Sandblasted posters anchored by wood dowels by Ishmael Randall Weeks speak to the eroding effects of time, yet the entropy he evokes speaks more of uncovering the forgotten past than obliterating it. (At Van Doren Waxter through Oct 28th).
The U.S.’s dark and violent past continues to inspire Kara Walker’s new paintings and drawings; here, Walker presents a portrait of Grandison Harris, a 19th century man enslaved and assigned to rob graves to supply the classrooms of anatomy students at a Georgia medical college. After the Civil War, financial constraints forced his decision to return to the college and continue to supply bodies until his eventual death and burial in the same cemetery that he revisited in his working life. (On view in Chelsea at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. through Sept 16th).
Photographer Trevor Paglen’s past images of surveillance culture (NSA data centers, drone images) zeroed in on info and images gathered by the authorities. For his latest show at Metro Pictures, Paglen turns his attention to pictures analyzed via artificial intelligence. In this detail of a wall of photos, the artist Hito Steyerl posed for hundreds of portraits that were analyzed by facial-analysis algorithms, turning age, emotional state, gender and more into a set of numbers. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 21st).
Bayne Peterson’s dyed plywood sculpture brings to mind an abacus, cairns, written script or a kid’s bead and wire toy. Now more complex in their patterning and overall shape, Peterson’s new sculptures at Kristen Lorello Gallery on the Lower East Side also owe their inspiration to still life painting and historical vessels. (On view through Oct 14th).
Though it looks like a memorial to the landline, Christian Marclay’s ‘Boneyard,’ now on view at Paula Cooper Gallery, is from 1990, part of a selection of past work by the artist addressing one of his signature themes. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 7th).
This knock-out image of peonies assembled from hand-cast crayons opens Ohio-based artist Christian Faur’s latest solo show at Kim Foster Gallery. Also including an unmissable umbrella covered in human hair and a surprisingly robust U.S. flag crafted from currency, this exhibition has a high ‘wow’ factor. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 7th).
Tiffany Chung’s meticulous maps plot migration crises around the world, turning conflict into art that informs. In this detail from an eleven-foot long embroidered world map at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, circles stand in for groups of internally displaced people offering a glimpse into the magnitude of global upheaval. (On view through Oct 21st in Chelsea).
Like fuzzy slippers or stuffed animals, Beijing-based artist Lin Tianmiao’s woven wool forms look comfortable and harmless. On closer inspection, this room-sized installation of text on carpets in English and Chinese at Galerie Lelong represents a collection of words used to describe women, from the derogatory to the empowering. Titled ‘Protruding Patterns,’ the piece encourages visitors to walk among ideas that have manifested as form. (On view through Oct 21st in Chelsea)
As the Zambezi River spills out across the landscape on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia at Victoria Falls, so spreads a glass-marble replica by Maya Lin across the walls, floor and ceiling of Pace Gallery. Reflections of light through the glass give the ‘water’ a sparkling quality that argues for the preciousness of one of earth’s most value resources. (On view on 25th Street in Chelsea through Oct 7th).
Best known for ‘paintings’ composed of hundreds of cut pieces of colorful cloth arranged on the floor, Polly Apfelbaum has expanded to the walls with colorful, abstract ceramic panels that complement carpets bearing a graphic from a 1963 book titled ‘The Potential of Woman.’ Though the female heads on the floor have no mouth (having been spoken for in the book), the riotously colorful wall-mounted ceramic sculptures – which Apfelbaum explains are like portraits – have plenty to say. (At Alexander Gray Associates in Chelsea through Oct 21st).
French artist Nathalie Boutte captures the allure of the unknown past in her collage recreations of 19th century daguerreotypes and historical photos. Here, Boutte remakes Seydou Keita’s well-known 1958 portrait of a hip young Malian man using strips of paper covered with varying amounts of text. The effect (seen here in detail) is to blur Keita’s sharply clear image, suggesting that the passage of time diminishes the potential to see the subject clearly. (At Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea through Oct 21st).
“Looking at art is a free experience,” says painter Leslie Wayne, meaning that it doesn’t have to cost a thing, but also questioning how freely we look at something new. The title piece for the show, ‘Free Experience,’ relies on the associations we bring to its colorful, patterned drapery of oil-skins that recalls flags, modernist textiles and more. (At Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea through Oct 21st).
