Robyn O’Neil, American Animals at Susan Inglett Gallery

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‘American Animals,’ an uncannily orderly yet apocalyptic vision of the heads of white men subsumed by waves of water or hair, dominates Robyn O’Neil’s current solo show at Susan Inglett Gallery.  Known for drawings that feature multitudes of middle-aged men wreaking various kinds of havoc, O’Neil suggests with this enormous drawing that the men are receiving their comeuppance, perhaps from a feminine force engulfing them with hair or from nature, overcoming them with waves of water.  Who are the men?  Why is their response to calamity so strangely passive?  O’Neil keeps us guessing with provocative questions. (On view in Chelsea through June 4th).

Robyn O’Neil, American Animals, graphite on canvas, 103 x 140 inches, 2020 – 2022.

Bea Scaccia at JDJ Gallery

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Hair, clothing and jewelry were of utmost importance in the small town where Italian artist Bea Scaccia grew up.  Now a New Yorker and long-since escaped from the cultural norms of her youth, the artist is showing painted assemblages at Tribeca’s JDJ Gallery of items – wigs, gloves and ornaments – that allow individuals to role-play through dress.  Titled, ‘A belief in physio-gnomic principles,’ this grouping of ringlets and puffs of fur hints at a figure without revealing one, mock-suggesting that accoutrements make the person. (On view through May 27th).

Bea Scaccia, A belief in physio-gnomic principles, acrylic on canvas, 42 x 42 inches, 2022.

Doug Aitken, Wilderness at 303 Gallery

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In his latest multi-screen video installation, ‘Wilderness’ at 303 Gallery, renowned artist Doug Aitken asks, “How far we will continue to evolve, and at what cost?”   Aitken’s last major show in ‘18 at his Chelsea gallery featured communications expert and cell-phone pioneer Martin Cooper pondering how connected we actually need to be.  Here, the artist takes this train of thought further, shooting footage on the beach near his Venice home to suggest land’s end as a kind of metaphorical end to pre-digital life.  Beachgoers mouth phrases like ‘You sound so sweet and clear but you’re not really there,’ but the audio is from AI generated digital voices.  Alluring and alarming, Aitken’s scenes give pause for thought as we witness hands photographing the sunset becoming hands that hail the new.  (On view through May 27th).

Doug Aitken, Wilderness, installation view, eight-channel composited video, 2022.

Jolie Ngo and R & Company

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Jolie Ngo is having her first solo show in New York at R & Company, but her debut happened a few years ago as an undergrad when her renowned professor Glenn Adamson highlighted her ceramics on his personal Instagram.  Curators and gallerists bought the work, which she’d crafted from her 3-D printed designs. Now wrapping up her MFA at Alfred University and only in her mid-20s, Ngo’s showing new pieces in Tribeca that were conceived in a 3-D modeling program, brought into the round using 3-D clay printing, glazed and fired.  Painted with gradients and affixed with add-on forms, Ngo’s so-called ‘cyborgian pottery objects’ are a unique mix of fascinating and fun.  (On view in Tribeca through August 12th.)

Jolie Ngo, installation view of Memory Palace at R & Company, (foreground) a unique ceramic vessel in porcelain, glaze, luster and PLA plastic, 2021.

Nari Ward, Shoelaces at Lehmann Maupin

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Shining copper panels shaped like the squares of a sidewalk, marked with outlines of candles and other items left by mourners on a street memorial are beautiful reminders of the terrible cost of the pandemic and of racially-motivated violence in Nari Ward’s latest solo show at Lehman Maupin Gallery.  Downstairs, four text-based works in one of his signature materials – hanging shoelaces – cite songs, poetry and the Emancipation Proclamation.  ‘What’s Going On,’ references Marvin Gaye’s 1971 song, inspired by US involvement in Vietnam and the civil unrest in Watts.  In the past, Ward has collected shoelaces from museum visitors to make word-based installations, establishing an association with the personal that brings the text closer to home.  (On view in Chelsea through June 4th).

Nari Ward, What’s Going On, shoelaces, 78 x 81.5 x 1 inch, 2022.

Rosa Barba at Luhring Augustine Gallery

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Rosa Barba’s ‘Language Infinity Sphere,’ a form created from old letterpress blocks now on view at Luhring Augustine’s Tribeca space, speaks with its circular form to the ongoing output of these blocks over the years. Other text-related work in the show includes handwritten words on a filmstrip that rotates around a lightbox cube and a 35mm film depicting images and text from the Library of Congress’ massive campus, the largest media archive in the world.  Language appears in unexpected forms in this show, even as marks on the landscape in a film showing disposal sites for radioactive material in the western U.S.  (On view through May 21st).

Rosa Barba, Language Infinity Sphere, lead letters on steel, unique, diameter 18 1/8 inches, 2018.

Xiao Wang at Deanna Evans Projects

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In an Instagram post, Brooklyn-based artist Xiao Wang wrote, “I consider adding highlights as one of the most joyful moments in painting.”  The pleasure is all ours in observing the light as it illuminates the gingko leaves and rests on his model’s cheek in this standout piece from the artist’s solo show at Deanna Evans Projects. Featuring moody, nighttime paintings populated by young people, semi-obscured by plants and bouquets, the new paintings make nature an active participant in each scene.  (On view in Tribeca through May 28th).

Xiao Wang, Streetlight, oil on canvas, 16 x 12 inches, 2021.

Veronica Ryan at Paula Cooper Gallery

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In her solo show at Paula Cooper Gallery, Monserrat-born, England-based artist Veronica Ryan engages themes of global movement and trade with humble materials including fruits, seeds and other organic matter.  Ryan has pointed out that familiar foods bring people together to share meals and memories; she has also incorporated materials like ash from the Soufrière Hills volcano, which has covered the town in which she was born.  Pleasure and trauma also meet in this pile of stoneware cocoa beans, a product that brings happiness to many, sometimes at the expense of enslaved workers. (On view in Chelsea through May 28th).

Veronica Ryan, Cocoa Passion in Tandem, ceramic stoneware, pigment, volcanic ash, jute rug, overall: height variable x 70 7/8 x 70 7/8 inches, 2021.

David Aipperspach at Chart Gallery

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The paintings in Philadelphia-based artist David Aipperspach’s current solo show at Tribeca’s Chart Gallery, ‘Prologue to a Garden Dark’ anticipate the slow end of a summer’s day by blending light and color from different times in a single scene. At the show’s entrance, a small painting tracks the path of the sun as it sinks though a grid of darkening colors, acting as a Rosetta stone for the same color shifts that appear in rectangles of stacked colors inset in the paintings.  Acting as ‘clocks,’ the rectangles break into tranquil scenes, acting as abrupt reminders of the passage of time.  (On view through April 30th in Tribeca).

David Aipperspach, 4-7pm, oil on canvas, 84 x 72 inches, 2021.

Nora Turato at 52 Walker

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‘Follow me you coward,’ reads an arresting command on the wall of Nora Turato’s current show at 52 Walker, along with the cliched, ‘a lifetime of action and adventure with no clock to punch,’ and tantalizing ‘all is forgiven.’ The show’s title, ‘Govern Me Harder,’ a puzzlingly submissive, perhaps masochistic demand was inspired by a sticker she saw in an Amsterdam dog park; other expressions were gathered from news, ads, online sources and, says the artist, her own thoughts.  In this enamel on steel panel, the last word of the sentence, ‘I sold it for million bells,’ derails expectations of a million dollar sale, leaving us in a thought-provoking lurch.  (On view in Tribeca through July 1st.)

Nora Turato, i sold it for million bells, vitreous enamel on steel in four (4) parts, overall: 94 ½ x 75 5/8 inches, 2022.

Thomas Bayrle at Gladstone Gallery

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The vast scale of the three artworks in Thomas Bayrle’s current solo show at Gladstone Gallery’s cavernous 21st Street gallery speaks to the huge public profile of his subjects:  the Pope, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Kim Kardashian.  Composed of repeated images arranged to create a portrait, Bayrle’s ‘superforms’ mimic the repetition of information via mass media and suggest that a person’s identity is formed by their messaging.  In this case, Kim Kardashian’s persona merges with the means of disseminating it – the iPhone.  (On view in Chelsea through April 23rd).

Thomas Bayrle, Kim Kardashian, pencil, acrylic and fine art pigment print on paper, mounted on gallery cardboard, 41 x 37 1/8 inches, 2021.

