Over the past few years, Kara Walker has moved away from her signature antebellum figures seen in silhouette enacting various barbarisms on each other. In the back galleries of Chelsea’s Sikkema Jenkins, they return with vigor and malice, begging the question of what’s changed since they made Walker’s name in the mid-90s. (Through May 22nd).
Kara Walker, Wall Sampler 1, cut paper and paint on wall, dimensions variable, 2013.
In the late 60s, Richard Nonas was working as an anthropologist when he had an epiphany in the park one day while playing with his dog. Picking up pieces of wood, he was struck by their relationship to each other and began a career in making sculpture whose construction was plain to see but which resulted in what he calls an ‘unexpected inexplicable result.’ (At James Fuentes on the Lower East Side through April 21st).
Richard Nonas, Untitled (from the Cherrytree Split Series), cherry wood, 2012.
Rochelle Feinstein’s paired canvases deliver the same information: two cats in front of table or chair legs plus a pattern of black and white stripes. But the pairing seems to question how subtly altering the stripes and moving the cats might effect the meaning. (At the Lower East Side’s ‘On Stellar Rays,’ through April 28th)
Rochelle Feinstein, ‘Today in History,’ oil on canvas and digital prints on vinyl, 2013.
Wayne Gonzales’s past paintings of crowds looked like they were made from surveillance camera footage zeroing in on particular individuals who appear in multiple paintings. Here, in a crowded California parking lot, a recurring SUV turns from being an everyday car to a suspicious vehicle by virtue of being depicted repeatedly from different angles. (At Paula Cooper Gallery’s 534 West 21st Street location through April 27th).
Wayne Gonzalez, Untitled, acrylic on canvas, 2012.
Could the androgynous couple in Volker Hueller’s ‘Welcome Home’ be mom and dad, greeting us at the door? With their spade-like heads and giraffe necks, the duo make for an exotic welcome team while their yellow background signals that something electric could happen. (At Eleven Rivington’s 195 Chrystie location through April 27th).
Volker Hueller, ‘Welcome Home,’ oil on canvas, 2012.
Julie Schenkelberg’s sculpture ‘Dowry, Rediscovered,’ a wooden bench sliced open to reveal crockery-stuffed cushions, has the feeling of a long hidden secret suddenly brought to light or a wondrous intrusion of nature – the plates look like fungus – on a man-made object. (At Chelsea’s Asya Geisberg Gallery through April 20th.)
Julie Schenkelberg, ‘Dowry, Rediscovered,’ wooden bench, dishes, acrylic gel, 2012.
From their locally sourced wood frames to their marble-dust surfaces, Ohio-based Scott Olson’s abstract paintings delight in the play of color and shape. In addition to his current solo show at Wallspace, see more of Olson’s work and that of other artists who dedicate themselves to painting in the Walker Art Center’s ‘Painter, Painter’ exhibition. (At Wallspace through May 4th.)
Scott Olson, Untitled, oil, wax, marble dust on wood, maple frame, 2013.
A couple in a rowboat would seem to be tame subject matter for rebellious rocker and prolific writer Billy Childish, but the man’s missing face and this painting’s line-driven style channels provocative Nordic expressionism a la Munch. (At Lehmann Maupin’s Chelesa location through April 20th).
Billy Childish, Rowers (version y)(Oyster Catchers, Thames Estuary 1932), oil and charcoal on linen, 2012.
This gruesome, one-eyed, blue cigarette bedecked creature with perfect teeth could be the patron deity of Bali-based Ashley Bickerton’s portraits of crazed hedonists. At over seven feet high, the sheer profusion of color and ornament – from her bottle cap necklace to paint-smeared coral – is impressive. (At Lehmann Maupin’s Lower East Side location through April 20th)
Ashley Bickerton, White Head I, acrylic, digital print and plastic laminate on wood, 2012.
Isolated on the tarmac, Jamaican airport workers in young Jamaican-American artist Paul Anthony Smith’s paintings occupy a world of their own; though their jackets lend them a kind of authority (traffic cops come to mind), one with a hand to his mouth could either be thoughtful or confused while the younger man exudes relaxed self confidence despite his featureless face. (At Chelsea’s ZieherSmith through April 20th).
Paul Anthony Smith.
There’s something subtly odd about Darren Almond’s recent series of landscape photos, which seem not-so-extraordinary at first glance. The series’ ‘Fullmoon’ title gives the game away, however, revealing that each of the photos in this show has been taken in the light of a full moon. Verdant landscapes and smooth water surfaces are an eye-pleasing surprise, but the ephemeral beauty of these cherry blossoms is a delight. (At Matthew Marks’ 522 West 22nd Street space through April 20th).
Darren Almond, ‘Fullmoon@Sakura Hanami,’ c-print mounted to aluminum in artist’s frame, 2006.
Ordered by his doctors to avoid stress by taking a hiatus from painting, Chinese art superstar Zhang Xiaogang took up bronze casting instead. Pace Gallery presents these stoic young characters who take up Xiaogang’s long meditation on individual vs collective identity. (At Pace Gallery, 508-510 West 25th Street through April 27th).
Zhang Xiaogang, Young Man, painted bronze, 2013.
It comes as no surprise that Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ is a favorite of New York artist Rona Pondick, whose new sculptures at Chelsea’s Sonnabend Gallery continue her trademark combination of her own head and other cast body parts with plant or animal bodies. Here, a wallaby’s stylized, beautiful form merges with a drooping hand and hanging head, suggesting a dragging weight. (Through April 27th).
