Tag: train

Marcia Schvartz at 55 Walker

Exiled to Spain, then Brazil in the late 70s during Argentina’s military junta, Argentinian artist Marcia Schvartz returned to Buenos Aires in 1983, settling in the working class and bohemian neighborhood of San Telmo. Frank portraits of her friends and neighbors followed, along with this depiction of a mystical encounter at one of the city’s major train stations now on view in an exhibition of Schvartz’s work at Tribeca gallery 55 Walker. Downplaying the opulent and busy surroundings of the station, Schvartz concentrates on a tender encounter between a mom and an ethereal visage. (On view through Sept 7th).

Encuentro mistico constitucion (Mystical encounter at Constitution Train Station), oil on canvas and collage, 52 x 46.2 x 1 inches, 1998.

 

Isaac Julien at Metro Pictures Gallery

Based on the life of Frederick Douglass, the most photographed American man of the 19th century, British filmmaker Isaac Julien’s new ten-screen installation ‘Lessons of the Hour’ brings Douglass’ remarkable life and oratory talents into focus at Metro Pictures Gallery.  Here, actors play the role of Douglass and his wife traveling by rail, echoing and contrasting his escape via train as a young man to freedom in New York. (On view in Chelsea through April 13th).

Isaac Julien, The North Star (Lessons of the Hour), glass inkjet paper mounted on aluminum, 63 x 84 inches, 2019.

Marianne Vitale at Invisible Exports

Marianne Vitale gives new meaning to life on the rails with her repurposed railway tracks as minimalist sculpture, steel junctions as totemic figures and now, a train engine housing resembling a gas-masked ghoul.  Part of an exhibition that includes stacks of metal flangeway blocks that recall indecipherable letter shapes, Vitale’s art is anthropology – a search through remnants of a recently bygone era for clues to life in the not-so-distant past.  (On view at Invisible Exports on the Lower East Side through June 24th).

Marianne Vitale, Skull, repurposed train engine parts, 49 x 42 x 8 inches, 2018.