Margarita Cabrera in Group Exhibition at Jane Lombard

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The artists in ‘say the dream was real and the wall imaginary,’ Jane Lombard Gallery’s excellent group exhibition organized by curator and critic Joseph R. Wolin, deftly negotiate cultural boundaries in contexts that vary from imaginary cities to remote villages.  Margarita Cabrera’s cacti are a standout; known for her ongoing collaborations with immigrants in the Southwestern U.S., Cabrera creates plants crafted from border patrol uniforms and invites Mexican migrants to embroider them with emblems that communicate personal histories.  Featuring designs including an American flag, stick figure portraits of family members, a church building and more, the sculptures communicate shared values and dreams.  (On view through April 23rd in Tribeca).

Margarita Cabrera and collaborators, Space in Between – Nopal #5, border patrol uniform fabric, copper wire, thread and terra cotta pot, 50 x 51 x 49 inches, 2016.

Andre Cadere at Ortuzar Projects

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Paris-based conceptual artist Andre Cadere’s multi-colored rods seem unobtrusive now, but they caused a stir in the 70s when he brought them into other artists’ exhibitions and positioned them in public places.  Featured in an exhibition of Cadere’s work from the 60s and 70s at Ortuzar Projects, the hand carved bars were composed of wood segments with color patterns that the artist would disguise with a deliberate ‘error;’ the artist intended them as a means of merging painting and sculpture as well as a way to bring art into the public realm.  Here, a bar positioned in the corner of a NYC subway mimics the train’s poles and exudes personality.  (On view in Tribeca through May 14th).

Andre Cadere, (one from) New York City 1975, archival pigment prints (group of 30), 9 7/8 x 11 ¾ inches framed, ed 4 of 5, 1975.

Shio Kusaka at David Zwirner Gallery

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Arranged on a narrow runway of shiny copper plates, new ceramics by Shio Kusaka at David Zwirner Gallery enchant visitors with their color, pattern and subtle sense of humor.  Led plate by plate into the gallery, visitors explore relationships between pairs of vessels or clusters of related forms.  Further down the line, Kusaka injects a simplified anime aesthetic into ancient cylindrical Haniwa sculptural forms and elsewhere, riffs on neolithic Jomon period patterns. (On view through April 30th.)

Shio Kusaka, installation view of ‘one light year’ at David Zwirner Gallery, April 2022.

Al Loving at Garth Greenan Gallery

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Renowned in the ‘60s for his hard-edge abstraction, Al Loving introduced softer geometries in textile works from the ‘70s, like this dynamic assemblage now on view at Garth Greenan Gallery in Chelsea.  Inspired by African American quilting tradition and Romare Bearden’s collage, Loving created works of ripped, braided and dyed fabric, which the gallery likens to pennants, streamers, tattered flags and garments.  In this piece, a colorful pattern spreads from the top right, traveling down and across a dark surface creating a feeling of work in progress and complex depth. (On view in Chelsea through May 7th.)

Al Loving, Untitled, mixed media on canvas, 83 x 106 inches, 1975.

Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu at Sapar Contemporary

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Even if you’re tired of Zoom meetings, you’ll be tempted to join Mongolian artist Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu’s online gathering in this painting at Sapar Contemporary, part of her New York solo show debut.  Featuring a woman in traditional dress, flower stalks composed of tiny humans an undersea woman with her pet dog and more, each painted video frame is an introduction to a fascinating earthly or mystical world.   (On view in Tribeca through April 30th.)

Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu, Zoom Meeting, acrylic on canvas, 55 1/8 x 55 /18 inches, 2021.

Walton Ford at Gagosian Gallery

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Though the tiger in this prep study for Walton Ford’s painting Chay, now on view in his solo show at Gagosian Gallery, looks ferocious, it represents an animal that is injured and seconds away from finding relief. Tragic misunderstandings or false assumptions about animals throughout history inform Ford’s large watercolor, gouache and ink drawings.  In the finished painting (also included in the show), a tiger leaps into a pool of water, ropes trailing from his body in a reenactment from a Vietnamese folk tale about how a farmer’s trickery results in the tiger’s stripes.  (On view in Chelsea through April 23rd).

Walton Ford, Tiger Study for Chay, watercolor, pen and ink on paper, 9 x 12 inches, 2022.

 

Eva LeWitt at Luhring Augustine Gallery

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Using silicone and metal beads, sculptor Eva LeWitt creates a series of hanging spheres in Luhring Augustine’s Chelsea space that shape-shift as light passes through them.  The artist has explained that for her, spheres are ‘a beginning and an end…a period, a punctuation.’  Hung in a ring around the middle of the gallery at varying lengths, they seem gathered as if for conversation or play.  (On view in Chelsea through April 30th).

Eva LeWitt, installation view at Luhring Augustine Gallery, March 2022.

Barkley L. Hendricks, Two! at Jack Shainman

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Known for his portraits of stylish Black people painted from the ‘60s onward, Barkley L. Hendricks’ lesser-known body of work merging minimalism and basketball is now on view at Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery.  Between attending the Pennsylvania Academy of Art and Yale, Hendricks worked for the Philadelphia Department of Recreation as an artist with access to the courts and games that inspired pieces like ‘Two!’  Though the ball is in motion here, a sense of stillness pervades, as if the artist is savoring a moment in a game.  Though circular and rectangular forms dominate and bring to mind hard-edge abstraction, Hendricks evokes the flat stillness of a momentous scene in an early Renaissance painting.  (On view in Chelsea through April 30th).

Barkley L. Hendricks, Two!, oil on linen, 44” diameter, 1966-67.

Camille Norment at the Dia Art Foundation

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Norway-based American artist Camille Norment conceives of social relationships past and present in terms of sound in two new commissions at the Dia Art Foundation in Chelsea.  For this untitled piece, microphones in the gallery pick up ambient sound and send it down the stem and into the bell below.  As sound creates more sound and feeds back into the loop, auditory events in the room become, in Norment’s words, “an exponential saturation of voice, existing and experienced as a negotiation of control.” (On view through Jan 2023).

Camille Norment, Untitled, brass, sine waves, autonomous feedback system, and archival radio static, 2022.

Jonathan Baldock, Scuffle at Nicelle Beauchene

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Describing his new stoneware vessels at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery as ‘imperfect reliquaries,’ London-based artist Jonathan Baldock imprints the cylindrical forms with evidence of his own hand and adds cast body parts and funereal herbs.  In additional sewn works, 3-D heads emerge from flat felt and hessian textile backgrounds, staging a miraculous entrance from the picture into real space.  Likewise, the uncanny ceramic forms suggest an unknowable quality to the human body and its manifestations.  (On view in Tribeca through April 2nd).

Jonathan Baldock, Scuffle, stoneware and glaze filled with rosemary, 22 x 14 x 13 inches, 2022.

Mika Horibuchi at 55 Walker

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Betrayal and concealment are words applied to Mika Horibuchi’s deceptively masterful paintings at 55 Walker, which replicate her grandmother’s amateur watercolors.  At first glance, triangular tabs appear to be adhered to the surface to hold up a printed photo.  A closer look reveals that they, like the ‘photo,’ are meticulously painted.  The cat image is a rendition of a printed snapshot sent to the artist in Chicago by her grandmother in Japan, who has taken up painting later in life.  A nearby display case shows the original snapshots along with other photos, drawings, and more.  Here, the professional mimics the hobbyist, but the work conveys respect and consideration.  (On view in Tribeca through March 26th).

Mika Horibuchi, Watercolor of Pi-ko, oil on linen, 42 x 55 x 1 ¾ inches, 2021.

Michael Heizer Installation at Gagosian

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What carries the idea of rocks as artwork?  ‘Massive weight,’ replies Michael Heizer in a gallery statement announcing his current exhibition of new stone and steel sculpture at Chelsea’s Gagosian Gallery.  Sheer size, heaviness, and a certain kind of audacity in relocating huge pieces of nature blasted out of place and trucked into art-related settings are the hallmark of Heizer’s practice.  In the recent sculpture, rocks seem to almost perch on thick planes of rusted steel in geometric shapes, setting up a dynamic interplay between manmade and natural forms that suggests both symbiosis and antagonistic struggle. (On view on 21st Street through April 16th).

Michael Heizer, installation view of Rock/Steel at Gagosian Gallery, March 2022.

Kay WalkingStick at Chelsea’s Hales Gallery

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Kay WalkingStick’s paintings at Chelsea’s Hales Gallery traverse and glory in the North American landscape, from mountain peaks, to eroded canyons to windy shorelines.  Each is overlaid with a pattern derived from imagery created by Native American peoples who have lived in the areas depicted.  Together, the patterns and scenery speak to the deep connectedness of Native histories and culture and the land.  (On view through April 16th.)

Kay WalkingStick, (detail from) The San Francisco Peaks Seen from Point Imperiale, oil on panel in three parts, 31 ¾ x 95 ¼ x 2 inches, 2021.