Rona Pondick, Wallaby, stainless steel, 2007-12.
Known for cast concrete sculptures that relate to ancient literary or historical characters, often propped up on walkers, New York artist Justin Matherly was inspired by the Turkish archeological site of Nemrud Dagi to create these huge stelae (actually three sculptures end-to-end). Accompanying monoprints featuring the site bring to mind Smithson’s site and non-site as Matherly forges a mental connection between us and a distance place and time. (At Paula Cooper Gallery’s 521 W. 21st Street location through April 27th).
Justin Matherly, Handbook of inner culture for external barbarians (we nah beg no friend), concrete and ambulatory equipment, 2013.
London-based, Japanese artist Hiraki Sawa’s videos tend towards the whimsical, featuring tiny airplanes flying through his apartment or miniature rocking horses buried deep in flokati rugs. ‘Lineament,’ a new two-screen installation at Chelsea’s James Cohan Gallery takes a more serious turn as Sawa meditates on a friend’s sudden, profound memory loss with images of gears and an unraveling record suggesting erasure. (Through April 27th).
Hiraki Sawa, installation shot of Lineament, dual channel HD video with audio, 18:47 min, 2012.
Detail: Elliott Hundley, The Sun Goes Down, sound board, wood, inkjet print on kitakata, paper, string, plastic, photographs, pins, glass, 2013.
Elliott Hundley has toned down his extravagant bricolage in many of his recent artworks at Chelsea’s Andrea Rosen Gallery, but not in this 20ft tour de force in the back gallery. Hung with a curtain of colorful string and featuring dozens of tiny photos of the artist’s friends acting out scenes from black and white films, it’s a dramatic Hollywood homage. (Through April 27th).
Elliott Hundley, The Sun Goes Down, sound board, wood, inkjet print on kitakata, paper, string, plastic, photographs, pins, glass, 2013.
It takes a few hours to get going, but by the end of each day, Virginia Overton’s makeshift hot tub (heated by a coffee maker pumping water in and out of the tub) has gotten warm, if not necessarily inviting. The DIY sauna effect is complete with the other piece in the show – a gallery wall covered with Eastern red cedar cut from Overton’s family farm that fills the space with natural fragrance. (At Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s Chelsea gallery through April 6th).
Virginia Overton, ‘Untitled (hot tub),’ cast iron tub, coffee maker, vinyl tubing, limestone, brick, 2013 AND ‘Untitled (juniperus virginiana),’ eastern red cedar, 2013.
Doug Aitken is giving his ‘Sonic Fountain,’ dug from the floor of Chelsea’s 303 Gallery, a fitting send off as the show closes this week with a musical performance that wreaks havoc on more of the gallery’s architecture. (303 will move to West 24th Street while its current space is developed.) In this photo, musicians hammered on wood, tossed chunks of rubble and sawed drywall in accompaniment to the still operating fountain. (Through Saturday, April 6th).
Doug Aitken, musical performance/destruction of 303 Gallery’s interior, April 2, 2013.
Yesterday’s post featured Dieter Roth’s partially collapsed sculpture…in today’s, artist New York-based artist Sean Bluechel imagines ‘the moment before a collapse’ in cheeky sculptures cobbled together from forms derived from the history of ceramic art along with more contemporary vessels. (At Chelsea’s Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery through April 6th).
Sean Bluechel, installation view of ‘Still Life is No Life,’ at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, March 2013.
Over the two months since Hauser & Wirth gallery opened a show of work by Dieter Roth and his son, Bjorn Roth, assistants have been casting molds of Roth’s head in chocolate and stacking them into a ceiling-height tower. Nature took its course last week, however, as the lower busts crumbled, leaving a piece that speaks of the inevitability of decade and collapse. (At Hauser & Wirth’s Chelsea location through April 6th. See my January 29th post for a picture of busts being made.)
Dieter Roth, Selbstturm (Self Tower), chocolate casts, glass, steel, ed. 1/3, 1994/2013.
Since the 70s, James Turrell has been converting the Roden Crater, an extinct volcano in Arizona, into a series of chambers for viewing earth’s atmosphere and celestial phenomena beyond. At Pace Gallery’s 57th St space, he’s exhibiting models of structures based on light phenomena explored at Roden, including this one, which suggests a merger of a UFO and a pyramid. (Through April 20th).
James Turrell, Missed Approach, cast, plaster and wood, 1990.
The premise is simple in Charles Ray’s iconic 1992-3 ‘Family Romance’ sculpture – reduce a nuclear family to the height of its youngest member – but the resulting sculpture is disturbingly complex as it breaks taboos against nudity in the family and renders children in a decidedly uncute way. It’s a standout in the New Museum’s provocative ‘NYC 1993’ show, featuring groundbreaking work created in/around 1993. (Through May 27th).
Charles Ray, Family Romance, painted fiberglass and synthetic hair, 1992-93.
Matthew Fisher’s tidy waves look like carefully coiffured heads rising from the deeps and arranged in careful rows, like a school picture or choir rehearsal in the light of an apocalyptically weird sun. (At Chelsea’s New York Center for Art and Media Studies through April 12th.)
Andrew Masullo prefers the term ‘stuff maker’ to ‘artist’ as a way of describing his practice. Crowns, teeth, mountain ranges and more come to mind with this tiny 5×7 inch canvas with its zippy orange, ardent red and preppy pink/green color combo. (At Chelsea’s Mary Boone Gallery through April 27th.)
