Category: Hottest Show

Bharti Kher at Perrotin Gallery

New Delhi-based British artist Bharti Kher breaks and recombines clay figures she’s collected over the years, inventing hybrids that combine supposed opposites – male and female or divine figures from different faiths.  Her show at Perrotin Gallery on the Lower East Side is no longer open to the public, but Kher shared her process in an insightful video shot during a residency in the UK.  This piece, Ardhanarishvara, represents a manifestation of the Hindu divinities Shiva and Parvati.  Roughly joined from mass produced figurines, they’re far from divine perfection.  Instead, they represent the artist’s ability to remake the known world, in this case with mysterious materials packed into conjoined bodies.

Bharti Kher, (foreground) Ardhanarishvara, cement, clay, wax, bronze, 54 1/8” x 9 5/8”, unique, 2016.

Larry Bell at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

Operating under the premise that, “Art makes a positive difference at all times and in all circumstances” Hauser & Wirth Gallery has reverted to on-line exhibitions and other Internet-accessible strategies to make art available.  The gallery’s recently released exhibition walk-through with Light and Space artist Larry Bell wonderfully conveys Bell’s exploration of how glass ‘reflects, absorbs and transmits light.’   We can’t visit the artist’s reflective glass panels right now (seen here in a smaller sculpture), but the next best thing is watching him activate his ‘Standing Wall’ installations to shift the space around him.

Larry Bell, Iceberg SS, French Blue, Capri Blue, Periwinkle, and Turquoise laminated glass, 4 parts, unique, dimensions variable, 2020.

Farah Al Qasimi with Public Art Fund

Waiting for the bus (or just walking past the bus stop) isn’t quite so mundane if you’re fortunate enough to encounter one of 100 bus shelters in all five boroughs currently hosting Farah Al Qasimi’s photographs.  Brooklyn-based Al Qasimi cites her upbringing in the Emirates for her attraction to an abundance of color and pattern and explains that in her series ‘Back and Forth Disco,’ presented by the Public Art Fund, personal style choices combat anonymity in the city.  In this image, spotted on Graham Avenue in Brooklyn, a woman performs a beauty treatment, blocking the procedure but enlivening the salon’s subtle décor with her own vibrant outfit.  (On view through May 17th.)

Farah Al Qasimi, from the series Back and Forth Disco, presented by Public Art Fund, 2020.

Allison Schulnik at PPOW Gallery on and Vimeo

‘Moth,’ a 3-minute stop motion animation by Allison Schulnik was a highlight of her PPOW Gallery show in Chelsea and is also available on Vimeo.  Over 14 months, Schulnik painted gouache on paper frames for the piece, following a moth’s unconventional metamorphosis into a variety of creatures.  Created after a move from LA to the desert landscapes of Sky Valley, CA, and while becoming a mother, Schulnik’s personal transformation inspired an engrossing mediation on change.  (Chelsea’s PPOW Gallery is closed to the public to help stop the spread of COVID-19, but Moth can be seen on Vimeo).

Allison Schulnik, still from ‘Moth,’ 2019.

Wangechi Mutu’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Facade Commission

The Metropolitan Museum of Art may be closed to deter the spread of COVID-19 but one of its most exciting new commissions is still on view outside.  In never-filled niches designed to hold statuary, Wangechi Mutu has installed four bronze sculptures of powerful women wrapped in coiled garments that the artist describes as ‘living, tactile and fleshy’ but which also act protectively.  Polished disks (here, at the back of this figure’s head) echo traditional ornament worn by women of status in many African cultures.  Though inspired by caryatid sculptures in which women support a burden (from prestige stools to the Vanderbilt mantlepiece) these queenly and otherworldly figures are leaders, not servers.  (On view outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art through June 8th, 2020).

Wangechi Mutu, ‘The Seated’ (one of four sculptures in the series), bronze, 2019.