Edward & Nancy Kienholz’s ‘The Ozymandias Parade’ at Pace Gallery

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Edward & Nancy Kienholz, 'The Ozymandias Parade,' mixed media installation, 1985.
Edward & Nancy Kienholz, ‘The Ozymandias Parade,’ mixed media installation, 1985.

Installation art pioneers Edward & Nancy Kienholz’s 1985 sculpture ‘The Ozymandias Parade’ is heartfelt and bitter enough to give pause to both post U.S. presidential election gloaters and wound-lickers. Depicting a national leader and his deputy falling from horses and a top ranking general riding an elderly taxpayer’s back, it also reveals the results of a poll taken this fall prior to the installation asking, “Are you happy with your government?’  The answer was ‘no.’  (At Pace Gallery, 510 West 25th Street through Dec 22nd).

Join one of Merrily’s final art gallery tours of 2012!

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Join me on one of my final art gallery tours of 2012!  On Dec 1st, 2-4pm, we’ll be seeing the best that Chelsea has to offer.  The next day, Sunday Dec 2nd, 10:30am – 12pm, I’ve added an additional tour of ‘Regarding Warhol’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  On December 8th, 11am – 1pm (a new time), we’ll check out the highlights of New York’s more experimental galleries on the Lower East Side.  And as always, if you can’t join me on a tour, I’m glad we can see ‘an outstanding artwork a day’ together on Facebook!

Anish Kapoor at Barbara Gladstone Gallery

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Anish Kapoor, Untitled, stainless steel and lacquer, 2012.
Anish Kapoor, Untitled, stainless steel and lacquer, 2012.

Anish Kapoor’s concave sculptures, like this untitled stainless steel and lacquer disk currently at Chelsea’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery (24th Street location), are austere and elegant, a complete contrast to the lively Gangnam style video he recently released in support of artist/activist Ai Weiwei and Amnesty International.  It’s worth another Gangnam parody just to see clips from dancing staff at MoMA, the Whitney, Guggenheim, and Gladstone Gallery and more.

Barnaby Furnas at Marianne Boesky Gallery

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Barnaby Furnas, Jonah and the Whale #2, water-based pigment, color pencil and acrylic on linen, 2012.
Barnaby Furnas, Jonah and the Whale #2, water-based pigment, color pencil and acrylic on linen, 2012.

Whale-lovers beware at Barnaby Furnas’ latest solo show at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea – riffing on Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’ and Jonah’s cetacean misadventure, Furnas’s new paintings picture whalers in total, gory triumph.  Inspired by the fact that whale oil provided light for lamps, Furnas bathes a tattered Jonah in celestial light as he reaches shore, prepared to follow a new path.  (Through Dec 21st).

Peter Stichbury at Tracy Williams, Ltd.

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Peter Stichbury, Xavier Gravas, acrylic on linen, 2012.
Peter Stichbury, Xavier Gravas, acrylic on linen, 2012.

Xavier Gravas is adrift in the contemporary, communication-saturated world.  Consternation bows the perfect swoosh of his arching eyebrows.  His full lips are set grimly together.  He is an invented character that his creator, Aukland-based artist Peter Stichbury, calls a ‘Superfluous Man.’  Haunted by a sense of insignificance, Xavier peruses personal perfection to exquisite and troubling effect. (At Chelsea’s Tracy Williams, Ltd., through Dec 22nd).