Conceived of by accident when a shirt used as a glue rag dried into an arresting form, Matt Johnson’s Wifebeater is as pedestrian and delicately ephemeral as a plastic bag in the wind. At least on first glance. A closer look reveals Johnson’s trademark twist of using unlikely materials to make his sculpture. This t-shirt is made of bronze. (At Chelsea’s 303 Gallery through Nov 17th.)
From dyeing fabric to altering the weave of burlap, Brooklyn-based artist Anya Kielar harnesses an assortment of techniques to create her monumental ‘Women’ now on view at Rachel Uffner‘s Lower East Side gallery. Totemic goddesses and folksy females on floating screens transcend the everyday, literally becoming larger than life. Join Merrily next Saturday the 13th, 2-4pm on a tour of this show and more on the Lower East Side.
For two and a half months in 2010, during every hour the Museum of Modern Art was open, performance artist Marina Abramovic sat silently facing a chair filled by a steady stream of visitors. Photographer Marco Anelli was there with her, capturing the thoughtful, blank and tearful faces of each participant as they engaged in a wordless exchange with the artist. (Anelli’s ‘Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic is at Chelsea’s Danziger Projects through Oct 27th).
Lips and eyes fill Team Gallery’s 47 Wooster St space in SoHo where Sam Samore (whose 1973 ‘Suicidist’ photos were featured here yesterday) continues to summon filmic moments, offering seduction on an enormous scale. Here, Lips Tower (#7) resembles a stacked sculpture by Minimalist Donald Judd, though the serial units – lips – are the antithesis of the Minimalists’ cold aesthetic.
Thirty-nine years ago, artist Sam Samore killed himself by asphyxiation, stabbing, overdose, and in an amusingly absurd twist, being buried head first in a sandbox. Photos of these grisly, staged deaths from his 1973 ‘The Suicidist’ series and many more line the walls of SoHo’s Team Gallery recalling film stills both familiar and bizarre. (At Team Gallery’s 83 Grand Street location through October 27th).