London-based artist Alice Channer’s sculpture ‘Backbone’ makes the best use of stirrup pants ever. Cast in polyurethane resin and paired with aluminum bars, they elegantly slink across the gallery floor towards two huge vertical banners featuring elongated shampoo bottles. (At Lisa Cooley Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 23rd).
Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi’s window installation at Chelsea’s Lombard-Freid Gallery remains from pre-Hurricane Sandy, though his installation of politically attuned drawings made directly on newpaper front-pages had not yet opened when this photo was taken – exactly three weeks after the storm. It’s a poignant plug for critical thinking.
Installation art pioneers Edward & Nancy Kienholz’s 1985 sculpture ‘The Ozymandias Parade’ is heartfelt and bitter enough to give pause to both post U.S. presidential election gloaters and wound-lickers. Depicting a national leader and his deputy falling from horses and a top ranking general riding an elderly taxpayer’s back, it also reveals the results of a poll taken this fall prior to the installation asking, “Are you happy with your government?’ The answer was ‘no.’ (At Pace Gallery, 510 West 25th Street through Dec 22nd).
Join me on one of my final art gallery tours of 2012! On Dec 1st, 2-4pm, we’ll be seeing the best that Chelsea has to offer. The next day, Sunday Dec 2nd, 10:30am – 12pm, I’ve added an additional tour of ‘Regarding Warhol’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On December 8th, 11am – 1pm (a new time), we’ll check out the highlights of New York’s more experimental galleries on the Lower East Side. And as always, if you can’t join me on a tour, I’m glad we can see ‘an outstanding artwork a day’ together on Facebook!
Anish Kapoor’s concave sculptures, like this untitled stainless steel and lacquer disk currently at Chelsea’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery (24th Street location), are austere and elegant, a complete contrast to the lively Gangnam style video he recently released in support of artist/activist Ai Weiwei and Amnesty International. It’s worth another Gangnam parody just to see clips from dancing staff at MoMA, the Whitney, Guggenheim, and Gladstone Gallery and more.