Andrew Masullo, ‘5404,’ 5” x 7,” oil/canvas, 2011-12.
Romanian artist Adrien Ghenie often paints historical figures from Hitler to Darwin, blotting out their features in aggressive smears of paint. Here, a woman’s comfortable, bourgeois home-life comes under attack as the furniture appears to explode or dissolve into pools of paint as she sends a helpless glance heavenward. (At Pace Gallery’s 534 West 25th Street location through May 4th).
Adrien Ghenie, Pie Fight Interior 8, oil on canvas, 2012.
Transylvanian twins Gert & Uwe Tobias offer more of the large-scale woodblock prints that have earned them widespread recognition in recent years in their solo show at SoHo’s Team Gallery. In this untitled piece, a daybed with a circular, saw-blade-like ornament may have felled the caped jester on the floor…the mystery is provocative. (Through March 30th).
Untitled (GUT/2053), colored woodcut on canvas, 2012
Sylvie Fleury’s 1998 video ‘Walking on Carl Andre,’ features women’s feet as they pose on ‘60s Minimalist icon Carl Andre’s signature metal floor plate sculptures. In this updated version, she allows visitors to try on a pair of heels and strut their stuff on an Andre replica in a feminizing collaboration that turns his masculine, industrial art product into a catwalk. (At Salon 94 Bowery through April 27th.)
Sylvie Fleury, installation view of ‘It Might as Well Rain Until September,’ at Salon 94 Bowery, March 2013.
Assembled over time on the floor of his studio from Home Depot paint color samples and traces of studio debris, William Cordova’s colorful paper grids bear witness to his own history of studio activity while alluding to the culture and history of the people of the Andes through a resemblance to the Wiphala flag. (At Sikkema Jenkins & Co through April 6th).
William Cordova, untitled (cuntisuyo), 2013; untitled (chinchasuya), 2011; untitled (tupac katari) 2011-12; untitled (antisuya), 2013. All mixed media collage on paper.
The figures in Rita Ackermann’s new paintings at Hauser & Wirth’s 69th Street location appear to materialize from the deep, their outlines like veins seen through flesh or marble. Ghostly characters with pointy pixy noses and saucer-shaped eyes, they walk the line between benevolent and menacing. (Through April 20th).
Rita Ackermann, ‘Fire by Days Blues VII,’ spray paint, oil pigments and rabbit skin glue on canvas, 2013.
Political corruption inspired these monumental sculptures by German artist Thomas Schutte, located at the southern corner of Central Park and Fifth Avenue. Tied together, the characters are unable to escape each other, though their construction on three stilt-like legs suggests that what precarious balance they do have is due to their fractious unity. (On view through August 25th. For more info, visit the Public Art Fund.)
Thomas Schutte, ‘United Enemies,’ bronze, 2011.
To celebrate the centenary of the late Philip Guston’s birth, McKee Gallery is showing key later work by the artist who is known for his unnerving cartoonish figures such as this duo in Klan hoods who navigate urban streets with a car full of bodies at sunrise. (At 745 Fifth Ave, through April 20th)
Philip Guston, ‘Dawn,’ oil on canvas,1970.
Peter Blum Gallery marks its first show at its new 57th Street gallery (as it says goodbye to its Chelsea and SoHo locations), with Rosy Keyser’s adventurous ‘paintings,’ assembled from materials as diverse as bamboo and rusty, corrugated steel. (Through April 20th).
Rosy Keyser, ‘Hungry Shepherd, Honeypot,’ left panel: enamel, spray paint and rope on steel. Right panel: dye enamel, bamboo, and polycarbonate on aluminum and wood on canvas. 2013.
Hope Gangloff’s pasty-skinned subjects are likened to hip updates on Egon Schiele’s or Gustave Klimt’s characters but the men and women in her latest solo show at Chelsea’s Susan Inglett Gallery – like this picture of ‘Lydia (The Tattooed Lady)’ – seem to be having a lot more fun. (Thanks to Nancy on last Saturday’s tour for a link to Groucho Marx’s ode to Lydia!) (Through March 23rd).
Hope Gangloff, Lydia (The Tattooed Lady), acrylic/canvas, 2013.
Wolfgang Laib’s fourteen-foot high ziggurat dominates Sperone Westwater’s narrow main gallery with its hefty slabs of fragrant beeswax. Titled, ‘Without Beginning and Without End,’ Laib creates his architecture in the form of an ancient structure, while using a natural material made by bees in their own building process. (On the Lower East Side through March 30th)
Wolfgang Laib, ‘Without Beginning and Without End,’ beeswax, wooden understructure, 2005.
Mark Dion’s vitrine-based sculptures often evoke the wonder of the 16th-18th century ‘Wunderkammer,’ or cabinet of curiosities. In this sculpture, the centerpiece of his current show at Chelsea’s Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, the ‘wunder’ of this cast replica of a manatee skeleton is overshadowed by a polluted sea-bed of tar-covered consumer goods below. (Through April 13th).
Mark Dion, Trichechus manatus latirostris, plastic skeleton, tar, found objects in steel and glass case, 2013.
You have to shout to be heard above the roar of dyed-black water pouring into vast steel containers in Polish artist Miroslaw Balka’s installation at Barbara Gladstone Gallery. Whether it conjures environmental destruction (with the oil-like appearance of the water) or suggests larger industrial processes, the installation, titled ‘The Order of Things,’ generates unease. (At Barbara Gladstone’s 21st Street location in Chelsea through March 30th).
