong dyes, this mixed media artwork favors a grid format that suggests orderly structuring of knowledge even while unleashing wild coloring. (On view through Dec 21st).
Philip Taaffe, detail from Interzonal Leaves, mixed media on canvas, 111 11/16 x 83 11/16 inches, 2018.
