Cecily Brown at Paula Cooper Gallery

Inspired by shipwrecks in iconic 19th century paintings by Gericault and Delacroix, Cecily Brown’s latest oil paintings allow strange, fraught characters to emerge from the depths. In this detail from ‘Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band,’ a figure appears from swirling blue depths like a figurehead on a ship, a seemingly stray blue line forming a knowing smile. (At Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 2nd).

Cecily Brown, detail from Sirens and Shipwrecks and Bathers and the Band, oil on linen, 97 x 151 x 1.5 inches, 2016.

Douglas Huebler at Paula Cooper Gallery

Before documentation and text became Conceptual Art founder Douglas Huebler’s primary media, his formica sculptures considered how place was experienced as art. Here, the yellow-hued interior of an S shaped sculpture glows mysteriously as it evokes superpower, the alphabet and Truro, MA the place for which it was named. (At Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea through Nov 18th).

Douglas Huebler, Truro Series #1, formica on plywood, 35 x 54 x 21 inches, 1966.

Christian Marclay at Paula Cooper Gallery

Though it looks like a memorial to the landline, Christian Marclay’s ‘Boneyard,’ now on view at Paula Cooper Gallery, is from 1990, part of a selection of past work by the artist addressing one of his signature themes. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 7th).

Christian Marclay, Boneyard, hydrostone casts of telephone receivers, in 750 parts, dimensions variable, 1990.

 

Evan Holloway at Paula Cooper Gallery

Battery-studded forms resembling swaying kelp make for an enchantingly weird sculpture by Evan Holloway at Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea. Behind, a modernist-looking looping sculpture is a huge support for a tiny burning stick of incense. Unusual and unexpected, Holloway’s new sculpture engages the eye and the mind. (On view through April 22nd).

Evan Holloway, installation view at Paula Cooper Gallery, March, 2017. Foreground: Naming the Animals, plaster, steel, spent batteries, 93 ¼ x 60 x 20 inches, 2017.

Sam Durant in ‘Dissolving Margins’ at Paula Cooper Gallery

Inspired by and titled after the final line in Martinique Surrealist Suzanne Cesaire’s ‘The Great Camouflage,’ Sam Durant locates an all-seeing eye over the Atlantic Ocean, a passageway between ‘old’ and ‘new’ worlds, questioning who ‘sees’ whom and how accurately. (At Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea through April 25th).

Sam Durant, “…the great game of hide and seek has succeeded, it is them because, on that day, the weather is most certainly too blindingly bright and beautiful to see clearly therein,” globe, acrylic (painting Steve Nunez), 32” diameter, 2014.