Brooklyn artist and AIDS activist Joyce McDonald conveys a powerful sense of peace and acceptance in small, terra cotta sculptures currently on view in the Museum of the City of New York’s ‘AIDS at Home: Art & Everyday Activism.’ (On view through Oct 22nd on the Upper East Side).
The late Canadian Inuk artist Annie Pootoogook’s domestic scenes are sometimes tranquil, sometimes violent, but this portrait drawing of her grandmother, the artist Pitseolak Ashoona, radiates calm. (On view at the National Museum of the American Indian through Jan 8th).
Amsterdam and Berlin-based artist Katja Novitskova juxtaposes the celestial and terrestrial realms with large aluminum sculptures featuring images of the earth (created with compiling satellite data) paired with shots of worms, lizards, bacteria and more. With their scale altered, the earthly creatures look otherworldly; Novitskova uses this disorientation as a reminder that though easily overlooked, the smallest organisms can make a big impact. (Presented by the Public Art Fund. On view at City Hall Park through Nov 9th).
Japanese artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV created this stunning woven bamboo sculpture on-site at the entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current show of bamboo art from the Abbey Collection, announcing the amazing craftsmanship and inventiveness on display in this exhibition. (On view through Feb 4th).
Sascha Braunig is best known for paintings of quasi-human figures that seem to merge with a digital backgrounds, so her sculpture ‘Giantess’ on the High Line – set in a natural environment – is something of a fun surprise, begging the question of who would wear these huge, spur-bedecked heels. (On view through March 2018 near 24th/25th Street).
Dale Chihuly’s large-scale glass sculptures are a dramatic addition to the New York Botanical Garden’s lush grounds this summer. Here, crystal shapes cast from polyurethane resin complement the patinated bronze ‘Fountain of Life’ sculpture, creating a bold contrast between old and new that complements both. (On view through Oct 29th).
Known for sometimes-monumental installations of fiber art, Paris-based American artist Sheila Hicks has transformed the wilder northern reaches of the High Line with an ambitious, twisting arrangement of fabric-covered tubes. Primary colors and cable-like forms complement the construction-site aesthetic of the neighborhood as the development of Hudson Yards continues apace.
From the 1980s to the present day, Comme des Garcon’s Rei Kawakubo has defied conventional dualities; in this dress – affixed with a giant teddy bear, she merges childhood and adulthood in a riot of frills, flowers and fun. (At the Metropolitan Museum of Art through Sept 4th).
A display of one hundred wedding photos from various photo studios in Wisconsin in the late 1800s at Ricco Maresca Gallery is a fascinating look into past dress and conventions. While most couples stare stoically ahead, betraying no hint of happiness, this groom and bride – decked out in abundant flowers – charm with their hesitant smiles. (On view in Chelsea through Sept 19th).
Simple furnishings and pleasing complementary colors in this gouache on paper painting by Maira Kalman recall Van Gogh’s Spartan but intensely colored Arles room. Titled ‘The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity,’ Kalman’s room illustrates a dictate by Strunk and White in their iconic writer’s guide. One of a group of 57 illustrations for ‘The Elements of Style’, published with Kalman’s paintings in 2005,’ it turns writerly concision into a lifestyle. (On view in Chelsea at Julie Saul Gallery through Sept 16th).
Lao Tongli’s organic forms stand out against a black background, suggesting that they populate some dark, interior space despite their color. Though they look like plant forms or stylized tree branches, their resemblance to blood vessels is appropriate, having been inspired by Tongli’s fathers’ long struggle with heart disease. (On view at Chambers Fine Art in Chelsea through Sept 2nd).
With their staggered placement, Derrick Velasquez’s hand-cut strips of marine vinyl, draped over a wooden support, have shaggy ends recalling hair or fur. From close or afar, they’re pleasingly ordered but the visceral colors and bright yellow accents really bring the piece to life. (At Flowers Gallery in Chelsea through Sept 2nd).
Locks of real and synthetic hair move like undersea plants in LA artist Max Hooper Schneider’s eye-catching aquarium installation on Manhattan’s High Line park. Long drawn to aquariums as hobby and art objects, the artist gathered materials from minerals to freeze-dried vegetables to create a seabed built from layers of consumer culture detritus. (On view through March 2018).
