Ernie Barnes at Ortuzar Projects

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Ernie Barnes’ ‘Room Ful’A Sistahs’ at Ortuzar Projects is a painting conveying a moment of joy, a highlight of the artist’s current solo exhibition featuring work from 1966 to 2000.  After a brief career in pro-football, the artist served as the AFL’s official artist and artist of the ’84 Olympic Games while creating iconic artworks like ‘Sugar Shack,’ which appeared as an album cover for Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Want You.’  Sports, dance, church and everyday life provide subject matter for dynamic paintings populated by lithe figures that move through the world with grace and beauty. (On view in Tribeca through June 15th).

Ernie Barnes, Room Ful’A Sistahs, acrylic on canvas, 25 7/8 x 37 ¾ inches, acrylic on canvas, 1994.

Kimsooja at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

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Titled ‘Meta-Painting,’ Korean artist Kimsooja’s exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery questions the essence of painting via an installation of unpainted panels and a light-absorbing black orb.  In one of the gallery’s main spaces, raw linen on stretchers hang from the ceiling while the artist’s signature bottari (a cloth bundle referencing the act of packing one’s belongings in bedclothing) rest nearby.  Kimsooja speaks of both panels and bundles as paintings, though they were not made with paint, much as Deductive Object – a welded steel oblong covered in paint that absorbs ambient light – has presence in its own gallery yet has boundaries that are difficult to perceive.  Linked to the Brahmanda stone of Indian origin, this mysterious object hints at profound mysteries of life. (On view through June 14th).

Kimsooja, Deductive Object, painted welded steel, mirror, wood, 72 x 43 ¼ x 43 ¼ inches, 2016.

Lucas Arruda at David Zwirner Gallery

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Lucas Arruda’s meditative paintings at David Zwirner Gallery fall into the rough categories of seascapes, jungle landscapes and monochromes with hovering rectangles of color.  Though ostensibly representational, landscapes like this untitled painting from the artist’s ongoing Deserto-Modelo series feature fields of hazy form that can bring to mind clouds, mist, fog, or other atmospheric conditions.  This canvas reverses the color arrangement in several of the show’s other paintings, positioning light colors toward the bottom of the composition, as if we’re glimpsing bright skies ahead whilst still under the dark of night or storm.  Peaceful and contemplative, Arruda’s paintings are a tonic for over-stimulated eyes.  (On view through June 15th).

Lucas Arruda, Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), oil on canvas, 9 5/8 x 11 ¾ inches, 2022.

Lucy Puls at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

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The Latin words ‘Equulus Duo’ (two horses, in English) might bring an exalted equestrian sculpture to mind, while the designation ‘two horseys’ shrinks the words down to the speech of a small child. Both phrases are included in the title of Lucy Puls’ ‘Equulus Duo (Two Horseys),’ a sculpture of two ‘My Little Pony’ toys encased in resin and now on view in Tribeca in Puls’ mini retrospective at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery.  Sculpture from Puls’ ‘In Resin’ series elaborates on the passage of time and the vicissitudes of consumer culture by presenting once sought after consumer items – a mid 80s Mackintosh 512, a stack of vinyl singles – preserved as if in amber.  (On view in Tribeca through May 18th).

Lucy Puls, Equulus Duo (Two Horseys), resin, steel, toy horses, 6 ½h x 12w x 5d inches, 1993.

Claude and Francoise-Xavier Lalanne at Kasmin Gallery

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There’s just one more day to see Kasmin Gallery’s presentation of selected works by the late French husband/wife sculptors Claude and Francoise-Xavier Lalanne, known as Les Lalanne, whose unique, surreal vision of the natural world continues to resonate.  At nearly 10’ long, this huge, mysterious animal with a cat’s head, fish’s tail, cow’s lower body and bird wings serves not just as a creative response to hybrid creatures in classical literature (Lalanne worked as a guard in the Egyptian and Assyrian galleries of the Louvre for a short while), but is opened to serve as a bar cart.  Initially conceived of for a private commission by a French architect and now on view as part of the Lalanne’s eldest daughter’s collection, the piece prompted Francois-Xavier Lalanne to remark that the cat was living all nine of its lives at once.  (On view through May 9th in Chelsea).

Francois-Xavier Lalanne, Grand Chat polymorphe, brass, bronze with stainless steel pin, 72 ¼ x 117 x 25 inches, 1998/2008.