Tag: portraits

Cindy Sherman’s Tapestries at Metro Pictures

On the heels of iconic photographer Cindy Sherman’s latest solo show at Metro Pictures, the gallery recently hung three enormous tapestries by the artist in its back gallery.  Based on portraits created using filters and face-altering apps and posted to Instagram, the images don’t have the resolution to be printed large-scale but work wonderfully as tapestries, in which pixels translate to thread.  More profoundly distorted and infinitely creepier than Sherman’s printed photos, the tapestries dramatically move Sherman’s vision from screen to wall.  (On view at Chelsea’s Metro Pictures Gallery.  Masks and social distancing are required.)

Cindy Sherman, installation view of three tapestries at Metro Pictures Gallery, Nov 2020.

Anders Oinonen at The Hole NYC

It’s often hard to read a visage by Canadan artist Anders Oinonen, whose cast of odd characters is currently making faces on the walls of The Hole NYC on the Lower East Side.  This figure has turned his or her architectural face sideways, allowing cotton candy hair to float along the top of the canvas.  Though partially obscured in shadow, the face looks anxious, making this individual a perfect representative of the election anxiety faced by many Americans today.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Nov 15th).

Anders Oinonen, Untitled, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches, 2020.

Amy Sherald at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

Inspired in part by Charles C. Ebbet’s iconic staged photograph of Rockefeller Center ironworkers eating lunch on a suspended girder, Amy Sherald’s portrait of an anonymous young man pictures him at home in the air, his mind on other things.  Poised as if about to speak, Sherald’s subject points to the possibility and promise of communication.  (On view in Chelsea at Hauser & Wirth Gallery).

Amy Sherald, If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it, oil on canvas, 130 x 108 x 2 ½ inches, 2019.

Bettina von Zwehl at the New York Historical Society

Inspired by a 2018 lie-in by high school students in Washington D.C. to protest gun violence, and ghostly profile portraits by Benjamin Tappan in the New York Historical Society’s collection, London-based artist Bettina von Zwehl created portraits of 17 New York high school students intended to recall death masks.  The result is a sobering and beautiful memorial to those killed by guns and a powerful plea to stop the violence. (On view at the New York Historical Society on the Upper West Side through April 28th).

Bettina von Zwehl, Meditations in an Emergency, #1-17, series of 17 photographs, gelatin silver prints, handprinted, 2018.

Toyin Ojih Odutola at Jack Shainman Gallery

Wealth is a provocative topic for Nigerian-American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola, who depicts two well-heeled fictional Nigerian families in her latest charcoal, pastel and pencil drawings at Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery. Vibrant and moody, the portraits ask – as Ojih Odutola puts it – ‘what would wealth look like’ had colonialism not happened? (On view at both Jack Shainman Gallery locations through Oct 27th).

What Her Daughter Sees, pastel, charcoal and pencil on paper, 57 ¾ x 42 inches (paper), 2018.