Gardens are Joan Bankemper’s inspiration, whether she’s crafting a vase-form covered in flowers and bees or helping plan community gardens. At Chelsea’s Nancy Hoffman Gallery, Bankemper combines handmade and found flowers, vessels and spiritual beings in this riotous sculpted garden. (On view through Sept 1st).
Shortly after Teresita Fernandez made this rainbow made of acrylic cubes, she exhibited it with other sculpture to create a beautiful, stylized garden from man-made materials. With water as a theme, Fernandez also showed a swooping waterfall crafted from curving blue and white plastic alongside this rendering of light refracted in mist. (At Lehmann Maupin Gallery’s Lower East Side location through Sept 1st).
Spirit photographs from the 19th century and paranormal events from the more recent past have inspired Brooklyn-based photographer Laura Larson. In an image titled ‘Ecstasy,’ we’re tantalized by what might be going on behind the subject’s turned back in this strangely clinical, classroom-like environment. (At Chelsea’s Lennon, Weinberg, Inc through Sept 16th).
Pleione, the nymph in Greek mythology who protected sailors, shares a name with this 2016 canvas by Ron Gorchov. Painted on the artist’s signature saddle-stretchers to suggest ancient Greek shields, the colors of each panel range from fleshy to fiery as they reach skyward. (At Cheim & Read through August 25th).
The pyramid on the back of the U.S. dollar bill – symbolizing long lasting power – has been rendered in outlines of U.S. currency in this piece by Nari Ward (seen here in detail). The paper money edges are askew, however, suggesting an unsound structure, while cowry shells (once used as currency elsewhere in the world) create straight and sound lines. (At Lehman Maupin Gallery in Chelsea through August 25th).
Spanish photographer Dionisio Gonzelez ignites the imagination with ideas for redeveloping New York’s skyline, were money no object. Instead of envisioning skyscrapers, Gonzalez proposes connected rooftop parks and walkways that create green space for all. Here, transit routes converge near Central Park on Fifth Ave. (On the Lower East Side at Galerie Richard through August 27th).
Studio portraits and landscape photography merge in Myoung Ho Lee’s series of trees in Mongolia and Korea, set against a white canvas backdrop. Lee digitally removes ropes and assistants, suggesting a less mediated encounter with a solitary and wonderful product of nature. (At Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea through Aug 25th).
Paa Joe’s fantasy coffins, which can take the shape of a giant coke bottle, lion and more, could make anyone glad to be buried. His untitled rendition of a fort in Ghana is more (appropriately) serious, depicting a 17th century Dutch slave trade outpost. It is one of a series commissioned by late collector and Jack Shainman Gallery co-founder Claude Simard, currently featured at the gallery’s 24th Street and Kinderhook, NY locations. (On view at Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea through Aug 25th).
Shot at Choucha, a Tunisian transit camp that has been a temporary home to hundreds of thousands of refugees, Samuel Gratacap’s stark image of cobbled-together UN tents speaks to the innovation and desperation of camp inhabitants. (At Yancey Richardson Gallery in Chelsea through Aug 25th).
Charlotte Moorman’s renown as a performing artist who bridged the worlds of fine art and music via her cello is represented by her neon instrument from 1989. (At Leslie Tonkonow Artworks and Projects in Chelsea through August 25th).
Though abstract, Robert Strini’s wooden sculptures resemble aliens or instruments or perhaps an instrument for an otherworldly creature. From the mid 70s, they mark a particularly fruitful chapter in Strini’s career after his move away from ceramics and before he expanded into bronze and multi-media works. (In Chelsea at Matthew Marks Gallery through August 18th).
Kathryn Andrews’ ‘June 21’ is strangely cheerful, though balloons that were fresh on June 21st (the day Perrotin Gallery’s summer group show opened) have turned to a commentary on the passage of time. (On the Lower East Side through August 18th).
Tel Aviv-based artist Guy Yanai’s subject matter – houses, domestic interiors and portraits of plants – is sedate but his blocky, early video game aesthetic gives the paintings a jittery edge. This plant appears to hover in space while reaching for the top edge of the canvas with an energy foreign to most potted plants. (In Chelsea at Ameringer McEnery Yohe through August 18th).
