Simone Leigh in ‘Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina’

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Simone Leigh’s monumental ‘Large Jug’ in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition ‘Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina’ draws on the historic and influential pottery produced by enslaved Africans in Old Edgefield prior to the Civil War.  The Met’s current show includes vessels used for food preparation and storage as well as a selection of face jugs, pottery vessels bearing human likenesses and having ritual significance.  In Leigh’s version, facial features have been replaced by large cowrie shells that hint at eyes or mouths but also point to the past use of the shells as currency.  (On view through Feb 5th, 2023).

Simone Leigh, Large Jug, glazed stoneware, 62 1/2 × 40 3/4 × 45 ¾,’21 – 22.

Wael Shawky at Lisson Gallery

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Egyptian artist Wael Shawky once said that “…art should be running after our own ignorance…” explaining that his artistic project arises from learning, particularly about how history has been constructed.  In ‘Isle of the Blessed,’ the Egyptian artist’s current solo show at Lisson Gallery, Shawky presents a single-channel film and accompanying paintings that consider Greek mythology’s explanation of place names (e.g. Europa) as a way of deriving fact from fiction.  Mysterious, cartoonish and a little haunting, paintings such as this one, ‘Isles of the Blessed XII,’ explore the boundaries between the fantastical and the real.  (On view in Chelsea through Jan 14th).

Wael Shawky, Isles of the Blessed XII, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 1/10 x 3/5 inches, 2022.

Bethany Collins in ‘Visual Record: The Materiality of Sound in Print’

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Bethany Collins’ artwork is about language, specifically its potential to communicate or to completely fail to do so.  In the Print Center’s engaging fall/winter group exhibition ‘Visual Record,’ Collins presents ‘America:  A Hymnal,’ a book featuring one hundred songs set to the tune of ‘My Country Tis of Thee.’  Since the 18th century, new lyrics have been written for this song in support of such divergent causes as temperance, suffrage, abolition, and the Confederacy.  In Collins’ book, printed lyrics run below notes that have been burnt away by laser cutting, demonstrating that the classic tune has itself become a battleground for various ideologies.  (On view through Jan 21st).

Bethany Collins, America: A Hymnal, book with 100 laser cut leaves, 6 x 9 x 1 in, 2017.
Bethany Collins, America: A Hymnal, book with 100 laser cut leaves, 6 x 9 x 1 in, 2017.

 

 

 

Rico Gatson at Miles McEnery Gallery

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Like two huge eyes or dual portals into the unknown, Rico Gatson’s ‘Untitled (Double Consciousness)’ is dominated by two intersecting sets of concentric circles, a repeated motif in his current show of painting titled ‘Spectral Visions’ at Miles McEnery Gallery.  The work’s title suggests a simultaneous looking outward and inward; its vibrant color indicating a state of heightened awareness.  Inspired by mathematician Ron Eglash’s study of fractal forms found in African patterns and spiritual expressions in the work of artists like Hilma af Klint and Emma Kunz, Gatson harnesses geometry to express kinds of order that exist beyond the conscious realm. (On view through Jan 28th).

Rico Gatson, Untitled (Double Consciousness), acrylic paint and glitter on wood, 36 x 48 inches, 2022.

Deborah Butterfield at Marlborough Gallery

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Though told as a student that horses weren’t ‘serious’ subjects for contemporary art, Deborah Butterfield persevered to become renowned for sensitive and powerful sculptures of horses created in materials from salvaged metal to sea plastics.  Best-known are her bronze pieces that still appear to be made of the wood from which they were cast, an enticing illusion.  In a show of new work at Chelsea’s Marlborough Gallery, Butterfield sourced wood from near her home/working horse ranch in Montana and property in Hawaii to create towering horses like this one titled ‘Sweetgrass,’ which, though its assembled form is light like a sketch created in wood, has a powerful presence in keeping with its weighty bronze manufacture.  (On view through Jan 14th).

Deborah Butterfield, Sweetgrass, cast bronze, unique, 90 x 108 x 33 inches, 2021 – 22.