Miroslaw Balka, 2 x (350 x 300 x 300), 36 x 36 x 29/The Order of Things, steel, water, pumps, plastic, rubber, water, food coloring and wood, 2013.
Painting gets the last laugh in Polish artist Wilhelm Sasnal’s new body of work which focuses on Kodak, its products, logos and marketing of the ‘Kodak moment.’ Now, the former photographic giant’s film products are reduced to memories and arresting color contrasts rendered in oils. (At Anton Kern Gallery through April 6th.)
Wilhelm Sasnal, Kodak Black, oil on canvas, 2012.
In his show at Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery, Barkley L. Hendricks updates his reserved 1969 ‘Lawdy Mama’ beauty with a decidedly more confident woman in the 2011 ‘Triple Portrait: World Conqueror.’ (Through April 6th).
Triple Portrait: World Conqueror, oil, aluminum leaf, variegation leaf and combination gold leaf on linen canvas, 2011.
Dana Hoey’s photographed cast of her own head looks so lifelike (despite being chipped and mottled), it’s eerie. Why not just display the cast? In the photo, the head is perfectly lit to suggest the raking light of a sunset and framed to force a reckoning with the ageless figure. (At Petzel through March 30th).
Dana Hoey, Me Dead, inkjet print, 2012.
Both Rubenesque and strong, caryatid-like females by New York sculptor Allyson Vieira update classical Greek architectural tradition by hoisting steel I-beams instead of plain lintels, suggesting that today’s new glass and steel structures will one day find themselves ancient. (At Laurel Gitlen on the Lower East Side through March 24th).
Allyson Vieira, Weight Bearing III, drywall, screws, steel, 2012.
Veteran minimalist Olivier Mosset’s arresting yellow wall, up-and-comer Jacob Kassay’s geometric shape created from leftover canvas scraps, and conceptual pioneer Lawrence Weiner’s artwork consisting of an instruction to remove a 36” x 36” square from the drywall offer three strategies for saying a lot with a little. The three converse amongst themselves at Andrea Rosen’s intimate new 544 W. 24th St location. (Through March 23rd).
Jacob Kassy, Olivier Mosset, Lawrence Weiner, Installation view at Andrea Rosen Gallery, March, 2013.
El Anatsui’s shimmering, undulating wall sculptures made of repurposed bottle caps are uniformly stunning, but previous experience of individual pieces won’t prepare you for the Ghana-based artist’s huge installation in the Brooklyn Museum’s fifth floor galleries. Titled ‘Gli’ (Wall), sheets of aluminum and copper wire materials were inspired by visits to walled cities of Berlin, Jerusalem and Notsie (in Togo) but offer a delicate and diaphanous take on the idea of barriers. (Through August 4th).
El Anatsui, ‘Gli (Wall),’ aluminum and copper wire, 2010.
Austrian artist Martin Roth’s interest in nature has led him to raise ducklings in his studio and grow grass on Persian rugs for past projects. His latest show at Louis B. James Gallery on the Lower East Side has a surprise twist (spoiler alert!) in which a bonsai tree upstairs is nurtured by the live, recorded sounds of birds, fish and these lively crickets in the basement gallery. (Through April 13th.)
Martin Roth, ‘Untitled (Bonsai)’ installation view at Louis B. James Gallery, March 2013.
What does it take for a minimal painting to stand on its own strengths, with no explanation or apparent associations to build a context for understanding? New York-based Suzan Frecon’s abstractions ask this question, offering pure color, shape and surface to absorbing effect. (At David Zwirner’s 525 West 19th St location through March 23rd).
Suzan Frecon, composition in four colors, trial 3, oil on panel, 2009.
“With Nozkowski, a good, slow look-’n’-solve is part of the fun,” Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes has observed in response to Nozkowski’s puzzle-like paintings. Packed with familiar yet alien forms, they translate the everyday world into abstraction. (At Pace Gallery’s 508 West 25th Street location through March 23rd).
Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (9-22), oil on linen on panel, 2012.
David Zwirner Gallery opened its new five-story, 30,000 square foot gallery with the perfect artwork to highlight architecture by Annabelle Selldorf. Eight-foot square pieces from Dan Flavin’s 1966-71 ‘European Couples’ series (titled after Europeans he considered influential) turn light into an artistic medium, washing every white wall in color. (At David Zwirner’s 537 West 20th Street location through March 16).
Dan Flavin, untitled (to Janet and Allen), pink fluorescent light, 1966-71.
Shinique Smith’s fabric sculptures bring to mind the way we fashion our identities through clothing, even when her bright bunches of used garments are bunched together and hung from the ceiling. Here, the artist turns her work jeans into a Hans Bellmer-esque assemblage of biomorphic shapes that touch on body image and the sensuous. (At James Cohan Gallery, Chelsea through March 16).
Shinique Smith, Soul Elsewhere, artist’s clothing, fiber-fil and rope, 2013.
Tam Van Tran is known for dynamic, sculptural wall installations created from usual materials (spirulina and chlorophyll colored stapled paper artworks a verdant green in past work). At Ameringer McEnery Yohe in Chelsea, Tran’s new works literally move, as copper foil catches the breeze and hints at palms moving in West Coast winds, which inspired this series. (Through March 16th).
Tam Van Tran, detail from ‘Palm Shrapnel,’ copper foil, palm leaf, and cardboard on canvas, 2012.