Christopher Myers at James Cohan Gallery

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Christopher Myers’ applique textiles at James Cohan Gallery picture dramatic moments in history; here, a star-shape on the head of 19th century Xhosa leader Mlanjeni speaks to his vision of resistance to British colonialism in South Africa, specifically his prophesy that the Xhosa would be impervious to British bullets.  Created from a patchwork of patterned textiles, each hanging work speaks to an individual creator employing material with its own histories and associations into a larger, conceptually layered image.  Likewise, Myers’ subjects, who range from Paiute Ghost Dance advocate Wovoka to Hong Xiuquan, who fought the Qing Dynasty leaders to create an earthly Heavenly Kingdom, crafted diverse and complex ideologies of resistance.  (On view in Tribeca through April 2nd).

Christopher Myers, Star of the Morning placed itself on his forehead, applique textile, 80 ½ x 58 5/8 inches, 2022.

Claudette Schreuders, Accomplice at Jack Shainman Gallery

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Known for medium-sized, uncannily still wooden figures, South African sculptor Claudette Schreuders explores the notion of doubling with new work at Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery.  In response to the experience of social isolation over the last two years, Schreuders has been picturing the self as constant presence and company.  Titled Accomplice, this piece considers how a lack of communication can lead to polarization and extreme thinking; however, at the same time, the hand gestures were inspired by a tender moment in a 14th century medieval church sculpture of Christ’s mother Mary greeting her relative, Elizabeth.  (On view through April 2nd).

Claudette Schreuders, Accomplice, Jelutong wood, enamel and oil paint, 27 ¾ x 20 x 11 inches, 2021.

Peter Alexander at Pace Gallery

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After an over two-decade hiatus from sculpture-making, late west coast Light and Space artist Peter Alexander came back strong, creating cast forms that appear to glow.  Pace Gallery’s current show of these works from ’11 to ’20 features this eighteen-foot-long installation of urethane strips.  Varying in width and color, the parallel pieces create an irregular rhythm that excites the senses.  (On view through March 19th).

Peter Alexander, Heard it Through the Grapevine, urethane, 77 x 18’ 1” overall installed, 2019.

Elizabeth Glaessner at PPOW Gallery

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Titled ‘Phantom Tail,’ Elizabeth Glaessner’s show of new painting at PPOW Gallery in Tribeca dissolves distinct separation between human and animal bodies in order to probe possible forgotten connections to nature.  Searching for what the gallery identifies as “collective primordial knowledge,” Glaessner imagines creatures with long horse-like or spider-like legs and here, sphinxes with tails curling to meet their flying hair.  Created using poured pigment and solvent, the washy figures elude definition, as if perceived in a fever-dream.  (On view through March 19th).

Elizabeth Glaessner, Two Sphinxes, oil on canvas, 70 x 85 inches, 2022.

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio in The New Bend at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

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Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio’s ‘Holbein En Crenshaw,’ a rubber cast of a tree on a LA street dominates ‘The New Bend,’ a standout show of textile-related work curated by Legacy Russell at Chelsea’s Hauser & Wirth Gallery.  Layered imagery including a highway exit sign, distorted wheel-like shapes, and advertisements crowd together on one side of this hanging piece, recreating the bombardment of information pedestrians and motorists experience on city streets.  On the other side, the rough texture of the cast tree with its burls and imperfections suggests the difficulties of urban life, even for plants.  Aparicio explains that his intention is to connect beleaguered, non-native trees to the reception of migrant workers in California while also recognizing the rootedness of both in LA life.  (On view through April 2nd.)

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Holbein En Crenshaw (Washington Blvd and Crenshaw Blvd., LA, CA), rubber, sulfur, tree and plant residue, wood glue, latex paint, acrylic paint, strings and found cloth quilt, 138 x 150 x 5 inches, 2018.

Sally Gall at Winston Wachter Gallery

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At first glance, photos from Sally Gall’s Aerial series at Chelsea’s Winston Wachter Gallery create happy confusion; abstract shapes and vibrant colors lure us into trying to understand what’s being represented.  After a longer look, what appeared to be sea life or flowers resolves into items seen from below on a clothes-line.  Even after the ‘ah-ha’ moment of identification, Gall’s images continue to entice as colorful and complex abstractions.  (On view in Chelsea through March 5th).

Sally Gall, Composition #1, archival pigment print, various image and edition sizes available, 2015.

Tomas Saraceno at The Shed

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This web is a tiny part of Tomas Saraceno’s current show at The Shed in Hudson Yards, but like the rest of the exhibition, it elicits wonder at the natural world, prompting greater respect for the web of interspecies relationships around us.  Housed behind glass and spot lit from below, webs created by various species of spiders in Saraceno’s Berlin studio demonstrate the arthropods’ ability to communicate and understand the world around them through motion perceived via webs.  Elsewhere in the show, visitors are invited to physically enter a version of a web in the immersive installation ‘Free the Air:  How to hear the universe in a spider/web’ by settling on a web of wire mesh netting to listen to a soundtrack that translates spider movements into sound.  (On view at The Shed through April 17th).

Tomas Saraceno, installation view (detail) of ‘Webs of At-tent(s)ion,’ spider frames, spider silk, carbon fibers, lights, 2020.

 

Roxa Smith at C24 Gallery

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Pattern and color are the last words in Roxa Smith’s lively paintings of imaginary interiors at C24 Gallery in Chelsea.  Smith, who grew up in Venezuela and moved to New York in the 90s, explains that as a child, family trips exposed her to colonial towns and indigenous and folk art that have influenced her current aesthetic.  Already drawn to interiors, she became devoted to the subject after visiting an exhibition of Matisse’s painting at the National Gallery in Washington DC.  Uplifting, lively and engaging, Smith’s paintings offer a moment of pure pleasure.  (On view in Chelsea through March 11th.)

Roxa Smith, Gated Sanctuary, oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches, 2016.

Francesca Galloway Presentation at Luhring Augustine

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After a long, action-packed adventure described in the Sanskrit epic the Ramayana, Rama returns home to the kingdom of Ayodhya and is crowned alongside his love, Sita.  Here, in a standout painting from the exhibition ‘Court, Epic, Spirit:  Indian Art 15th – 19th Century’ presented by London dealer Francesca Galloway at Luhring Augustine Gallery, the couple literally glow as they celebrate Rama’s restoration and his triumph over evil.  Populated by dignitaries and ascetics and set among opulent furnishings and fabrics, this relatively small painting overwhelms with its intricate detail.  (On view in Tribeca through March 24th).

The Coronation of Rama based on the description in the Yuddhakanda of the Ramayana, ch 130, Mandi, opaque pigments, painting: 17 ¾ x 14 5/8 inches, c. 1840.

Mary Lum at Yancey Richardson Gallery

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Long walks through New York, Paris and London yield source material for Mary Lum’s complex photo and paint collages, now on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery in Chelsea.  Titled 11th Avenue, this piece features slices of urban architecture and facades that dynamically multiply the grid.  At center, Lum seamlessly turns a photo of metal piping into a flattened piece of paper that in turn guides our eye up and over a grey wall – all moves that keep our sense of space shifting in an engaging way.  (On view through Feb 26th).

Mary Lum, 11th Avenue, gouache, watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil, and photo collage on paper, 11 ¼ x 14 7/8 inches, 2021.

Keith Tyson at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

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To say that British artist Keith Tyson’s art practice is expansive is something of an understatement; for decades, his painting and sculpture have aimed to show the connectedness of all things.  Drawing from thousands of paintings created over more than twenty years, grids of images now on view at Hauser & Wirth Gallery in Chelsea suggest links between neural networks, the vastness and changeability of space, mathematical concepts and much more.  Here, meteorites embedded in stainless steel prompted Tyson’s mind-boggling question in a recent catalogue essay: “What were the odds at some point in the distant past, when these chunks of matter were on their particular trajectories through outer space, that they would all end up together here in this piece of work?”  (On view in Chelsea through April 2nd).

Field of Heaven, stainless steel, meteorites, 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches, 2016.

Celia Vasquez Yui at Salon94

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Artist and activist Celia Vasquez Yui’s ceramic sculptures of animals in the Peruvian Amazon are arranged at Salon94 in a mini amphitheater, forming a gathering she calls the ‘Council of the Mother Spirits of the Animals.’ Speakers in the gallery play invocations sung by healers whose intention is to heal the assembled deer, monkeys, jaguars and other animals, encouraging them to hold their own against endangerment.  Here, two playful deer are ornamented with kene, elaborate abstract designs that speak to harmony in nature.  (On view on the Upper East Side through March 5th).

