Chelsea is slowly coming back to life, post-Sandy. Yancey Richardson Gallery just reopened a show of panorama photos by Hellen van Meene including this portrait of an exquisite girl in a dilapidated interior, taken in Heiloo, Netherlands in ’08. (Though Nov 24th.)
Faded posters of ‘fade’ hairdos headline Barb Choit’s latest solo show, ‘Fade Diary.’ Featuring non-professional models, they recall yearbook photos, anthropological studies and mug shots while documenting faded fashions. In another photo, a model sporting a red glove echoes past styles while reflecting the present day NYC street in an image that has resonance with Lee Friedlander’s store-front photos currently uptown at Pace Gallery. (At Rachel Uffner Gallery, Lower East Side through Dec 23rd.)
Painter Pieter Schoolwerth rewrites art history with a new series of paintings that remake 17th century French painter Simon Vouet’s 1635 ‘Aeneas and His Family Fleeing Troy.’ Here, Aeneas, his invalid father and his small son crowd into one dynamic figure (created from digital printout, drawn lines and thick areas of painting) in an urgent escape. (At Miguel Abreu Gallery, Lower East Side, through Dec 22nd).
Technique rather than subject matter (he’s painted portraits for over thirty years) drives interest in Chuck Close’s recent artwork. For this remake of his iconic ‘Mark’ (’78-’79), Close layered gesso on the paper and screenprinted a grid. Using a dowel with felt on the end, each square is hand stamped three times with different colors. Factor in a week’s drying time for each layer and it’s no wonder that edition of 40 is still being printed. (At Pace Prints, 57th Street through Nov 21st.)
Conceptual artist John Baldessari pairs song lyrics with images abstracted from canonical paintings in his latest series of paintings. The odd angle of this deer’s head gives its source away as an 1867 hunting scene by Gustave Courbet. The hunt looks more comical than gruesome in Baldessari’s version, though on reflection maybe both deer and fly should be spared. (At Marian Goodman Gallery, 57th Street, through Nov 21).