Derek Fordjour at Petzel Gallery

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Visitors to Derek Fordjour’s impressive multimedia exhibition at Petzel Gallery can enjoy two free, live performances daily, take in vibrant new paintings and walk through a magical, life-sized diorama.  By far the most entertaining show in a particularly rich moment in the Chelsea galleries, Fordjour’s ‘Score’ sinks it in the basket while questioning what success is.  Known for images of Black athletes and performers whose excellence lands them in complicated performative roles, Fordjour includes this loaded painting titled CONfidence MAN.  One of the most attractive pieces in an enticing new body of 2D work, this colorful portrait shows a dapper man surrounded by balloons.  Despite the dazzle, he is posed in front of a skull in the window behind him suggesting that customers might do well to be wary. (Show is on view through Dec 22nd, performances through Dec 16th.

Derek Fordjour, CONfidence MAN, acrylic, charcoal, cardboard, glitter, oil pastel and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas, 85 x 65 inches, 2023.

Calida Rawles at Lehmann Maupin Gallery

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LA painter Calida Rawles’ realist paintings of women and girls submerged in water both clearly define their subjects and at the same time obscure them through shadow and reflection, suggesting a simultaneous state of knowing and unknowing.  Titled ‘A Certain Oblivion,’ Rawles first major solo show at Lehmann Maupin Gallery presents still and clean bodies of water that appear to offer a place of refuge, even therapy to women who float in or glide through the water, faces barely breaking the surface.  Yet several paintings come from source photos taken after dark and were even painted in low light in the studio, complicating and making uncertain the watery realms depicted.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 16th).

Calida Rawles, We Knew It Was Coming, acrylic on canvas, 96 x 120 x 2 inches, 2023.

Eric N. Mack at Paula Cooper Gallery

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Eric N. Mack calls himself a painter whose medium is fabric – new work at Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea is mostly hung on stretchers that support not canvas but collaged fabric fragments.  Like painting, Mack’s work foregrounds color and pattern, but the artist doesn’t add these elements to the canvas, rather he encounters them as found materials.  Instead of creating transparency and texture from paint, these are qualities of the surface itself.  Sourced from divergent origins – Mack might use fabric from couture clothing or neighborhood markets – the artist collapses quality distinctions in his dynamic abstractions.  (On view through Dec 22nd in Chelsea).

Eric N. Mack, Strewn Sitbon, fabric on aluminum stretcher, overall: 41 x 34 ½ x 6 inches, 2023.

Dana Schutz at David Zwirner Gallery

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The Face, one of the first works in Dana Schutz’s absorbing show of recent paintings and bronzes at David Zwirner Gallery, pictures a surreal scene of figures supporting and hiding under a huge mask.  Barely able to control the giant visage, one character bends over to pick up a rock, perhaps intending to fire it in anonymity at a foe (us?) from behind the face.  Rife with allegory, Schutz’ new work configures various groupings of individuals in unclear yet meaningful interactions – gathering to paint together, sitting on a couch as if on a talk show or clustered together in a circle, arms on shoulders.  Crowded into the picture plane, dynamic and rendered in vibrant colors, the figures recall not only the exaggerated features of Italian Commedia dell’arte masks but theatrical storylines that foreground human folly.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 16th).

Dana Schutz, The Face, 108 x 138 inches, oil on canvas, 2023.

Stefan Rinck at Nino Mier Gallery

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With only fossilized remains to go on, how do we know what dinosaurs actually looked like?  German sculptor Stefan Rinck asks (and answers) this tongue-in-cheek question to humorous effect in a show of stone sculpture featuring cute lizards, now on view at Nino Mier Gallery’s Tribeca space.  Though the ancient reptiles have been fashioned of even more ancient material – stones including sandstone, marble and limestone, their look is decidedly contemporary – some even sport Crocs.   In the case of ‘Baguettesaurier,’ a horned creature of polished diabase, who’s to say dinosaurs didn’t also pick up a baguette on the way home?  (On view through Dec 16th).

Stefan Rinck, Baguettesaurier, diabase, limestone, 31 ½ x 18 7/8 x 19 ¾ inches, 2023.