In past work, German artist Michael Riedel has drawn his materials from texts on the web written about his own work, which he turned into exhibition wallpaper. For his current show at David Zwirner Gallery, he puts those images into PowerPoint and causes a ‘freezing’ between slides to create a new merger of information. (At David Zwirner Gallery’s 533 West 19th Street location through March 23rd).
Michael Riedel at David Zwirner Gallery, installation view, Feb 2013.
Trevor Paglan’s latest project ups the ante on artistic ambition; a series of one hundred images titled ‘Last Pictures’ was etched on a disk and affixed to a communications satellite that went into space last November, creating a selective portrait of mankind’s nature and history for all or none who may see it. Here, a gallery visitor examines unselected images from Paglan’s shortlist. (At Metro Pictures in Chelsea, through March 9th).
Trevor Paglen, ‘The Last Pictures’ installation view, Feb 2013 at Metro Pictures.
Gavin Kenyon seems to be channeling influences from Hans Bellmer’s disturbing dolls to Senga Nengudi’s organic sack-like shapes in his new series at Ramiken Crucible on the Lower East Side. The show’s untitled centerpiece was created by casting the insides of faux fur coats, which have left tufts of hair on the surface of this prettily colored, carcass-like beast of a sculpture. (Through March 3rd).
Gavin Kenyon, untitled, dyed plaster, fur, 2013.
Italian artist Alighiero Boetti proved that conceptual art didn’t have to be visually dull with his Arazzi works – embroidered panels made by Afghan craftswomen in the 80s and 90s featuring Italian and Farsi text from poetry or sayings culled from around the world or authored by the artist. (At Chelsea’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery through March 23rd).
Alighiero Boetti, installation view of ‘La Forza del Centro,’ at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Feb 2013.
To look at it, you’d never guess that Berlin-based Alicja Kwade’s miraculously curving wooden door was fashioned from a number of old doors cut up and seamlessly pieced together. The sculpture’s title, ‘Eadem Mutata Resurgo,’ or ‘I rise again, changed but the same,’ puts a weighty spin on Kwade’s clever reclamation of found materials but the piece nevertheless appears to be an almost magical portal into another world. (At Lisa Cooley through March 17th).
Alicja Kwade, Eadem Mutata Resurgo, wood, 2013.
Originally displayed in an outdoor exhibition by the avant-garde Gutai Art Association in 1956, a recreation of Mononaga Sadamasa’s ‘Work (Water)’ in polyethylene tubes filled with ink-colored water stretches across the Guggenheim Museum’s atrium to create elegant, hammock-like cradles for a valuable natural resource.
Motonaga Sadamasa, ‘Work (Water)’ installation view at the Guggenheim, ’56 (original), 2011.
Lisbon-based artist Jorge Queiroz barely allows a human figure to materialize in this psychologically intense painting, but his indistinct human presence turns the abstract shapes in the background into suggestions of places and objects of significance. (At Chelsea’s Sikkema Jenkins & Co through March 2nd).
Jorge Queiroz, Waiting on the Room, oil stick and vinyl ink on canvas, 2012.
Known for her meticulous drawings of cult-like, all-female communities engaged in mysterious tasks, Amy Cutler explores the individual identities of select characters in ‘Brood,’ her latest solo show at Leslie Tonkonow in Chelsea. Her subjects range from beatific to stern, with this Nordic blond character falling somewhere in between. (Through March 9th).
Amy Cutler, Magda, gouache on paper, 2011.
Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s 9-screen installation at Chelsea’s Luhring Augustine has been a hands-down ‘Chelsea Gallery Tour’ favorite lately. Kjartansson and a band of musician friends occupy different rooms in a 200 year old Hudson River mansion as they perform a 53 minute song, which fades away but sticks in the memory as the group exits the house and trails away over green hills. (Through March 16th).
Ragnar Kjartansson, ‘The Visitors,’ installation view, Nine channel HD video projection, 2012.
Australian artist Patricia Piccinini has said that anxiety and wonder are at the heart of her bizarrely intriguing human-animal hybrid creatures, which explains why this fleshy fish is simultaneously repulsive and fascinating. Titled ‘Eulogy,’ the piece suggests both a connection between this businessman and toxic waters that spawned this mutant and an individual’s personal loss. (At Haunch of Venison, Chelsea, through March 2nd).
Patricia Piccinini, ‘Eulogy,’ silicon, fiberglass, human hair, clothing, 2011.
In Keith Sonnier’s ‘Ba-O-Ba’ series, lines of neon connect geometric glass shapes and bathe the surrounding space in color. Placed on the floor against the wall, the pieces originally served as performance sets that would include the performers’ bodies as a further reflected element. (At Mary Boone Gallery’s Chelsea space through Feb 23rd).
Keith Sonnier, ‘Ba-O-Ba II,’ neon, glass/transformer, 1969.
Jessica Jackson Hutchins’ blobby anthropomorph nestles in a spray painted chair while Anna Betbeze’s burnt, torn and cut Flokati rug on the wall behind acts as perfectly alien décor in this otherworldly group show at Chelsea’s Mitchell-Innes & Nash. (Through Feb 23rd).
Jessica Jackson Hutchins, ‘Hand,’ spray paint, ceramic, chair, 2012 (foreground). Anna Betbeze, ‘Lava,’ wool and ash, 2012 (background).
West-coast conceptual art legend Allen Ruppersberg is known for adopting LA’s colorful roadside signage (popular for advertising garage sales, etc) for his text-based artwork. Here on 10th Ave and 18th Street in Chelsea, he commands a huge sign of his own to present a series of (romantic?) meditations on relationships between ‘me’ and ‘you.’ (Presented by High Line Art/Friends of the High Line through Feb 28th).