Robert Mann Gallery’s ice-cream themed summer group show runs the gamut from glossy commercial images of fake ice cream to this gritty 1950s shot by Harold Feinstein of New York urchins enjoying a treat while Christ appears to ‘let the little children come to him’ in the background. (In ‘I Scream, You Scream’ at Robert Mann Gallery through August 18th).
After years of traveling to the U.S./Mexico border, photographer Richard Misrach and experimental composer Guillermo Galindo joined forces to create sobering images and sculpture inspired by struggles of migrants determined to overcome the border’s many obstacles. This installation view of their exhibition at Pace Gallery in Chelsea features an instrument made by Galindo of items recovered from the region and Misrach’s photos of tires drug behind border patrol vehicles to make a path in which footprints can be detected. (On view through August 18th.)
A figure reclines in front of a baguette, friends walk in the woods and here, a young woman chats on the phone while resting on a huge container of an oversized art supply in ceramic sculpture and plates by Berlin-based artist Isabelle Fein. These diminutively sized snippets of life are an essay on the charms of the everyday. (At Jack Hanley Gallery on the Lower East Side through August 18th).
Patrick Jacobs – known for meticulously crafted dioramas set into the wall – offers another marvelously detailed scene in Pierogi Gallery’s summer group show ‘Double Down,’ which features artwork that involves doubling. Here, a toilet and its reflection suggest plumbing abundance in otherwise cramped quarters. (On the Lower East Side through August 12th).
Rachel Harrison’s heavily textured, expressionist painting is electrified by fuchsia shorts, a dramatic punctuation at the end of the artwork. The shorts drag a potentially intellectual AbExp artwork into the banality of everyday life; now, it’s not hard to imagine the artwork on its way to the beach or the mall. (In ‘Feedback’ at Marlborough Contemporary through August 11th).
Rife with appealing contradictions, Tyler Haughey’s photo of a New Jersey coastal motel is attractive for its saturated colors and modernist angularity but not as a model of contemporary hotel design. Devoid of people and sometimes pictured out of season, the motels in Haughey’s series ‘Ebb Tide’ both evoke nostalgia and picture an on-going culture. (In ‘At a Languorous Pace’ at Sears Peyton Gallery in Chelsea, through August 11th).
Tree fungus and corals inspired the Haas Brothers’ signature accretion vases; joined by the LA duo’s silver plated lamps (at rear), walnut furniture and paintings, they open Marianne Boesky Gallery’s summer group exhibition with an appreciation for the strange and lighthearted. (In Chelsea through August 11th).
Globe-trotting photographer and writer Teju Cole’s new book ‘Blind Spot’ explores perception through shots including this grid of curtained balconies in Beirut, an image that suggests diversity packed into a small space. Alongside is a text in which Cole bemoans a lost roll of film while acknowledging that his original viewing experience is what he most values. (On view at Steven Kasher Gallery through August 11th).
Aliza Nisenbaum’s portrait of Kayhan, sprawled on the floor surrounded by newspaper pages, is a standout in FLAG Art Foundation’s huge and engrossing group exhibition, ‘The Times,’ which gathers a range of artwork related to or inspired by the New York Times. Nisenbaum’s portraits of undocumented immigrants offer a portal into lives deliberately lived in private; here, Kayhan’s apparent comfort may not apply beyond these walls. (On view in Chelsea through Aug 11th).
Vladimir Salamun’s marble ice cream scoop stars in a deliciously food-themed show at Allan Stone Projects. Monumental and crafted in traditional art materials, this slow-to-melt pop art monument to the pleasures of taste becomes a treat for the eye as well. (On view in Chelsea through August 11th).
Eight large paintings of winter coats by Canadian super realist painter Karl Funk at 303 Gallery ostensibly deny the season; instead, isolated against icy white backgrounds and turned as if to ignore viewers, they’re as chilling as a blast of AC. Inspired by the negotiation between public and personal space on a crowded subway car, they’re a beautifully rendered insistence on privacy. (On view in Chelsea through August 18th).
