Tag: picasso

Farah Atassi in ‘The Echo of Picasso’ at Almine Rech

Fifty years after Picasso’s death, international gallery Almine Rech launches its new Tribeca space with ‘The Echo of Picasso,’ a group exhibition of work by contemporary artists whose work converses with their influential forebear.  Farah Atassi’s ‘Reclining Woman with Oranges’ at the gallery’s entrance juxtaposes various grids – rectangular picture frames, grey lines against a peach-toned background and angular patterns on the central figure’s dress – with curving, organic forms that include a chaise longue and scattered oranges.  In a show heavy on the human figure, artists from Karel Appel to Rashid Johnson explore contemporary consciousness through distortions pioneered in the early 20th century.  (On view through Dec 16th).

Farah Atassi, Reclining Woman with Oranges, oil and glycerol on linen, 63 x 78 ½ inches, 2023.

Nina Chanel Abney in ‘It’s Pablo-matic’ at The Brooklyn Museum

Just around the corner from Picasso’s etchings of muscular minotaurs hovering over vulnerable sleeping nude women in the Brooklyn Museum, Nina Chanel Abney’s ‘Forbidden Fruit’ features very different hybrid characters – some with tenacles coming from their heads, others with horns or hair.  Enjoying a moment of communal relaxation, Abney’s characters adopt a picnicking pose familiar from Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’herbe amongst other iconic artworks, while engaging a different kind of forbidden fruit – a selection of luscious watermelons, made sensitive because of their racist associations.  Both Abney and Picasso’s work feature in ‘It’s Pablo-matic:  Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby,’ a group exhibition which rethinks Picasso’s oeuvre via art by twenty and twenty-first century women artists whose work disrupts traditionally masculine modernism.  (On view through Sept 24th).

Nina Chanel Abney, Forbidden Fruit, acrylic on canvas, 2009 in ‘It’s Pablo-matic’ at the Brooklyn Museum, July 2023.

Elsa Sahal at Natalie Karg Gallery

Curvy harlequins and female clowns populate French artist Elsa Sahal’s latest solo show of ceramic sculpture at Natalie Karg Gallery on the Lower East Side.  Inspired by Picasso’s actors in diamond-patterned clothing, these two truncated figures enact a choreography that could be read as erotic or menacing.  (On view through June 15th).

Elsa Sahal, Harlequins Duo, glazed ceramic, 34 5/8 x 27 ½ inches, 2019.

Deborah Brown at Mike Weiss Gallery

Brooklyn artist Deborah Brown reframes Picasso’s distorted, phallic-headed sculpture of Picasso’s lover Marie-Therese with wicked humor by imaging her in painted form, an innocent in traditional dress, frolicking in a garden. (At Mike Weiss Gallery in ‘School’s Out!’ through August 6th).

Deborah Brown, Bacchante, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches, 2016.
Deborah Brown, Bacchante, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches, 2016.

Cristina de Miguel at Freight & Volume

Spanish artist Cristina de Miguel offers an update on Picasso’s 1905-6 Boy Leading a Horse with a version that crops the boy (as if shot on film) and adds expressionist patches of color reminiscent of the post-war CoBrA group. The horse’s expression – he’s in on the joke? – adds humor. (At Freight and Volume on the Lower East Side through July 10th).

Cristina de Miguel, Boy Leading a Horse, mixed media, 74 x 60 inches.
Cristina de Miguel, Boy Leading a Horse, mixed media, 74 x 60 inches.