Allen Ruppersberg, You & Me, print on vinyl, 25 x 75 feet, 2013.
Artistic collaborators McDermott & McGough isolate a moment of dawning terror on the face of Anne Francis in the Twilight Zone, then make it more jolting by painting it on the face of nine, one-foot square blocks. This marriage of Minimalism and Pop amuses (by resembling a giant Rubik’s cube) while its fractured state unsettles. (At Cheim & Read through Feb 23rd.)
McDermott & McGough, Just a Memory, 1967, 9 wooden cubes, 2012.
This tidy pile of tangerines looks good enough to eat, but beware – they’re plaster sculptures created by Margaret Lee, who has become known for her ultra life-like fruits and veg. Placed next a blue cushion on a wooden table, this minimal, three-dimensional still life offers the visual pleasure of an orderly arrangment. (At Murray Guy, Chelsea through Feb 23rd).
Margaret Lee, Tangerines and Bench, mixed media, 2013.
Constructed of discarded building materials, Song Dong’s ‘Doing Nothing’ mountains mark the replacement of China’s traditional historical obstacles (‘three big mountains’) of imperialism, feudalism and capitalism, by current concerns about education, health care and housing. Neon characters on the wall spelling out ‘doing’ and ‘nothing’ are subtle protests of slow progress. (At Pace Gallery, 534 and 510 West 25th Street through Feb 23rd).
Song Dong, Doing Nothing Mountains, installation view, window, glass, hinge, doorknob, handrail, lock, multi-layer board, socket, wire and paint, 2011-12.
On a trip to Russia, New York photographer Andy Freeberg was struck by the characterful older women who act as museum guards in the country’s major museums. In a fascinating series titled ‘Guardians,’ Freeberg captures the unposed women as their postures and expressions reflect or contrast the surrounding art. (At Andrea Meislin Gallery through March 2nd).
Andy Freeberg, Mikhail Nesterov’s Blessed St Sergius of Radonezh, Russian State Museum, archival pigment print, 2009.
Young New York artist Anna Plesset’s latest solo show at the Lower East Side gallery ‘Untitled,’ is a tour de force of trompe l’oeil illusion, with work that looks photocopied but is actually hand drawn and paintings of flowers made to look like paint flicked photos. But one of the show’s most remarkable paintings is easily missed – this minute self-portrait of the artist in a partly hidden pose. (Through Feb 24th).
Anna Plesset, ‘Self Portrait,’ oil on latex, 2013.
London-based Guardian art critic Adrian Searle calls British artist David Shrigley’s artwork ‘appalling, abysmal, and painfully dire,’ but likes it so much he has it tattooed on his belly. Shrigley’s off-beat sense of humor encourages such contradictory impulses, as does this cat pairing, which seems aimed at exploiting any viewer’s insecurities with charming hokeyness. (At Chelsea’s Anton Kern Gallery through Feb 16).
David Shrigley, ‘Cat (It’s OK, It’s not OK), acrylic on canvas stuffed with foam, 2012.
Young Israeli painter Maya Bloch is making a splash on the Lower East Side with her liquidy portraits of anonymous characters. This one’s indirect gaze, sloping face and coiffure that looks more like geology than a hairdo suggests an ageless, ghostly presence. (At Thierry Goldberg Gallery through Feb 17th).
Maya Bloch, Untitled, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2012.
Bureau Gallery’s exhibition space is so small (one of the tiniest in the city), it’s hard to find room to take a photograph of ‘Monsalvat,’ a sprawling exhibition of work by over fifty artists. Inspired by the Arthurian tale of the Fischer King, artist/curator duo Merkx & Gwynne recreate a version of the king’s castle here, complete with mystical relics (including the grail) crafted by stand-out young artists. (On the Lower East Side through Feb 17th).
Installation view of ‘Monsalvat’ at Bureau Gallery, Feb 2013.
Nari Ward’s installation of 300 abandoned baby strollers culled from Harlem streets in 1993 is a far cry from the banks of stroller parking around the city’s more family-friendly neighborhoods today. Here, surrounded and entwined by flattened fire hoses (they were first displayed in an abandoned fire house) and displayed to the sounds of Mahalia Jackson’s ‘Amazing Grace,’ they’re emblems of a gritty, made-do urban existence. (At the New Museum’s Studio 231 space next door to the museum through April 21st)
Nari Ward, ‘Amazing Grace,’ installation view at Studio 231, New Museum, approx 300 baby strollers and fire hoses, 1993.
South African photograher Zwelethu Mthethwa’s mother had a hope chest, a custom made box gifted to her when she married and left her childhood home. Likened to a time capsule, women keep the chest their entire lives. In Mthethwa’s ‘Hope Chest’ series, we don’t get a look inside the boxes, but what we do see – the lives and circumstances of everyday South Africans – are just as fascinating. (At Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery through Feb 23rd).
Zwelethu Mthethwa, Untitled (Hope Chest series), digital c-print, 2012. Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery.
A picture of a woman with a plastic bag, bubble wrap or toilet paper rolls on her head is going to get nothing but laughs, right? Not if it’s one of Dutch photographer Hendrik Kerstens’ portraits of his daughter, Paula, who manages an ethereal elegance while wearing a stack of doilies that evokes the elaborate collars worn by sitters in Old Master paintings. (At Danziger Gallery, Chelsea, through Feb 16th).