Sperone Westwater’s lively group painting show, Pictograph, considers artworks that communicate in an engagingly ambiguous way. Katherine Bradford’s duo could be embracing, but the title ‘The Argument’ suggests that the washy emanation on the left could be an inner voice or an important influencer to the tie-wearing figure on the right. (On view on the Lower East Side through August 4th).
Marlborough Contemporary’s summer group exhibition ‘Feedback’ includes a wall of painted fiberglass sculptures by John Ahearn & Rigoberto Torres as the show considers collaborative practices in art – in this case between artists and community residents. (On view in Chelsea through August 4th).
Nicola Tyson’s freewheeling firewood sculptures embody a grace that belies their origins in the woodpile. Stripping each piece of dried firewood of its bark, Tyson assembles fleshy ‘dancing figures’ as disproportionate assemblages of thick and thin segments that bring to mind human bodies, trees and robots. (In ‘Somebodies’ at Petzel Gallery in Chelsea through Aug 4th).
Valerie Hegarty’s deliciously bizarre watermelon rind takes a bite out of summer at Asya Geisberg Gallery’s fanciful summer group show of ceramic sculpture. (In Chelsea through August 11th).
In his photo collages of cityscapes, shot at different times of day from the same vantage point, Bejing-based artist Ji Zhou creates a harmonious view from fragments. (At Klein Sun Gallery in Chelsea through August 3rd).
Like a group of goddesses on Mount Olympus, Maria Berrio’s trio of milky-skinned mothers and their infants appear to lounge above the mortal realm in this collage by the New York-based Columbian artist. Accompanied by a menagerie of animals and framed by the constellations, Berrio exaults the mothers’ nurturing role. (On view on the Lower East Side in ‘All That Glitters’ at Rachel Uffner Gallery through August 2nd).
These extravagantly eccentric boots by London-based Canadian artist Zadie Xa (created with Benito Mayor Vallejo) are part of Xa’s costuming for a performance inspired by Korean spiritual ritual. Installed unobtrusively at Chapter NY, which is hosting an exhibition by San Juan, Puerto Rico gallery Agustina Ferreyra as part of Condo New York, they offer a glimpse of Xa’s fabulously invented performances. (On the Lower East Side through July 28th).
Liz Craft’s speech bubbles, made into faces by the shapes of protruding ceramic mushrooms, are a standout in JTT’s summer group show, Dirge, which considers how artists engage with accounts of history. Here, Craft merges contemporary text-message bubbles with pre-electrical light (a candle). The mushroom face suggests a voice from 70s counterculture speaking from the void. (On the Lower East Side through July 28th).
Real time seismic activity interrupts the shifting abstract patterns on Daniel Canogar’s curving panels, merging art and distant, powerful forces. Peeling off the wall on flexible LED tiles arranged on an armature, ‘Echo’ strains for our attention and gets it. (At Bitforms on the Lower East Side through July 30th).
Known for creating fiber art without a loom, late artist Claire Zeisler sometimes evoked the natural world in works that seemed to pour and pool like water. Here, a vivid red piece evokes fire, lava, blood and more, eliciting strong and even conflicting responses. (At Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in Chelsea through August 4th).
Mairead O’hEocha’s floral still life evokes paintings by 17th/18th century painter Rachel Ruysch while offering a more abstracted take on the genre. Flowers from around the world which may have bloomed at different times combined in the Netherlands to testify to Dutch trade power. Here, the rose at center signals waning strength as it begins to lose its petals. (At Callicoon Fine Arts hosting mothers tankstation limited, Dublin, for Condo New York on the Lower East Side through July 28th).
Monira Al Qadiri’s video ‘Travel Prayer’ combines footage of a camel race with the text of a traditional prayer for travel. Once, children were regularly injured and trafficked to race the animals, now camels are directed remotely by robot jockeys with mini whips. The prayers request for traveling mercy is powerfully apt. (At Station Independent Projects through July 23rd).
Mounting material and hand-dyed mop head strands onto vinyl, French artist and Mexico City resident Yann Gerstberger makes bold, nearly abstract textiles that suggest tantalizing stories and histories. (At Lyles and King on the Lower East Side through July 28th).
Satoshi Kojima’s pastel-colored dreamscapes feature a few enigmatic characters engaging in mysterious rituals. Here, two dapper yet sinisterly blank-eyed men either wave goodbye or set out to stop any trains that might roll into a platform that looks like a stage. (On view at Bridget Donahue Gallery on the Lower East Side through Aug 4th).
