From 1944, the year of his first solo show in New York, Hans Hoffman’s ‘Seated Woman’ imported a sense of movement, bold colors and a Cubist approach to the human body to the budding New York School. (At Ameringer McEnery Yohe Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 25th).
Hans Hoffman, Seated Woman, oil on panel, 1944.
“The whole surface of the world is a potential drawing,” said LA artist Ingrid Calame in a recent interview. “How do you represent something as huge as the world?” Calame answers her question by mapping a small section of the world and making it feel large. For this room-sized installation, Calame visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway pits, tracing the stains and tire tracks and reproducing them here in a blaze of electric colors. (At Chelsea’s James Cohan Gallery through Feb 8th.)
Ingrid Calame, Indianapolis Motor Speedway Pits, #4, #7, #9, #26, #32, #33, #35, #37, #39, #40, as installed: 13’ 5 ½” x 41’ 9” x 30’, pigment on wall, 2013.
Built from materials reclaimed from shipwrecks off Florida’s Key West, this pigeon coop houses birds trained by New York artist Duke Riley to fly from Havana to Key West bearing cigars in carefully crafted slings. Grids of painted bird portraits detail the fates of the participants, who were named after filmmakers who had brushes with the law, or historical smugglers. (At Chelsea’s Magnan Metz Gallery through Jan 11th).
Duke Riley, installation view of ‘See You At the Finish Line,’ at Magnan Metz Gallery, Dec, 2013.
Idiomatic phrases like ‘jumping through hoops’ or ‘afraid of her own shadow’ inspired London-painter Sophie von Hellerman’s latest solo show at Chelsea’s Greene Naftali Gallery, which includes this huge canvas installation, ‘Throwing Stones in a Glass House.’ In her signature, washy style (pigments are applied directly to unprimed canvas), von Hellerman presents characters who don’t look like they could do much harm with stones resembling mud-clumps, but who conjure unease nonetheless. (Through Jan 4th).
Sophie von Hellerman, Throwing Stones in a Glass House, pigment and acrylic emulsion on canvas, 2013.
This monumental, eight-part painting may be an abstraction, but it was inspired by the winter colors of southern Bavaria, where artist Sean Scully spends time. (At Chelsea’s Cheim & Read Gallery through Jan 11th).
Sean Scully, Night and Day, oil on aluminum, 110 x 320 inches, 2012.