Celia Vasquez Yui, (right) Venado Blanco, coil-built pre-fire slip-painted clay and vegetal resins, 24 ¼ x 26 x 10 inches, 2020 and (left) Venado, coil-built pre-fire slip-painted clay and vegetal resins, 14 x 13 x 21 inches, 2021.

Ryan Preciado at Canada Gallery

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Inspired by the Pope’s mitre, Chumash tradition, California car culture and much more, young west coast designer Ryan Preciado presents furniture at Canada Gallery that conveys comfort, pleasure and sturdiness.  Like Matt Conners’ abstract paintings in the adjoining gallery, color and structure dominate our sensory experience.  Practical and welcoming, Preciado’s approach to design was impacted by watching his sister squirm to get comfortable on the family couch.  (On view in Tribeca through March 5th).

Ryan Preciado, Pope Cabinet, plywood, MDF, urethane enamel, 70 x 48 x 20 inches, 2021.

Rachel Rose at Gladstone Gallery

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Rachel Rose’s recent sculptures at Gladstone Gallery juxtapose blown glass and large rocks or, in this case, a wood burl shaped like an egg, to contrast two vastly different natural materials and represent a ‘moment of radical shift.’ The show’s centerpiece, a film titled ‘Enclosure,’ also considers a rupture that continues to impact relations between humanity and nature today. Via the fictional story of a band of thieves who set out to defraud English rural communities of their land, Rose examines how, from the 17th century onward, the Enclosure Acts in England allowed consolidation of large tracts of land, taking them out of collective ownership and putting them into the hands of powerful interests. (On view on 21st Street in Chelsea through Feb 26th).

Rachel Rose, Burl Egg, burl egg and blown glass, 2021.

Haroon Mirza at Lisson Gallery

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Known for artwork that favors experience over objects, Haroon Mirza was inspired by a mind-boggling proposal which he has made into the central concept behind his current exhibition at Chelsea’s Lisson Gallery.  Introduced in a British sci-fi novel from the 30s and advanced in the 60s by the physicist Freeman Dyson, the Dyson Sphere is a series of orbiting platforms erected around a star to harvest solar energy.  Mirza creates a mini version at the center of the gallery; a ring of solar panels collects energy from the halogen lights at center, providing energy to power various artworks around the gallery, including a terrarium of hallucinogenic cacti and a simple machine that plays a set of drums.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 12th).

Haroon Mirza, installation view of ‘For A Dyson Sphere,’ Lisson Gallery, February 2022.

ASMA at Deli Gallery

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In Greek mythology, Narcissus broke hearts and in turn had his own heart broken by falling in love with his reflection in a pool of water.  Related imagery appears throughout Mexico City-based duo ASMA’s current show at Deli Gallery in Tribeca, along with a sculpture of the flower that Narcissus was said to have turned into upon his death.  Working in a variety of materials including platinum silicon and cast bronze, the artists ponder this posthumous transformative act, considering life between fixed states.  Here, a wall-mounted bronze bust of a male torso skews upward and to the side, as if being tugged out of conventional space and time.  (On view through Feb 19th).

ASMA, It seeks, is sought, it burns and it is burnt, cast bronze, 27 ½ x 24 ½ x 2 inches, 2021.

Mark Ryan Chariker at 1969 Gallery

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Mark Ryan Chariker’s atmospheric paintings at 1969 Gallery are an intriguing anomaly, situating contemporary characters wearing fashions inspired by European art history in historic-looking settings.  In most paintings, none of the elongated, Mannerist characters seem to be saying a word, but each appears to play a role in an understated drama or fateful moment.  Here, in a painting titled ‘Burning Ceremony,’ five figures demonstrate varying degrees of disregard for an unidentifiable flaming object in a huge dish.  Lackadaisical and lacking conviction, their ritual suggests a culture adrift. (On view through Feb 26th.  Proof of vaccination and masks are required).


Mark Ryan Chariker, Burning Ceremony, oil on linen, 24 x 20 inches, 2021.

Mary Obering at Bortolami Gallery

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Inspired by her love of art history and travel to Italy, New York-based artist Mary Obering infuses modern, minimal style with references to early Renaissance art to create dynamic and luminous paintings.  Bortolami Gallery’s current presentation of her work from 1972 – 2003 includes this 1992 painting that balances light and dark colors in a way that moves the eye around the canvas, creating a lively circular movement enriched by glowing panels of gold leaf.  Blocks of color in egg tempera – painted to show the artist’s hand through fluctuations of color – have an extra vibrant glow, adding to the uplift and pleasure of the piece.  (On view in Tribeca through Feb 26th. Masks and social distancing are required.)

Mary Obering, A2 + Y2, egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed panels, 2 panels, total dimensions: 84 x 84 inches, 1992.

New video featuring Maria Nepomuceno at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

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If you enjoyed my recent post featuring Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno’s vibrant abstract sculpture, see more of this gorgeous exhibition in the video below.  With her repeated curving, organic forms, Nepomuceno aims to represent movement into our own inner depths as well as an expansion into the infinite.

Mulyana at Sapar Contemporary

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Indonesian artist Mulyana’s playful knit and crocheted sculptures are an immediate draw at Sapar Contemporary in Tribeca for their fantastical forms and bright colors.  Whether replicating a coral reef or crafting one of his signature alien or octopus-like creatures, the artist uses soft materials that create a feeling of comfort and intimate familiarity.  His intention is to encourage respect for the wonders of the natural world, titling his show ‘Fragile Ecologies,’ and explaining that for him, the process of creating the work is an act of meditation or prayer.  (On view in Tribeca through March 4th. Masks and social distancing required.)

Mulyana, foreground) Mogus 93, yarn, dacron, felt, 11 3/8 x 7 ½ x 26 ¾ inches, 2021.

Michelle Rawlings at Chapter NY

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As a teen, Michelle Rawlings used to cut out and rearrange fashion spreads from magazines; her  untitled oil on linen canvases at Chapter NY in Tribeca operate on a similar scale (this painting is a mere 12 ½ inches high) and also channel the cool, distanced mood of fashion photography.  Here, she captures a different feeling of isolation as a softly sunlit young woman engages in a solitary activity.  Set against an intensely green gallery wall that emphasizes the glimpses of nature seen outside the window and accompanied by minimal collages of ribbon and ephemeral plant-related imagery, the paintings are mediations on how meaning is constructed.  (On view in Tribeca through Feb 5th. Masks and social distancing required.)

Michelle Rawlings, Untitled, oil on linen, 12 ½ x 10 x 1 ¼ inches, 2021.

Sherrill Roland at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

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After serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, now-exonerated artist Sherrill Roland makes artwork that reflects on the physical limits and daily realities of prison life.  At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, his geometric sculptures trace the outline of a cinder-block cell wall and lightboxes present text of letters written to family.  Here, two acrylic glass cubes-within-cubes recall the basketball tournament Roland helped organize while incarcerated and include a hoop and three bags inside one cube containing commissary items as awards for tournament winners.  Recalling Damien Hirst’s freestanding steel and glass vitrines, Roland’s less heavy-seeming cubes bear greater psychological weight, conveying personal suffering caused by confinement. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 5th. Masks and social distancing required.)

Sherrill Roland, Home and Away, acrylic glass, steel, primer, basketball, basketball rim, basketball net, three plastic bags with commissary goods, two cubes: 97 ½ x 97 ½ x 97 ½ inches, 2021 – 22.

Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu at Jack Shainman Gallery

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Young Nigerian artist Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu amazes with her photo realist style and the pleasure she takes in painting elements of Igbo tradition.  In this piece titled ‘Umunne (Siblings)’ at Jack Shainman Gallery on 24th Street, Chiamonwu depicts two of her siblings in a moment of peaceful unity as they pose together with closed eyes.  A cowry shell bracelet symbolizing prosperity and snail shells signifying abundance speak to the family’s cultural wealth.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 19th.  Masks and social distancing required.)

Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu, Umunne (Siblings), charcoal, sepia, pastel and acrylic paints on canvas, 46 ½ x 46 inches, 2021.

Chris “Daze” Ellis at PPOW Gallery

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Chris “Daze” Ellis started painting train cars as a teen in the mid-70s and within a few years was showing his work indoors in shows at The Mudd Club and the renowned gallery Fashion Moda. Decades later, he reflects on contemporaries who’ve passed, including Cliff 3YB, Billy 167, Stan 153 and others in this recent painting in his current solo show at PPOW Gallery.  Above their names on the subway walls and cars, an expressionist composition of greens, pinks and yellow colors glows like a celestial phenomenon honoring the lives and memory of street art pioneers.  (On view through Feb 12th in Tribeca.  Masks and social distancing required).