Brain scans, microorganisms and landscapes inspire Hildur Asgeirsdottir Jonsson’s woven silk textiles. In this detail from the towering, ten foot tall Dynjandi #2, Jonsson evokes the powerful force of a waterfall in her native Iceland. (At Morgan Lehman Gallery in Chelsea through July 28th).
Tariq’s multi-colored shirt and the explosion of lines on the wall behind him – not to mention his colorful crown – merge a man and an abstract artwork in young Chicago-based artist Alex Bradley Cohen’s painted portrait. (In ‘Elaine, Let’s Get the Hell Out of Here’ at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery through Aug 18th).
Two types of chilis, lemongrass and an emergency blanket are some of the unconventional materials Myranda Gillies sourced from stores in her Brooklyn neighborhood to create this loomed work at Susan Inglett Gallery in Chelsea. Granddaughter of famed assemblage artist George Herms, Gillies shares the gallery with his sculpture, inviting a comparison between two artists whose materials are something to talk about. (On view through July 28th).
Working blind in the dark room, David Benjamin Sherry exposes cardboard templates, acetates printed with patterns, his own body and that of his dog, Wizard to light sensitive paper. The vibrantly colored results don’t bear a recognizable likeness of the artist, but they feel intensely personal nonetheless. (At Salon94 Bowery on the Lower East Side through July 27th).
Geometry rules this painting by Toronto-based painter Veronika Pausova, who alludes to domestic environments by picturing curtains, cupboards and flower vases in still life paintings that are both tranquil and tense. This standout from her current show at Simone Subal Gallery, titled ‘Neighbour,’ suggests a nosy neighbor twitching her stylish curtains or the reverse – a neighbor tantalizingly out of our view. (On the Lower East Side through July 28th).
John Williams eschews the cutting edge by repurposing old technology, using overhead projectors to create a series of bold sculptures that recall the experimental quality of Man Ray’s photograms with an extra measure of playful inventiveness. Here, car parts affixed to the gallery wall become hair and a smile, a projected straw is a nose and a slinky funnels light upward into a bright white eye. The other eye must be winking at us as we share the joke. (At Brennan and Griffin on the Lower East Side through July 21st. )
The New York Academy of Art’s annual summer exhibition brings together a variety of artwork for sale at accessible prices – a rare proposition in Chelsea’s booming mega-gallery scene. Susan Siegel’s ‘Big Hair’ is a tiny painting at eight by eight inches, but it packs a humorous punch. Substituting a cow for one of the delicate creatures normally populating Baroque painting, Siegel subverts our pleasure in consuming images of excess. (At Flowers Gallery through July 15th).
New York painter Bennett Vadnais’ ‘House’ is a standout in George Billis Gallery’s summer group exhibition of cityscapes. Several of the show’s paintings zero in details of urban life – a water tower, a segment of a bridge – but Vadnais adds a focus on the passage of time by contrasting buildings from different eras. (On view in Chelsea through July 22nd ).
German painter Marcus Webber draws inspiration from odd moments experienced in daily street life; his paintings titled after public places, like ‘N-Platz (Nolli)’ include odd characters like the robed figures with triangular heads who attract a stare from a circular-headed shopper in the foreground. (In ‘Painting in due time’ at Thomas Erben Gallery in Chelsea through July 28th.)
Eva Lake’s small collages at Lower East Side gallery Frosh & Portman elegantly remix Egyptian and 20th century fashions in a strangely congruous merger of the ancient and modern. (On view through July 16th).
Buildings and monuments in the U.S. capital inspired Rotterdam & Benin-based artist Meschac Gaba’s latest synthetic-hair sculptures. Including (right to left) the White House, the U.S. Capitol and St John Episcopal Church, the sculptures represent a merger of African craft and sites of power. (On view at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery through July 28th).
Part of ‘Dream Machines,’ an exhibition that ponders how in daily life, ‘the real and imaginary cease to be contradictory,’ Mernet Larsen’s surreal ‘Sunday Drive’ is both plausible and impossible at once. Her orange-toned factory fresh figures are perfect but creepy, giving viewers pause to reconsider the serendipity of an American tradition. (At James Cohan Gallery’s Chelsea location through July 28th).
