Category: Hottest Show

Oliver Beer at Almine Rech Gallery

Inspired by 17th century German scholar Athanasius Kircher’s cat organ, which elicited sounds made by cats, British artist Oliver Beer created ‘Cat Orchestra,’ a musical instrument crafted from 37 found objects in the form of hollow cat vessels.  Now on view at Almine Rech Gallery’s Tribeca space, the piece’s sound is activated by a keyboard that turns on microphones in each vessel to produce resonances that together form an ethereal musical performance.   Motivated to find music where it’s least expected, Beer awakens viewers to possibilities everywhere.  (On view through April 27th).

Oliver Beer, installation view of Cat Orchestra, 37 hollow cat vessels and sculptures, plinths, microphones, speakers, audio equipment, dimensions variable, 2024.

Francesca Woodman at Gagosian Gallery

Known for small-scale black and white photographs that focus on her own body in rooms that look uninhabited and neglected, Francesca Woodman has influenced generations of photographers attracted by the ethereal and enigmatic quality of her work and its psychological charge.  In a show of the artist’s photographs from 1975 – 1980 at Gagosian Gallery’s 24th Street Chelsea location, the gallery walls are lined with intimate images, interrupted by the monumental ‘Blueprint for a Temple (II),’ featuring contemporary women as caryatids on an ancient Greek temple.  Notes and additional shots of the Greek key pattern in New York rental apartment bathrooms are positioned around the edge of the partial temple, connecting an ancient sacred space with the modern bathroom, two places Woodman identified as, ‘offering a note of calm and peacefulness.’  (On view through April 27th).

Francesca Woodman, installation view including Blueprint for a Temple (II), 1980. March 2024.

Kaloki Nyamai at James Cohan Gallery

Nairobi-based artist Kaloki Nyamai’s New York solo debut at James Cohan Gallery introduces an artist who uses acrylic paint, stitching and photo transfer to create complex surfaces that suggest complicated histories.  This painting’s title, ‘The one who stole my heart,’ features a figure leaning back into a man whose outward-looking eyes connect with our gaze.  In contrast to the couple’s intimate, relaxed moment, partially visible figures in the background raise their arms in what could be celebration or protest.  Elsewhere, photo transfers contrast happy moments of communal activity with news articles about political unrest as Nyamai juxtaposes the lives of individuals with larger social happenings.  (On view through May 4th).

Kaloki Nyamai, Ula wosiee ngoo yakwa II (The one who stole my heart), mixed media, acrylic, collage stitching on canvas, 2024.
Kaloki Nyamai, (detail) Ula wosiee ngoo yakwa II (The one who stole my heart), mixed media, acrylic, collage stitching on canvas, 2024.

Zaria Forman at Winston Wachter

Zaria Forman’s monumental polar landscapes, rendered in intricate detail in pastel, have afforded her national recognition and the chance to work with NASA as an artist.  In her latest solo show at Winston Wachter Gallery in Chelsea, Forman continues to capture the beauty of ice in renderings of an Icelandic glacial lagoon.  Fragments of ice washed ashore and resting on black volcanic sand look like jewels, while bubbles trapped in ice form a dynamic, abstract composition.  Forman’s focus is on the specifics of landscape vs the climate changes impacting it, and her work offers a moment to appreciate the sublime as it presently exists.  (On view in Chelsea through March 30th in SoHo).

Zaria Forman, Fellsfjara, Iceland, No. 5, April 22nd, 2022, soft pastel on paper, 40 x 51 1/8 inches, 2023.
Zaria Forman, (detail) Fellsfjara, Iceland, No. 5, April 22nd, 2022, soft pastel on paper, 40 x 51 1/8 inches, 2023.

Vik Muniz at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

Known for constructing replica of famous artworks from unlikely materials (a well-known image of Jackson Pollock rendered in drizzled chocolate, junk from a landfill arranged to resemble a Picasso painting), Vik Muniz’s latest exhibition at Chelsea’s Sikkema Jenkins & Co includes new images of American icons constructed from shredded US currency.  Sourced from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the bills are arranged to picture individuals including Harriet Tubman (whose image is scheduled to appear on the $20 bill staring in 2030) and the Lakota chief American Horse as well as images seen as representing the country, like the American eagle and this bison.  Once symbolic of the vast and fertile North American landscape, informed contemporary viewers might now see bison as victims of mass slaughter by European settlers. (On view in Chelsea through April 27th).

Vik Muniz, American Bison, after John James Audubon, Legal Tender, archival inkjet print, 40 x 49 ½ , 2024.
Vik Muniz, (detail) American Bison, after John James Audubon, Legal Tender, archival inkjet print, 40 x 49 ½ , 2024.