Chris “Daze” Ellis, A Memorial, acrylic, oil, spray paint, respirator on canvas, 60 x 54 inches, 2020.

Maria Nepomuceno, Enchanted Wheel at Sikkema Jenkins

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Titled ‘Roda das encantadas,’ or ‘Enchanted Wheel,’ Maria Nepomuceno’s new solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins & Co delights the eye with the Brazilian artist’s signature spiraling forms crafted from straw, beads and resin.  Intended to represent a movement into our own inner depths as well as an expansion into the infinite, this assemblage of circular forms also makes more concrete allusions to the body in breast-like ceramic elements and a recurring umbilical cord reference.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 12th.  Masks and proof of vaccination are required.)

Maria Nepomuceno, Untitled, beads, ceramic, resin, 39 3/8 x 23 5/8 x 11 ¾ inches, 2021.

Raymond Saunders at Andrew Kreps Gallery

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The hopscotch grid stands out in this painting by Raymond Saunders, now on view in the renowned Bay Area artist’s first New York solo show in 20 years at Andrew Kreps Gallery in Tribeca.  Evoking a childhood game drawn out on blacktop as well as marks on a chalkboard, references to growth, learning and play are reinforced by the work’s title, ‘Celeste Age 5 Invited Me To Tea.’  Two children’s drawings of a wayward cat and a reference to Carnegie Mellon alongside a watermelon (the artist attended Carnegie Institute of Technology) link to Saunders’ recurring themes relating to education and race.  (On view through Feb 12th).

Raymond Saunders, Celeste Age 5 Invited Me To Tea, mixed media on canvas, 104 x 83 1/8 inches, 1986.

Lucy Puls at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

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Bay Area artist Lucy Puls has returned over the course of her decades-long career to the question of what society values and what it discards.  Her photos of bank-owned homes, printed on huge sheets of fabric-like paper and hung high on the walls of Nicelle Beauchene Gallery feature images of places once personally meaningful and now neglected. Weighed down by discarded household items, in this case a metal folding chair, images and objects speak to the passing of time, to change and moving on.  (On view in Tribeca through Jan 22nd).

Lucy Puls, Delapsus (Bedroom, Mirrored Closet Door, Mini Blinds, Movie Poster), pigment ink on paper, floor standing lamp, metal folding chair, DVD movie, stickers, reflective glass beads, binder, steel hardware, 130 h x 85 w x 84 d inches, 2021.

Alexander Guy at Harper’s Gallery

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Scottish painter Alexander Guy made a hit on the ‘80s London art scene with his deadpan paintings, which ranged in subject from everyday objects to celebrity images.  In a career revival, Guy is now making his New York gallery debut at Harper’s Gallery in Chelsea with oil paintings showing an abundance of processed food, including a freezer stuffed with ice cream and pizza and a carefully arranged array of pink-colored foods from Tesco supermarket.  Here, a transatlantic in-flight meal overwhelms with its number of dishes and suggests that more is not necessarily more.  (On view through Jan 15th. Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required.)

Alexander Guy, GLA -> JFK (In flight meal), oil on canvas, 68h x 72.25w, 2021.

Suellen Rocca, Departure at Matthew Marks Gallery

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Suellen Rocca, a founding member of the short-lived but hugely influential group of Chicago artists known as ‘Hairy Who,’ adopted imagery from magazine ads, Sears Roebucks catalogues and other American pop culture sources, but her late-career work took on more personal meanings.  Several pieces in Matthew Marks Gallery’s exhibition of the late artist’s work in Chelsea include imagery relating to fish, which came to Rocca in a dream.  Fish seem to nurse like babies, breasts morph into fish and, in this painting, fish adorn the body of a deity-like multi-armed figure, picturing female power in terms of feeding, nurture and life.  (On view through Jan 29th.  Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required.)

Suellen Rocca, Departure, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches, 2012.

Cinga Samson at Flag Art Foundation

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South African artist Cinga Samson complicates the act of looking in paintings that are challenging to see. The muted palettes and crepuscular lighting of his individual portraits and figure groups not only disguise his subjects, but aim to create a sense of having intruded on a private scene.  Samson’s recent body of work, on view at Flag Art Foundation in Chelsea, features young men like this figure, whose remarkable eyes disrupt easy engagement and suggest moments of looking inward.  Each painting is a meditation on mortality, the flower in this piece acting as a symbol of transience.  (On view through Jan 15th.   Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required).

Cinga Samson, Nontshonshi 1, oil on canvas, 18 x 13 ¾ x 1 inches, 2021.

Brie Ruais at Albertz Benda Gallery

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Brie Ruais’s signature approach to art involves manipulating a 130 lb pile (equivalent to the artist’s weight) of clay into flat rings of ceramic sculpture textured with finger and footprints.  Here, she varies her usual circular form with this knot-shaped piece in her current show at Albertz Benda Gallery.  The artist has called her work ‘Earth Art that takes place in the studio;’ in this sculpture, the relationship between the body and landscape speaks to interconnectedness.  (On view in Chelsea through Jan 22nd.)

Brie Ruais, Intertwining, 130lbs times two (Thief Knot), glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware, 62 x 124 x 6 inches, 2021.

Tyler Ballon at Deitch Projects

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Below tiny members of a celestial choir, four earthly singers raise voices in praise in Tyler Ballon’s painting at Deitch Projects in SoHo.  Identifying ‘the Black church as a place of comfort and strength,’ Ballon also pictures scenes from the life of a pastor (a job both of his parents have filled) that honor this leadership role.  Other paintings feature loving relationships between friends and family and special moments including a graduation and a commemoration of Black lives lost.   (On view in SoHo through Jan 15th.  Note holiday hours and closures.)

Tyler Ballon, Songs Flung to Heaven, oil on canvas, 98 x 107 inches, 2021.

 

Gillian Wearing: Wearing Masks at the Guggenheim Museum

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Known for bringing private lives into the public realm through projects like her iconic 1992-3 ‘Signs,’ for which strangers posed with signs sharing their personal thoughts, British conceptual artist Gillian Wearing continues to probe beyond the surface in recent work on view in her career retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum.  Based on mid-to late 19th century French artist Henri Fantin-Latour’s ‘La Lecture (The Reading),’ Wearing’s update includes herself on the left, not just listening to the reading, but gazing intently upon the reader.  Fantin-Latour’s characters famously exist in their private worlds, not always connecting with each other. Wearing, on the other hand, is absorbed by the world inhabited by her companion.  (On view on the Upper East Side through April, ’22).

Gillian Wearing, Me in History – A Conversation with the Work of Fantin-Latour, oil on canvas, 2021.

Tomas Sanchez at Marlborough Gallery

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It’s no surprise that #meditation is one of the first tags Cuban painter Tomas Sanchez uses when posting images of new paintings to Instagram.  His intensely detailed, imagined landscapes are inspired by his daily meditative practice and celebrate the sublime on both a vast and tiny scale, eliciting wonder at nature’s complexity.  Sanchez’s first show at Marlborough New York in over 15 years offers a decade of work – new and loaned from collections.  It features not only verdant scenes but a selection of paintings featuring vast fields of discarded consumer items and trash, a disturbing contrast to the boundlessness of nature in the paintings. (On view through Jan 22nd. Note holiday hours and closures.)

Tomas Sanchez, Inner Lagoon…Thought-Cloud, acrylic on canvas, 78 ¾ x 78 ½ inches, 2016.

Cynthia Daignault at Kasmin Gallery

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Visiting Gettysburg National Military Park can amount to moving from one memorial to another, but Cynthia Daignault’s new series of paintings at Kasmin Gallery, inspired by the Civil War battlefield, focus not on the built environment but the natural world.  Called ‘a rumination on the meaning of site and time’ by the gallery, Daignault’s work features ‘witness trees,’ which were alive in the 1860s and are still in place today.  Surrounded by graves, the trees operate outside of a human timeframe and offer an alternative perspective on historic events.  Painting titles include terms like ‘synecdoche’ or ‘chiaroscuro,’ suggesting that parts of an image can tell a larger story or that events exist in shades of light and dark.  Here, ‘Gettysburg (Stereoscopic)’ nods to the popular 19th century photographic technique that creates depth by presenting two near identical images side-by-side.  (On view through Jan 8th. Note holiday hours and closures.)

Cynthia Daignault, Gettysburg (Stereoscopic), oil on linen, 30 x 60 inches, 2021.