Six hundred binders hold plastic sleeves filled with studio waste in a huge installation of books and other material created by Dieter Roth and his son and collaborator, Bjorn Roth currently at Hauser & Wirth Gallery in Chelsea. Every piece of trash less than 5mm thick found its way into a binder in the years 1975-76, resulting in a portrait of the artist told through postcards, cigarette butts, packaging and more. ‘The worse it looks, the better,’ Roth noted on one binder. (On view through July 29th).
The canvas barely manages to contain an angled view of a screened window by painter Susan Lichtman, reflecting an outdoor scene from her Massachusetts home. With one window panel opening toward viewers, the painting appears to project itself into Steven Harvey Fine Art Project’s narrow gallery space, an arresting and dynamic move that belies an apparently tranquil domestic scene. (On the Lower East Side through July 15th).
Though abstract, Joanna Pousette-Dart’s paintings are inspired by landscapes she has experienced in her travels to New Mexico. In this new piece created for Lisson Gallery’s summer survey of select abstract painting, the bright light of day fades to dark night in a progression of curving canvases. (On view in Lisson Gallery’s 10th Avenue location through August 11th).
Bold color and abundant detail prompt Heller Gallery to compare master glassmaker and artist Lino Tagliapietra’s pieces to a mini-fireworks display. This vibrant vessel demonstrates many of the techniques that Tagliapietra used as a glassmaker in Murano and which he has generously shared in his world-wide travels. (At Heller Gallery in Chelsea through August 11th).
From huge charcoal drawings to weighty bronzes, Robert Longo has returned to images of the U.S. flag throughout his career in an on-going exploration of power and politics. Here, the mirrored surface of this flag makes viewers part of an object and a symbol. (At Metro Pictures Gallery in Chelsea through August 4th).
The bottom is about to fall out of 303 Gallery, or so it seems to judge by Ceal Floyer’s ‘Saw,’ a blade projecting from the gallery floor by a painted black circular line. With the menace of a shark’s protruding dorsal fin and a comedic quality of a Wile E Coyote blunder, the sculpture begs the question of what will surface. (On view in Chelsea through July 14th).
Famed art dealer Betty Parsons never gave up on her own artistic practice; this piece from her later years references Native American art, referring in its title to the Oglala Lakota. Created from driftwood she scavenged from the beach near her Long Island home, this colorful organic abstraction demonstrates her interest in mysticism that takes us beyond the every day realm. (At Alexander Gray Associates in Chelsea through July 14th).
These three dynamically twisting wooden seat sculptures by Wendell Castle come from a series titled Free Form, a musical reference that speaks to the artist’s & musician’s life-long interest. Though their solid forms are weighty, they appear to twist like a quick-growing vine. (On view at Friedman Benda through August 11th).
Jenny Snider’s small shaped painting of a car is a standout in Edward Thorp Gallery’s summer group show, its rounded corners and many planes suggesting a cartoonish vehicle with zany passengers taking an unconventional ride. (In Chelsea through July 29th).
How much can a human face tell us? Young Columbian artist Cristina Camacho’s sliced canvases first look like geometric abstraction, then resolve into portraits that hint at humanity or the digital visage of an intriguing but radically strange creature. (At Praxis International Art in Chelsea through July 8th).
Seven hallucinogenic mushroom replica spin like a model of the solar system in Carsten Holler’s ‘Flying Mushrooms’ sculpture at Gagosian Gallery, pointing to out-of-body experience, experienced in person in the gallery. Holler’s first show since 2011 (when he installed a slide and sensory deprivation chambers at the New Museum), this interactive exhibition is sure to be another crowd pleaser. (On view on 24th Street in Chelsea through August 8th).
Vintage color slides are the basis for Isca Greenfield-Sanders’ light infused beach scenes. Impossibly bright, they document a day by the water and suggest sunny memories. (At Ameringer McEnery Yohe in Chelsea through July 1st).
Swedish artist Joakim Ojanen’s odd ceramic heads resemble gourds and various animals, in this case, a bird. The creatures formerly manifest themselves in two dimensions as drawings. Now in the round, they allow Ojanen’s strange vision to inhabit space with us. (On view at The Hole on the Lower East Side through July 7th).
