Virginia Overton at Mitchell-Innes & Nash

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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 at 303 Gallery – Continued…

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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.

Sean Bluechel at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery

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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.

Dieter Roth & Bjorn Roth at Hauser & Wirth

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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.

James Turrell at Pace Gallery

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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.