Faig Ahmad at Sapar Contemporary

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Titled ‘Pyr,’ Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed’s current solo exhibition at Sapar Contemporary in Tribeca refers to the Greek word for fire, a term for a Sufi spiritual guide and the name of his country, ‘a Land Protected by Holy Fire.’  The standout works – three carpet sculptures that appear to melt with heat or rise like a flame – are each titled after a historically important Azerbaijani thinker.  Here, the piece ‘Yahya Bakuvi’ refers to the 15th century philosopher and scientist and features muted colors and restricted geometries that allude to self-control.  (On view through Jan 6th. Note holiday hours and closures.)

Faig Ahmed, Yahya Bakuvi, handmade wool carpet, 125 5/8 x 51 1/8 inches, 2021.

Catherine Murphy at Peter Freeman Inc

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Catherine Murphy’s ‘Begin Again’ greets visitors at the entrance of Peter Freeman Inc’s SoHo gallery, questioning the foundation of the artist’s realist painting practice by juxtaposing emotive gestures with skilled rendering.  Painted black outlines resemble ancient handprints in caves or body outlines traced by children and are a stark contrast to Murphy’s naturalistic rendering of her left hand and arm.  The painting’s wallpaper-like background suggests an unstoppable creative impulse akin to kids painting on the living room walls.  Recently called ‘one of America’s greatest living realist painters’ in the New Yorker and ‘one of our great artists’ in Hyperallergic, Murphy in her mid-70s testifies to the importance of keeping her practice fresh by ‘beginning again.’ (On view in SoHo through Jan 7th. Note holiday hours and closures.)

Catherine Murphy, Begin Again, oil on canvas, 46 ½ x 48 inches, 2019.

John Pai in ‘The Unseen Professors’ at Tina Kim Gallery

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Dense and complex, this piece by octogenarian sculptor John Pai, now on view in a show of work by three 20th century Asian-American sculptors at Chelsea’s Tina Kim Gallery, evokes a scientific or mathematical model in flux.  Piece by piece, Pai welded short steel rods together in a hands-on practice he likened to drawing.  Reflecting subconscious activity and taking inspiration from music, science, architecture and more, Pai’s dynamic constructions elicit wonder at complex structures in our own thought processes and the world around us.  (On view through January 29th. Note holiday hours and closures.)

John Pai, Slice of Wave to Go, welded steel, 23.5 x 32 x 30.5 inches, 1980.

Olive Ayhens at Bookstein Projects

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Olive Ayhens meets the abundance of people and buildings in New York with a profusion of recorded detail in her new series of ink and watercolor paintings at Bookstein Projects. Painted in a topsy turvy style combining multiple perspectives, Ayhens’ dynamic cityscapes look as if the buildings are in movement, perhaps shuffling down the sidewalk shoulder to shoulder like New York’s notably absent human residents. Painted in her new West Village neighborhood during the pandemic, Ayhens work reflects a sense of jittery nervousness via its architecture.  (On view on the Upper East Side through Jan 7th.  Note holiday hours and closures).

Olive Ayhens, Orange Luxury, watercolor and ink on paper, 23 x 30.5 inches, 2020.

Elmgreen and Dragset at Pace Gallery

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Titled ‘The Painter, Fig. 1,’ this lacquered bronze sculpture by Berlin-based duo Elmgreen and Dragset appears to be offered as an illustration of an artist in action and is prominently displayed in the window of Pace Gallery’s Chelsea building.  In the adjoining gallery, other sculptures hint at themes of regret, loneliness and the will to dominate; nearby, this artist responds.  It’s unclear if he’s laying down black paint or scraping off white paint to reveal the darkness beneath; either way, he appears to be putting a dramatic end to his monochrome existence.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 18th).

Elmgreen and Dragset, The Painter, Fig. 1, bronze, lacquer, linen, paint, 98 7/16 x 100 3/8 x 23 5/8 inches, 2021.

Studio DRIFT at The Shed

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Amsterdam-based design duo Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn, aka Studio DRIFT, create objects of wonder that range from lights created with dandelion seeds to mysteriously floating concrete blocks.  Both are on view in their current exhibition at The Shed in Hudson Yards through the end of the week, offering the chance to marvel at objects that pair nature and technology.  Here, ‘Fragile Future,’ is a sculpture/lamp that has been created by hand gluing dandelion seeds to LED lights, a juxtaposition of natural and the man-made materials that encourages appreciation of the beauty and possibility of nature’s designs.  (On view through Dec 18th.)

DRIFT, Fragile Future, Dandelions, LED lights, phosphor bronze, printed circuit board, 2007-21.

Ken Price, Pluto Bowl at Matthew Marks Gallery

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If images of factories, billowing smokestacks and oil-slicked water sound alien to traditional ceramic decoration, the title of Ken Price’s mid-90s series, ‘Plutoware,’ at Matthew Marks Gallery plays along.  Intended to be a pun on the word pollution, the iconic sculptor’s scenes of environmental damage set up a fundamental contrast between intimately scaled and beautifully colored plates, bowls and vessels and depictions of giant manufacturing and co-generation plants.  Though Price’s work would seem to project despair, his wife, Happy Price explains an alternative point of view, saying, ‘When you look at the Pluto Ware some people only see pollution, darkness, and grim and then other people—like myself—see a kind of strange dark beauty.’  (On view through Dec 18th in Chelsea).

Ken Price, Pluto Bowl (Green Sludge), glazed ceramic, 2 ½ x 7 ¼ x 7 ¼ inches, 1995.

Mira Dancy at Chapter NY

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After a recent move from New York to Southern California, Mira Dancy presents new work at Chapter Gallery depicting female figures in her trademark glowing neon colors who now revel in the natural world.  This pregnant goddess holds a ball in her palm that resembles the earth, suggesting a female power on an epic scale.  (On view in Tribeca through Dec 18th).

Mira Dancy, Life Line, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 60 inches, 2021.

Arthur Simms at Martos Gallery

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Known for sculptures made of materials wrapped in hemp rope, Arthur Simms makes a departure in this ’96 piece by encasing two bicycles in wire, allowing us to see the license plates, central structure and bucket-like portable toilet on this tricked out super vehicle.   On view in Simm’s select 30-year retrospective at Martos Gallery, this sculpture and other wrapped works were inspired by carts used by homeless New Yorkers as well as the carts used by market vendors in Simm’s home country of Jamaica.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Dec 23rd).

Arthur Simms, Bicycle, bicycles, wire, wood, bottles, plastic, metal and objects, 67 x 93 x 30 inches, 1996.

Portia Zvavahera at David Zwirner Gallery

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Every morning, Zimbabwe-based artist Portia Zvavahera and her grandmother would recall and share their dreams, now, the artist paints imagery from her nocturnal subconscious to promote healing and reject negative energy.  In her first New York solo show at David Zwirner Gallery, spectral forms and owl-like figures surround the characters, representing both spiritual danger and deliverance.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 18th).

Portia Zvavahera, Woman with owls, oil based printing ink and oil bar on canvas, 82 ½ x 68 ¼ inches, 2021.

Robert Gober at Matthew Marks Gallery

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Drawings of barred windows contrast sculptural tableau depicting open windows in Robert Gober’s new work at Matthew Marks Gallery’s 22nd Street location. While the bars suggest imprisonment, a series of wooden windows offer varying degrees of access into personal space resembling – to judge by the weathered sash and can of lithium grease in this version – an aging farmhouse.  Titled ‘Help Me,’ the piece suggests urgent need as it offers objects that stand in for the house’s inhabitants and possibly allude to the body.  Despite the pretty hand-painted designs on a lively curtain that appears to catch the breeze, uncertainty, sentiment, nostalgia and even delight at Gober’s meticulously hand-crafted objects combine to leave a feeling of thought-provoking unease.  (On view through Dec 23rd).

Robert Gober, Help Me, pewter, glass, synthetic plastic polymer, epoxy putty, acrylic paint, wood, cotton, epoxy resin, 30 ¼ x 30 3/8 x 18 ¾ inches, 2018 – 2021.

Anna Conway at Fergus McCaffrey Gallery

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Anna Conway’s surreal landscapes and tense interior scenes often feature working men whose importance is questionable.  Here, in an oil painting from 2004 featured in her current solo show at Fergus McCaffrey Gallery in Chelsea, four men in uniform lie flat on sandy soil to reach into a man-made pool.  Their tiny figures, echoed in the forms of spindly trees above them, appear ill-equipped to correct whatever problem lurks below.  Titled ‘Pound of Cure,’ the piece presents the unpleasant consequences of someone’s lack of foresight.  (On view through Dec 23rd).

Anna Conway, Pound of Cure, oil on panel, 44 x 60 inches, 2004.

