Ronny Quevedo at Alexander Gray Associates

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Born in Ecuador and raised in New York, Ronny Quevedo incorporates concepts of movement and migration into subtle yet dynamic abstractions at Alexander Gray Associates in Tribeca.  Incorporating McCall’s clothing patterns that act like maps of the body and referring to the checkerboard-like grid of the Aymara flag in pieces like ‘broadway wiphala,’ Quevedo posits the body as register of both cultural continuity and change in diasporic life.  Titled ‘quipu (and another one)’ after the Incan tool for record keeping and recording information, the long strips in this piece echo the arrangement of a quipu’s cords while the broken colors allude to the abstract but essential information represented by its knots. (On view through June 15th.)

Ronny Quevedo, quipu (and another one), pattern paper and screenprint on muslin, 50 x 70 x 2 inches, 2023.
Ronny Quevedo, (detail) quipu (and another one), pattern paper and screenprint on muslin, 50 x 70 x 2 inches, 2023.

Goshka Macuga at Andrew Kreps Gallery

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London-based Polish artist Goshka Macuga – known for making artwork that relates to the archives and collections of art institutions – had a major New York moment in 2019 when she installed an enormous tapestry in MoMA’s education building picturing herself surrounded by books featuring work in the museum’s collections.  That tableau was in turn a restaging of a photo of Andre Malraux similarly surrounded by his own ‘museum’ of reproductions.  Now on view at Andrew Kreps Gallery in Tribeca, Macuga’s image from the MoMA tapestry manifests as a jacquard woven soft sculpture, positioned on the floor of the gallery’s double-height space.  Titled ‘Fallen Artists/Comfort,’ the work approaches fallenness from various thought-provoking viewpoints by literally looks as if the artist has fallen from the upper gallery space and including a soft book featuring a photo of Nan Goldin’s photos of herself battered and of Nazi-sympathizers and MoMA employees Philip Johnson and Alan Blackburn when they resigned from the museum.  (On view through June 15th).

Goshka Macuga, Fallen Artists / Comfort, jacquard soft sculpture, 127 ½ x 53 ½ inches, 2023.

Hugh Hayden at Lisson Gallery

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Hugh Hayden’s last show in 2021 at Lisson Gallery featured church pews installed like a chapel in the gallery; his current exhibition again transforms the space, this time into a restroom with artworks in multiple stalls, including a functioning urinal.  Visitors open doors to find pieces that refer generally to human experience: education (a distorted school desk), diasporic culinary arts and music (cooking pans merged with West African masks) and sexuality (several male torsos make a connection between guns and phalluses.)  Sequestered in their own stalls, each sculpture can be viewed alone or – though it feels strange, given the public restroom environment – with others.  Engaging with the show is irresistible; curious visitors are rewarded with beautifully crafted, surreal sculptures that prompt us to explore specific cultural commonalities.  (On view in Chelsea through June 15th).

Hugh Hayden, installation view of ‘Hughmans’ at Lisson Gallery, June 2024.

Marianne Nielsen at HB381

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Realistic yet alluding to dancing figures, a creeping crustacean, a crown and more, Danish artist Marianne Nielsen’s stoneware leaf sculptures at HB381 delight in nature and its rearrangement.  In a recent essay, design expert Glenn Adamson points out the subtlety of Nielson’s ceramics in a field crowded with bold statements, noting that the sculpture nevertheless grabs attention with its craft and imagination.  Matching our delight at nature’s wonders with pleasure at her clever and skillful iterations of plant life, Nielsen’s artworks take on a life of their own. (On view in Tribeca through June 15th).

Marianne Nielsen, Large Leaves, glazed stoneware, 10.25” h x 10.75” l, 2023.

Lucas Arruda at David Zwirner Gallery

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Though the skies directly ahead are dark in this small painting by Brazilian painter Lucas Arruda at David Zwirner Gallery, light shines out from behind the clouds, ready to transform the scene.  Light conditions and colors vary greatly in Arruda’s signature seascapes and jungle-scenes in response to time of day and atmospheric conditions yet each painting draws viewers in to appreciate the particular, fleeting circumstances presented.  Titled ‘Assum Preto’ after a Brazilian bird whose song alters in response to light, this show’s sensitivity to time and place is so subtle and calming as to be therapeutic.  (On view through June 15th in Chelsea).

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