Richard Artschwager’s two-foot tall wooden exclamation point – which shapes artistic language out of the forms of language itself – adds a note of excitement to Jane Lombard Gallery’s summer group show. (On view in Chelsea through July 28th).
Nahum Tevet’s wall mounted sculptures are small-scale but full of action, a workout for the eye. Frames, furniture and machines come to mind amid patterning that recalls mid-century abstraction, cut outs that recall typography, colors that shout and mirroring that makes every element repeat. (At James Cohan Gallery’s Lower East Side location through July 28th).
After serving in the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit during WWII, Fons Iannelli returned to the States to establish a successful career photographing for McCall’s, Life, Fortune and other magazines. Alongside striking images of naval life, and later photos of efficient housewives shot for commercial purposes, Iannelli’s scenes from his 1946 Kentucky Coal Miner series, now on view at Chelsea’s Steven Kasher Gallery reveal the difficult circumstances of family life in the mining community. (On view through August 11th).
How do you make representational painting in the digital age, when bodies no longer have to be near each other to interact? Pieter Schoolwerth ponders this in a multi-step process that involves photographing figures and shadows, drawing them, altering them in the computer, creating them in foam core or wood and printing and painting on canvas. The resulting images are convincingly attractive but unsatisfying – in this enigmatic relief sculpture depicting a student center, various figures are together but don’t connect. (At Miguel Abreu Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 28th).
New paintings made in New York and North Carolina feature spring blossoms and mobile homes in Verne Dawson’s current show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise. In the foreground of this bucolic but blighted landscape, Dawson portrays a pastoral scene of women bathing and gathering water, not from a sylvan spring but from a ditch. (At Gavin Brown’s Enterprise on the Lower East Side through June 24th).
Though the pool is enticing, this isn’t a tranquil summer scene. Eric Fischl’s ‘Daddy’s Gone, Girl’ suggests that the woman in the voluminous black dress is in mourning for an absent father and maybe a little unmoored. As an update on Fischl’s well-known 1984 painting Daddy’s Girl, it’s a meditation on loss and isolation. (At Skarstedt’s Chelsea location through June 24th).
Roxy Paine’s three new dioramas at Paul Kasmin Gallery continue the artist’s interest in systems of control. Here, a view into a view into a hotel room alludes to the CIA’s experiments in administering LSD to unsuspecting civilians in the 1950s. The meticulously crafted scene illustrates a shocking invasion of privacy and personal well-being. (On view in Chelsea through July 1st).
Subway advertising boards, scraped free of ads before being recovered by new posters, continue to inspire Wyatt Gallery’s ongoing photo series, ‘Subtext.’ In the latest work, he considers his images as portals to more tranquil, meditative environments than the train platform. (On view at Foley Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 25th).
Nicola Lopez mixes interior and exterior walls, façade and skeleton in her bold installation at Jacob Lewis Gallery in Chelsea. Titled ‘Big Windows: Skin: Portals’ Lopez questions the impenetrable quality of anonymous modern glass wall architecture, mounting woodcuts on normally hidden metal studs that support interior walls. (On view through June 30th).
Four hands repeat a gesture with multiple interpretations in the roughly woven lattice of Athansios Argianas’ bright, electroformed copper wall sculpture at On Stellar Rays. Interpretable as OK, perfection (if kissed by the lips), zero or something ruder, the sign is enhanced by a long title that suggests that seeing is as changeable as the sea. (On view on the Lower East Side through June 25th).
Anne Neukamp’s post-analogue paintings picture office tools in large-scale, graphically simple images that look as if they’ve been composed in digital space, yet are manifest before us in oil, tempera and linen. Titled ‘Morsel,’ this tantalizing icon offers a puzzle piece and a mystery envelope, dangling meaning in front of viewers. (At Chelsea’s Marlborough Contemporary through June 24th).
From the front, Ryan Johnson’s ‘Driver’ looks like a single, solid disk. From the side, the form becomes a steering wheel and a driver materializes, instantly morphing the sculpture from a mysterious biomorphic abstraction into an everyday scenario. Johnson’s sense of humor also comes across in his stylized ‘mother’ at rear, a stylized caryatid whose belly makes her all the more dramatic. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery through June 25th).