Hendrik Kerstens, ‘Doily,’ pigment print, 2011. Courtesy of Danziger Gallery.
Facility with any particular medium isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for making outstanding artwork any more, which makes Joseph Stashkevetch’s detailed nature scenes all the more enjoyable. Created by sanding away the surface of his rag paper and adding to it with conte crayon, his drawings have an engaging soft focus. Both Stashkevetch’s effort and the geological process he describes are astounding. (At Von Lintel Gallery through Feb 23rd).
‘Drawing in space’ is a familiar term used to describe abstract sculpture, but it turns literal in Wang Xieda’s new bronze sculpture at James Cohan Gallery, which brings Chinese calligraphy into three-dimensions. (In Chelsea through Feb 9th).
On the subject of ceramics (see yesterday’s post about Takuro Kuwata), Matthias Merkel Hess takes an amusing position on aesthetics vs use value in contemporary ceramics with these beautiful gas cans. (At Louis B. James, Lower East Side through Feb 22nd. )
Though Takuro Kuwata’s first US solo exhibition is titled ‘Flavor of Nature,’ the vivid reds, blues, golds and metallic glazes of his ceramics come across as anything but natural. This ‘stone explosion’ vessel was made by adding stones to his clay mix, which surface when fired. (At Salon 94 Bowery, Lower East Side, through Feb 25).
British conceptual artist Lucy Skaer once left a diamond and a scorpion together on an Amsterdam street. ‘Us to Them V,’ a photo of Skaer comparing natural materials to French Post-Impressionist Eduoard Vuillard’s 1895 painting ‘Album’ in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, isn’t quite so dangerous. But it does make a strange juxtaposition that interrupts usual ways of thinking of 19th century art. (At Simone Subal Gallery the group show ‘It’s Over There,’ Lower East Side through Feb 10th).
Ishmael Randall Weeks’ mountain range – suspended in the middle of Eleven Rivington’s Chrystie Street space – is composed of carved texts about revolution in Latin America, turning writing about imagined utopias into a depiction of a real place. (On the Lower East Side through Feb 10th).
LA video artist Doug Aitken, known for ambitious projects like his film projections on the exterior walls of MoMA and the Hirshhorn Museum, has created a smaller scale but no less intense installation piece for his latest show at 303 Gallery in Chelsea. The centerpiece is ‘Sonic Fountain,’ which allows drips to fall from the ceiling into a hole dug in the gallery floor in patterns that create a song that’s been likened to breathing. (Through March 23rd).
Turin-based artist Fabio Viale – who started working with marble when he was 16 – once rolled a 2,000 lb marble sculpture of a tire through the city streets. These pristine marble ‘tires’ haven’t seen that much action but tied together, they’re a surprising feat of technical accomplishment. See them Saturday, Feb 9th, 2-4pm on Merrily’s Lower East Side gallery tour. (At Sperone Westwater on the Lower East Side, through Feb 23rd).
‘Festone’ (festoon) feels like the perfect title for this festive, beautifully colored acrylic painting by Turin-based painter Giorgio Griffa. Hurricane Sandy damaged the delicate-appearing work in his first New York solo show since 1970 in October; now the prolific Griffa, who folds and shelves his paintings upon completion, is back with a new selection of pleasingly minimal abstractions worth celebrating. (At Chelsea’s Casey Kaplan Gallery through March 2nd).
Context is everything when it comes to Gaylen Gerber’s ‘collaborative’ artworks, including this Nigerian cowrie shell currency basket and a Makonde mask from Mozambique/Tanzania from mid-20th century, which the artist has titled ‘Support’ and covered in white oil paint. Questions of whose work is whose and whether Gerber is defacing, erasing or enhancing the ‘supports’ mingles with thoughts of Picasso, et al’s appropriation of African art, all to provocative effect. (At Chelsea’s Wallspace Gallery through Feb 9th).
How do you morph a white-cube gallery into a revitalized, post-industrial space? Try Matthew Darbyshire’s vinyl banners, based on an architect’s rendering of public space. They create a pleasingly anodyne setting, perfect to host Darren Bader’s conceptual art piece in which plants and people converse with each other (or in the moment captured here, huddle over an iPhone.) (At Lisa Cooley Gallery, Lower East Side, through Feb 3rd).
Discover Chelsea’s newest gallery and more this Saturday (11am – 1pm) on Merrily’s first group gallery tour of the year! Iconic European artist Dieter Roth merged art and life to the point of exhibiting impressive chunks of his studio floor that bear the traces of decades of art making. Email merrily to reserve your spot: merrily@newyorkarttours.com. (If you’ve toured with Merrily before, take 25% off your ticket price!)
‘Nets’ by young, Maine-based painter Sascha Braunig blurs the boundaries between her subject and his/her background, begging the question of where this individual’s boundaries lie. Is (s)he real or virtual? What effects have applied? And where might we meet such a person? (At Chelsea’s Foxy Production, through Feb 9th).
German-Swiss-Icelandic artist Dieter Roth (1930 – 1998) used natural materials like chocolate, cheese, bananas, sausages and rabbit dung to make sculptures and images that would blossom with new life as they aged. Here, assistants create chocolate casts of Roth’s famous chocolate or sugar self-portrait busts, as seen on the pallet. (At Chelsea’s Hauser & Wirth through April 13th).
