Kids from PS 63 in the South Bronx discovered that coloring with crayons isn’t as easy as it seems…At least not when the crayons are over two feet long. Berlin-based South African artist Robin Rhode created wall decals and handed over the crayons, letting the children discover that being an artist can be hard work. (At Lehmann Maupin’s Lower East Side Gallery through March 16th).
Louise Despont brings together representations of the constellations Ophichus and Serpens with Persian carpet imagery in her amazingly intricate graphite and colored pencil drawing, ‘Serpens.’ Created on collected vintage accounting ledgers, this labor intensive piece wows with its detail and evocation of esoteric bodies of knowledge. (At Nichelle Beauchene Gallery’s new Lower East Side location, 327 Broome Street through Jan 20th.)
A cement truck crashes on an empty highway whose grey surface is mirrored in the air, the red color from the hood bleeds onto the roadway, forming a colorful abstraction, while a skinny kid in an astronaut’s helmet looks on. It could only be a painting by David Humphry, whose signature mix of abstraction and realism, saturated colors and colliding stories awaken possibilities for strange stories. (At Fredricks & Freiser through Jan 19th).
Former celebrity photographer David LaChapelle creates an uncomfortable memento mori for the jet set in his latest solo show at Paul Kasmin Gallery with ‘Still Life,’ a series begun after the National Wax Museum in Dublin was vandalized in 2009. Here, the Prince of Wales lies shattered in a box next to Heath Ledger & near Cameron Diaz. (Through Jan 19th).
Andy Warhol is at the top of the contemporary art market, Rosemarie Trockel has a well-received solo exhibition at the New Museum. Neither’s accomplishments seem to phase Sean Bluechel, whose glazed ceramic bananas (reminiscent of Warhol’s famed fruit) appear to rain down on a Trockel knit wool painting from 1986 in ‘Banana Pissing Bananas on Trockel.’ (At Chelsea’s Nicole Klagsbrun, through January 19th.)