Quinci Baker in Title IX at The Hole

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Boxers, golfers, tennis champs, martial arts practitioners and more sporting characters dominate the walls of The Hole Gallery’s two-gallery exhibition ‘Title XI,’ a reference to the 1972 government policy that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education.  Over fifty years later, the impact on women and girls has been profound with the gallery citing an expansion from 300,000 girls involved in high school sports to 3 million.  Quinci Baker’s video ‘The Hindrance,’ revisits Venus Williams’ 1999 match in which falling hair beads resulted in a penalty, while Represent (I), crafted from collaged from hair beads, pays homage to the tennis great. (On view through August 27th in Tribeca and the Lower East Side).

Quinci Baker, Represent (I), inkjet collage, pony beads, acrylic on cradled wood panel, 24 x 30 x 2 inches, 2023.

Alvar Aalto in “Community: The Architecture of Civic Space and Private Domains” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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International style architecture and Bauhaus design strongly influenced late Finnish architect Alvar Aalto’s influential bent plywood furniture, sourced from his country’s birch and pine forests.  His famous ‘Paimio chair,’ designed for a tuberculosis hospital in Paimio, Finland, and now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the fascinating group exhibition, “Community: The Architecture of Civic Space and Private Domains,” was angled to allow patients to better breathe and cough.  Material choices along with color and other considerations were essential elements in Aalto’s and his wife Aino’s designs, aimed at meeting the needs of individuals.  (Ongoing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Side).

Alvar Aalto, ‘Model No. 41’ Lounge Chair for the Paimio Sanatorium, laminated birch, 1931-32.

Patti Warashina in ‘Funk You, Too’ at the Museum of Art and Design

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University of Washington art professor emerita Patti Warashina created this comical collision in 1971 as a commentary on the way in which male ceramic students were challenged to build kilns while the female students were encouraged to practice decorative techniques.  Now a standout in the Museum of Art and Design’s excellent ‘Funk You, Too,’ exhibition, Warashina’s ‘car kiln’ (in which a ‘car’ or ‘deck’ can be directed into a kiln) pioneers a new variety of kiln, one capable of being magically reshaped by the artwork put into it.   As her red car drives into the kiln (complete with an interior full of flames), the kiln itself morphs into Warashina’s vision.  (On view through Aug 27th).

Patti Warashina, Metamorphosis of a Car Kiln, earthenware, glaze and luster, 1971.

Bjorn Friborg at HB381 Gallery

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In defiance of the material’s apparent fragility, Danish glassmaker Bjorn Friborg appears to blast through glass spheres, creating portals that allow us to peer through solid forms at Tribeca’s HB381 Gallery.  A metaphor for ‘exposing and revealing the inner self,’ these apertures are created by adding hot material to blown glass and allowing for melting and further color changes with the application of flame.  (On view through Aug 18th).

Bjorn Friborg, Implosion, hand-blown glass, 21.25” h x 17” dia, 2023.

rafa esparza at Artists Space

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Titled ‘Camino’ or ‘Road,’ LA based performance and exhibition artist rafa esparza’s exhibition at Artists Space creates a pathway through the gallery space using blocks of adobe that connect earthen panels painted with portraits of Black and brown working people.  Interspersed are paintings of the 110 Freeway in Los Angeles, listed in the US National Register of Historic Places as the first freeway in the western United States.  Though esparza’s barefoot subjects literally connect to the land itself, the show considers how individuals and community connections to land have been disrupted by the highways that followed 110 and how customized vehicles (including the bike seen here) have provided a workaround and sense of identity.  (On view in Tribeca through Aug 18th).

rafa esparza, Jaime, acrylic on adobe and powder coated steel, painting: 85.5 x 50 x 3 inches, overall: 89 x 50 x 60 inches, 2023.