Tomm El-Saieh at Luhring Augustine

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Born in Haiti and raised in Miami, Tomm El-Saieh’s relationship with the country of his birth continues to inspire his abstract paintings, now on view at Chelsea’s Luhring Augustine Gallery.  Haitian spiritual practice as well as the traditions of international abstraction inform El-Saieh’s fields of color and subtle geometric patterns that bloom over the canvases.  (On view through Dec 22nd).

Tomm El-Saieh, Boule, acrylic on canvas, 96 x 72 inches, 2021.

Olga de Amaral at Lisson Gallery

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‘For me, gold is the sun,’ explains octogenarian Columbian artist Olga de Amaral as she describes the importance and stunning impact of the material in her textiles.  Hanging assemblages of gold-covered linen positioned near the door of Chelsea’s Lisson Gallery catch the natural light and resemble ancient carved stones; further in the gallery, this piece adds palladium, another metal that reflects light and adds to the luxurious quality of this labor-intensive artwork.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 18th.  Masks and proof of vaccination required.)

Olga de Amaral, Memorias 6, linen, gesso, acrylic, gold leaf and palladium, 78 5/8 x 74 ¾ inches, 2014.

 

Radcliffe Bailey, Nommo at Jack Shainman

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Constructed from reclaimed wooden beams from a shipyard in Istanbul, Atlanta-based artist Radcliffe Bailey’s ‘Nommo’ suggests both boat and stage.  Now on view in Bailey’s solo show at Jack Shainman Gallery, the piece was originally commissioned for the 2019 Istanbul Biennial and situated on the site of an earlier performance by Sun Ra, a musician whose real and imagined travels inspired Bailey.  For the artist, the repeated character represented in series of plaster busts represents the ‘spirituality of people and their practices.’  (On view through Dec 18th. Masks required.)

Radcliffe Bailey, Nommo, mixed media and sound installation including a radio, found wood, steel metal structure and 8 plaster busts, approx. 10H’ x 21L’ x 13D,’ 2019.

 

 

Paulina Olowska at Metro Pictures Gallery

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For the last exhibition of its forty-year history, Helene Winer’s and Janelle Reiring’s legendary Metro Pictures Gallery is showcasing new work by Polish artist Paulia Olowska that celebrates exhibition and educational spaces run by women.  This large painting checks in with Seurat’s 1880s scene of Paris leisure, La Grande Jatte, while having been directly inspired by a photo by fashion photographer Deborah Tuberville.  Harnessing imagery meant to encourage consumption, Olowska sells the idea of new creative communities while aiming to increase representation of women in art history.  (On view through Dec 11th in Chelsea.  Masks required).

Paulina Olowska, The School of Archery (after Deborah Tuberville), oil on canvas, 102 3/8 x 82 11/16 inches, 2021.

Matthew Brandt, Rooms at Yossi Milo Gallery

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Selling off unwanted furniture and household decoration takes a new twist in one of Matthew Brandt’s latest series, ‘Rooms,’ at Yossi Milo Gallery, for which he acquired chandeliers, then hot-fused photos of the room in which the chandelier hung to the individual pieces of the chandelier.  Literally bearing witness to their past, the lights feature windows (as seen here), furnishings and other signs of life from the past owner.  In this piece, ‘May’s Living Room,’ pictures of the past environment recall a pointillist painting crossed with a geometric abstraction.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 11th).

Matthew Brandt, from the series Rooms, May’s Living Room, photographic glass chandelier pieces with painted metal armature, 9 x 16 x 16 inches, 2021.

Ruth Asawa Drawings & Sculpture at David Zwirner

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From pattern drawings based on wicker chairs to meticulous renderings of blossoming plants, Ruth Asawa’s artistic practice focused on remarkable elements of everyday life in addition to the hanging wire sculptures for which she is best known.  David Zwirner Gallery’s current exhibition of the late artist’s drawings and sculpture, which includes these ceramic casts of friends and visitors to her home, aims to reveal her integration of art and life inspired by her avant-garde background, busy household and active community. (On view through Dec 18th on 20th Street in Chelsea).

Ruth Asawa, detail installation view of Untitled (LC.014, Collection of Bisque-Fired life Masks from Ruth Asawa’s Home), ceramic, bisque-fired clay, approx. each 7 ½ x 4 ½ x 2 ½ inches, c. 1967-1995.

Jaume Plensa, LUCIA (nest) at Galerie Lelong

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With eyes closed to suggest inner reflection and heads elongated to convey a sense of spirituality, Jaume Plensa’s contemplative sculptural figures express peace in public places worldwide.  In his latest solo show at Chelsea’s Galerie Lelong, Plensa presents heads that only partly emerge from the alabaster rock from which they are carved.  Collectively titled ‘Nest,’ the new work represents Plensa’s feeling that the brain is like a nest, where dreams are born.  (On view through Dec 23rd).

Jaume Plensa, LUCIA (nest), alabaster, 57.5 x 40.1 x 20.5 inches, 2021.

Helen Pashgian Sculptures at Lehmann Maupin

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Visitors to Light and Space artist Helen Pashgian’s show of new work at Chelsea’s Lehmann Maupin Gallery are invited to sit on benches to appreciate disk-shaped sculptures that appear to hover over pedestals in the gallery, while other pieces require movement to be appreciated. The second scenario applies with this untitled cast epoxy with formed acrylic sphere, which reveals or conceals bands of color as the visitor moves before it.  Designed to reveal how perception of a single object or phenomenon can shift, Pashgian’s invites viewers to delight in the nuances of seeing.  (On view through Jan 8th).

Helen Pashgian, Untitled, cast epoxy with formed acrylic elements, 7 inches diameter, 2020.

Jake Kean Mayman at Candace Madey

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Though isolated and spare, the objects in Jake Kean Mayman’s painting in his current solo show at Candace Madey tap into complex histories and conversations about technology today.  Surprised by how ubiquitous microprocessors are, yet how little the average person knows about them, Mayman carefully renders a processor next to extra-lush raspberries and a sticker representing Raspberry Pi, a project intended to boost programming skills in schools. As such, the painting represents growth – raspberry vines have a lifespan approximating the time a young person takes to get through the educational system – and potential.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Dec 4th).

Jake Kean Mayman, Brambles of Industry, Druplets of Education (Raspberry Pi Foundation), oil on linen, 43 ¼ x 37 ¼ inches, 2021.

Ella Kruglyanskaya at Bortolami Gallery

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Latvian American artist Ella Kruglyanskaya’s fashion-aware female figures in her current solo show at Bortolami Gallery look as if they’ve been sketched in motion though they’re painted in oil on linen.  ‘Beyond Good and Evil,’ a monumental rendering of a hair clip, doesn’t have quite the same on-the-fly quality but it does look as if it could scramble off the canvas at any moment.  Openings resembling eyes and prongs that look like legs turn a simple accessory into something unexpectedly menacing.  (On view at Bortolami in Tribeca through Dec 18th).

Ella Kruglyanskaya, Beyond Good and Evil, oil on linen, 62 x 66 inches, 2021.

Whitfield Lovell at DC Moore Gallery

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A portrait of a portly businessman paired with a model train engine, a corseted woman with theatrical tassels attached to the sides of her likeness and other drawings of men and women in 19th century dress by Whitfield Lovell at DC Moore Gallery are made more intense and vibrant by their red background. In the new series titled ‘The Reds,’ Lovell continues to pair drawings of individuals with found objects that enhance our understanding of the sitter’s identity.  Here, a young man is surrounded by a hovering halo of stars prompting viewers to question how this individual’s identity relates to country.  (On view through Dec 18th).

Whitfield Lovell, The Red XIV, conte on paper with attached found objects, 45 ¾ x 34 inches, 2021.

Emily Eveleth at Miles McEnery Gallery

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Emily Eveleth has pointed out that the object in her painting is not necessarily the subject, a consideration that continues to apply to her ongoing series of donut paintings at Miles McEnery Gallery.  Though more or less obviously desserts, Eveleth’s donuts are lit to suggest intimate bodies or ooze jam in ways that hint at trauma.  Titled after books published by the Parisian firm Olympia Press and shaped to resemble book format, each canvas speaks volumes. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 27th.)

Emily Eveleth, Boudoir, oil on panel, 26 x 18 inches, 2021.

M.C. Escher at Bruce Silverstein Gallery

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Just as a tiny shift in perspective can cause a straightforward transparent cube to morph into an impossible cube, M.C. Escher’s architecture in this 1958 print is believable on first glance, until matching up columns to arches proves otherwise.  The lithograph is one of 75 artworks on view in Bruce Silverstein Gallery’s exhibition of the Dutch printmaker’s work from the ‘30s to late career. Inspired by the impossible cube, a version of which is being held by a seated man on the lower terrace, Escher delights viewers by confounding us.  (On view in Chelsea through Nov 20th).