Boasting ‘one of the largest column-free spaces for exhibiting art in the city,’ Hauser & Wirth’s spectacular new Chelsea location even has an impressive entrance. Work no. 1461 by British conceptual art titan Martin Creed is a permanent installation consisting of 2-inch wide adhesive tapes whose vivid colors lend visitors the energy to climb the stairs. Check back tomorrow for a peek upstairs.
In the late 60s, when the avant-garde sidelined painting for Minimalism, Performance and Conceptual art, Daniel Buren forged ahead with ‘painting’ that jettisoned aesthetic concerns. He hit on a formula that he’s used ever since, using vertical stripes 8.7cm in width in site specific installations that force reconsideration of their space. Petzel’s new 18th Street gallery space has barely had time to be considered (this is only the 2nd show there), but Buren’s work has never looked more attractive.
Meg Webster’s aesthetic is minimal but rife with references to the natural world. Her current show at Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery includes paper covered with egg of free-range chickens and a sand bed from 1982/2012, which she originally brought into her studio from the beach. Both are reflected in this cross-shaped sculpture designed to reflect outstretched arms. (Through Feb 9th).
We conceive of and show off our identities via our clothes, but how often do we really ponder the look, feel, size and meaning of our garments? Julie Allen, known for her meticulous sculptures and drawings of objects important in her personal life, created this underwear from Saran Wrap and tape as one of hundreds of drawings and sculptures made to mark her recent marriage and revel in intimacies enjoyed. (At McKenzie Fine Art on the Lower East Side through Feb 3rd).
Nothing else in Chelsea looks remotely like Brooklyn-based sculptor Robert Lazzarini’s latest sculptures at Marlborough Gallery (through Feb 16th). Partly inspired by the 1973 movie Badlands, they and evoke an American roadtrip gone badly wrong.
This fence was welded together from over two-hundred individually cast steel pieces. Lazzarini’s attention to detail goes far – he even made the barbed wire. It’s the most impressive piece in the show not only in terms of how much work went into it, but in how Lazzarini reimagines a metal fence blowing as if it were a cloth or flag gently flapping the in breeze.
Lazzarini called this melting liquor sign the ‘most profound piece in the show,’ saying, ‘It speaks to a damage within society that is not easily seen.’ In person, the sculpture’s text is surprisingly difficult to read, as if we had had one too many. Its towering, ghostly presence is a highlight of the show.
Vaults, blown open and empty, are such a Hollywood staple that this twisted lockbox looks strangely familiar. Finding it twisted in the corner, as if in a fun-house mirror, is not so expected. While struggling with that not-quite-clear sense of déjà vu, check out the sculpture’s most amazing feature – its perfectly skewed lock.
Charlotte Dumas’s photographs of the horses who participate in soldier burials at Arlington National Cemetery are shot ‘at home,’ in their stables after hours. Out of their work context, they’re portrayed as individuals, and the effect is striking. Originally commissioned by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, they’re now on view at Chelsea’s Julie Saul Gallery through March 9th.
Jacob Kassay’s electroplated canvases – paintings made with old photographic processes – became better known in the past year or so for their astronomical prices than their artistic merit. In Kassay’s current show at The Kitchen one of the signature silver-colored pieces sits in the gallery corner behind a beam, an unambiguous message that the artist has moved on. (At The Kitchen through Feb 16th).
Kids from PS 63 in the South Bronx discovered that coloring with crayons isn’t as easy as it seems…At least not when the crayons are over two feet long. Berlin-based South African artist Robin Rhode created wall decals and handed over the crayons, letting the children discover that being an artist can be hard work. (At Lehmann Maupin’s Lower East Side Gallery through March 16th).
Louise Despont brings together representations of the constellations Ophichus and Serpens with Persian carpet imagery in her amazingly intricate graphite and colored pencil drawing, ‘Serpens.’ Created on collected vintage accounting ledgers, this labor intensive piece wows with its detail and evocation of esoteric bodies of knowledge. (At Nichelle Beauchene Gallery’s new Lower East Side location, 327 Broome Street through Jan 20th.)
A cement truck crashes on an empty highway whose grey surface is mirrored in the air, the red color from the hood bleeds onto the roadway, forming a colorful abstraction, while a skinny kid in an astronaut’s helmet looks on. It could only be a painting by David Humphry, whose signature mix of abstraction and realism, saturated colors and colliding stories awaken possibilities for strange stories. (At Fredricks & Freiser through Jan 19th).
Former celebrity photographer David LaChapelle creates an uncomfortable memento mori for the jet set in his latest solo show at Paul Kasmin Gallery with ‘Still Life,’ a series begun after the National Wax Museum in Dublin was vandalized in 2009. Here, the Prince of Wales lies shattered in a box next to Heath Ledger & near Cameron Diaz. (Through Jan 19th).
Andy Warhol is at the top of the contemporary art market, Rosemarie Trockel has a well-received solo exhibition at the New Museum. Neither’s accomplishments seem to phase Sean Bluechel, whose glazed ceramic bananas (reminiscent of Warhol’s famed fruit) appear to rain down on a Trockel knit wool painting from 1986 in ‘Banana Pissing Bananas on Trockel.’ (At Chelsea’s Nicole Klagsbrun, through January 19th.)
From Belgium’s colonial past to The Disney Company’s practices, Luc Tuymans’s past paintings have obliquely referenced the exercise of power and control. By contrast, his latest body of work presents fragments from his own life, including this ominous image of a zoo building and a jacket, which looks like a modernist abstraction plus or minus a body. (At David Zwirner Gallery, 519 West 19th Street through Feb 9th).
