Carlito Carvalhosa at Sonnabend Gallery

Known for artwork inspired by and interacting with architecture, Brazilian artist Carlito Carvalhosa fills two rooms of Chelsea’s Sonnabend Gallery with an installation of fluorescent lights, telephone poles and glassware that suggests a field of ungainly plants or delicately balanced, deconstructed architecture.

Carlito Carvalhosa, Possibility Matters, Poles, glasses, fluorescent lights, dimensions variable, 2014.

Elger Esser at Sonnabend Gallery

Strikingly beautiful photos by Dusseldorf-based photographer Elger Esser of the Giardino di Ninfa, located south of Rome, mark a return for the artist to the south of Italy, where he grew up. Situated around the abandoned ancient city of Ninfa and enhanced with English landscape elements, the garden is the definition of enchanting. (In Chelsea at Sonnabend Gallery through April 26th).

Elger Esser, Ninfa – (Kallisto), Directprint, AluDibond, Shellac, 79 7/8 x 100 ¾ inches, 2013.

Rona Pondick at Sonnabend Gallery

It comes as no surprise that Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ is a favorite of New York artist Rona Pondick, whose new sculptures at Chelsea’s Sonnabend Gallery continue her trademark combination of her own head and other cast body parts with plant or animal bodies.  Here, a wallaby’s stylized, beautiful form merges with a drooping hand and hanging head, suggesting a dragging weight. (Through April 27th).  

Rona Pondick, Wallaby, stainless steel, 2007-12.