Tag: sculpture

Cal Lane at C24 Gallery

Cal Lane’s steel sculptures of lacy underwear – incongruous in their industrial material vs subject matter – are real attention grabbers but take a back seat to altered found materials in the artist’s mini-retrospective at C24 Gallery in Chelsea.  Though they appear light and whimsical, these shovels from 2016 recall steel sculptural panels commissioned by the MTA for Knickerbocker Ave station which were inspired by the area’s architecture.  The wheelbarrow is one of the show’s best pieces for pushing the material, achieving a surprising delicacy via intricate patterning.  (On view through May 10th).

Cal Lane, Untitled (Wheel Barrow), plasma cut wheel barrow, 55.5 x 25.5 x 6 inches, 2007 and 3 x Untitled (Shovel), plasma cut steel and wood, 2016.

Sarah Crowner at Luhring Augustine Gallery

Barbara Hepworth’s pierced organic abstractions, Henry Moore’s curvilinear reclining figures and the undulating forms of Chinese scholar stones come to mind when viewing Sarah Crowner’s attractive new bronze sculptures at Luhring Augustine Gallery’s Tribeca space.  Reflecting Crowner’s vibrant paintings, which have fittingly vivid titles like ‘Red Oranges Over Orange with Curve,’ or ‘Violets Over Reds,’ the sculptures are enhanced by and enhance their environment.  (On view through May 4th).

Sarah Crowner, installation view of ‘Hot Light, Hard Light,’ at Luhring Augustine Gallery, Tribeca, March 2024.

Mary Carlson at Kerry Schuss Gallery

Modeled after El Greco’s ‘The Penitent Mary Magdalene,’ Mary Carlson’s small-scale sculpture of one of Christ’s most devoted followers is both delicate in her tiny features and monumental in her seated, robed body. Now on view at Kerry Schuss Gallery, displayed on wall-mounted wooden shelves amid scrolling copper piping, Carlson’s new sculptures evoke the figures and decorative designs on the pages of medieval manuscripts.  Characterized by world-weariness vs El Greco’s doe-eyed young woman, Carlson’s saint is pictured in the process of receiving a revelation and puts a hand to her bare chest.  Less erotic than El Greco’s version, Carlson’s Mary is a substantial woman engaged with the life of the mind and spirit.  (On view in Tribeca through April 27th).

Mary Carlson, Mary Magdalene (after El Greco), glazed porcelain, wood, copper, 29 x 36 x 8.75 inches, 2024.
Mary Carlson, Mary Magdalene (after El Greco), glazed porcelain, wood, copper, 29 x 36 x 8.75 inches, 2024.

Frank Stella at Deitch Projects

Five works by octogenarian painter and sculptor Frank Stella fill Jeffrey Deitch’s large SoHo space with looping, colorful segments of fiberglass and aluminum, their scale dominating and delighting visitors in equal measure.  The work here, ‘K.144 Large Version’ is part of a series titled after a musicologist who catalogued 18th century Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas.  To create his complex and vibrant sculpture, Stella starts with computer models which are 3-D printed, developed, constructed by fabricators in the Netherlands and Belgium and finally finished back in the artist’s Hudson Valley studio.  Trucked down to SoHo on double-wide flatbed trucks, the final products make their presence felt.  (On view through April 20th).

Frank Stella, K.144 Large Version, fiberglass on foam core, 197 x 208 x 150 inches, 2014.

Apollinaria Broche at Marianne Boesky Gallery

To a soundtrack featuring readings from Charles Baudelaire’s ‘Flowers of Evil,’ Apollinaria Broche’s ceramic and bronze flowers strike gangly poses in her solo show at Marianne Boesky Gallery, exuding both wonky charm and maleficence.  Like an insect to nectar, viewers are drawn into the center of colorful ceramic flowers that feature tiny bronze sculptures – a winged horse, a contented-looking cat – of cavorting magical creatures.  More ominous figures – snakes, flies – appear as well, suggesting that the flowers inhabit a garden less welcoming than it first appears.  In this detail image of ‘I hid my tracks Spit out all my hair,’ skulls and daggers mingle with the seeds of this lush blossoming plant, summoning a specter of death and violence where it might least be expected.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 24th.)

Apollinaria Broche, (detail) I hid my tracks Spit out all my air, glazed ceramic, bronze, 63 x 21 x 18 inches, 2023.