M.C. Escher, Belvedere, lithograph, printers proof, 18 ¼ x 11 5/8 inches, 1958.

Robin F. Williams, Speak of the Devil at PPOW

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Women have been pictured as merging with the natural world throughout art history, but not quite in the subversive and sometimes sinister way that Robin F. Williams pictures the spritely athletes that populate her latest paintings at PPOW Gallery.  Using oil, airbrush, poured paint, marbling and staining, Williams creates bodies that both compliment and stand out from their environments.  Here, in a piece titled ‘Speak of the Devil,’ two characters with glowing, inhuman eyes reveal hands with flattened fingertips that match the tone of nearby leaves suggesting intriguing hybrid identities.  (On view in Tribeca through Nov 13th.  Masks required.)

Robin F. Williams, Speak of the Devil, acrylic on canvas, 57 x 57 inches, 2021.

John Chamberlain at Gagosian Gallery

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At over nine feet tall and titled TAMBOURINEFRAPPE, this 2010 sculpture by John Chamberlain at Gagosian Gallery pulses with the percussive rhythms and energy.  Vertical lengths of steel placed parallel to each other create a base like a fluted classical column or pleated dress while diagonal strips of metal raise the eye up to a crown of shiny steel decorated with colorful curving lines.  Featuring work from the ‘50s to the ‘00s, this exhibition demonstrates Chamberlain’s expressive manipulation of his material. (On view on 21st Street in Chelsea through Dec 11th.  Masks and vaccination proof required).

John Chamberlain, TAMBOURINEFRAPPE, painted and chrome-plated steel, 116 ¾ x 90 x 86 ½ inches, 2010.

Stefana McClure in ‘Hand in Hand’ at Bienvenu Steinberg & Partner

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Irish artist Stefana McClure’s ‘Protest Stones’ are a clever twist to the theme of ‘Hand in Hand,’ a group exhibition at gallerist Josee Beinvenu’s and curator, advisor and publisher Michael Steinberg’s new Tribeca gallery, Bienvenu Steinberg & Partner.  Featuring artwork that relates in some way to the human hand, the show brings together work by over 30 artists in a variety of media.  Alluding the violence in Northern Ireland during her upbringing, McClure’s stones are for throwing.  Covered in battered text from American poet Adrienne Rich’s text ‘What Kind of Times Are These,’ the words question how we treat each other and who is paying attention.  (On view through Oct 30th).

Stefana McClure, Protest Stones: What Kind of Times Are These: a poem by Adrienne Rich, poetry-wrapped stones, waxed twine, cut nail, 18h x 8w x 4d inches, 2021.

Ruby Sky Stiler, Blue Bathers at Nicelle Beauchene

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Portraiture is about decoding the identity of a sitter and the relationship between sitter and artist.  Ruby Sky Stiler’s figure group at the entrance to her current solo show at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery flummoxes familiar, easy-to-read relationships as it positions a petite, female artist as the active member of this assembly.  Pared down to silhouettes of spare geometric forms, including a single circular shape that identifies the artist as a woman, the nude figures recall yet crucially differ from Cezanne’s, Renoir’s or Matisse’s bathers and myriad scenes of male artists in their studios with nude female subjects.  (On view in Tribeca through Oct 30th.  Masks required.)

Ruby Sky Stiler, Blue Bathers, Baltic birch plywood, paint and hardware, 78 x 155 x 3 inches, 2021.

Ernie Barnes at 55 Walker

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An artist from his childhood and an NFL player for five years in the early 60s, late painter Ernie Barnes merged his talents in the visual arts and sports to create the powerful paintings now on view at 55 Walker in Tribeca.  Barnes saw body language and movement on the field in visual terms, using time outs to sketch the game’s lines and shapes on paper.  Here, three towering figures are no less dynamic for standing still; crowding together with oversized elbows and hands, they convey the danger of contact sports.  (On view in Tribeca through Oct 30th.  Masks required).

Ernie Barnes, Blood Conference aka Three Red Linemen, acrylic on canvas, 1966.

Bertozzi & Casoni at Sperone Westwater

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Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s ‘Four Seasons’ series from 1563 continues to inspire artists and capture the imagination as it displays the abundance of the seasons.  In this polychrome ceramic sculpture at Sperone Westwater on the Lower East Side, Italian sculptors Bertozzi & Casoni recreate Spring in vibrant color, manifesting a creature that represents the abundance and promise of new life.  (On view through Oct 30th.  Masks required.)

Bertozzi & Casoni, Primavera, polychrome ceramic, 25 ½ x 26 x 14 ½ inches, 2021.

Sarah Cain at Broadway

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Sarah Cain pushes the boundaries of what painting can be, literally extending beyond the canvas onto gallery floors and walls and adopting unexpected materials like sequined backpacks and an easy chair.  Her current solo show at Broadway in Tribeca features traditional, framed 2-D artworks but also this installation, a combination of expressionist and hard-edge painting that invites the audience to step in and feel the color.  (On view through Oct 16th).

Sarah Cain, installation view at Broadway Gallery, Oct 21 featuring (back wall) Jamillah, acrylic, color copies, uv seal, and backpack on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, 2021 and (floor) Untitled (NYC), acrylic on floor, 237.5 x 262 inches, 2021.

Anthony Cudahy at Hales Gallery

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Medicinal or deadly depending on its use, Antiaris toxicaria (aka the Anti-bausor tree) is the missing presence in this painting by Brooklyn-based painter Anthony Cudahy at Hales Gallery.  Partly inspired by an antique woodcut featuring two men lying on the ground under the fruit-bearing tree, here it’s the artist and his husband who lie prone.  But while it’s uncertain if the characters in the original woodcut are alive, Cudahy and partner appear to enjoy a peaceful sleep, occupying a subconscious realm complicated by the spider and webs in the upper register.  Alluding to Kate Bush’s ‘Coral Room,’ a song featuring a web-spinning ‘spider of time,’ the references place the couple in a poetic realm of dreams and memory.  (On view through Oct 30th in Chelsea.  Masks required).

Anthony Cudahy, Anti-bausor tree (protected sleepers, wolf’s-bane and spider around), Oil on canvas, 96 x 72 in, 2021.

Gauri Gill at James Cohan Gallery

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Since 2015, New Delhi-based artist Gauri Gill has worked with indigenous communities and craftsmen in the Indian state of Maharashtra to create arresting photographs of masked people in everyday situations.  In recent work at James Cohan Gallery’s new Tribeca location, Gill continues to be inspired by the masks worn in annual, entire-community performances of religious rituals but has commissioned secular versions that deviate from the normal look and use of such masks.  Collaborating with the individuals in the photos, Gill devises uncanny scenarios that momentarily bridge fictional and real worlds.   (On view at 52 Walker, 2nd floor through Nov 13th.  Masks required.)

Gauri Gill, detail of Untitled (64) from Acts of Appearance, archival pigment print, 60 x 40 inches, 2015 – ongoing.

Tyler Mitchell at Jack Shainman Gallery

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Towering over visitors to Jack Shainman Gallery, four young women in clothes from JW Anderson’s autumn/winter 2019 campaign, shot by Tyler Mitchell, look otherworldly as they almost hover above the ground in commanding fashion statements.  Referred to by the gallery as an ‘Edenic exploration of…a Black utopia in the everyday,’ Mitchell’s work complicates his subjects as he literally elevates them.  “I’m caught between wanting to let the mind imagine what that idea meant and spelling it out,” the photographer told i-D.  “I think I’ll do the former.”

Tyler Mitchell, 2021 installation view at Jack Shainman Gallery of ‘Untitled (Stilts II),’ 2,134 ¾ x 166 7/8 inches, wall vinyl, 2019.

Kay Rosen, Queue Up at Sikkema Jenkins

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‘Stay Away’ reads an enormous latex sign on the wall of Sikkema Jenkins and Co in Chelsea, not warning visitors away but welcoming them to Kay Rosen’s new show of text-based artwork.  Seeing words as found material, Rosen repeats word fragments (such as the ‘ay in ‘stay’ and ‘away’) in a play on language that highlights unnoticed connections.  Here, ‘Queue Up’ speaks to the experiences of lining up during the pandemic.  (On view through Oct 16th.  Masks required).

Kay Rosen, Queue Up, latex on wall, installation dimensions variable, 2020 – 21.

Channing Hansen at Susan Inglett Gallery

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‘60s performance art gets a radical update in LA-based artist Channing Hansen’s algorithm-derived hand-knit constructions at Susan Inglett Gallery.  Conceived of as instructions or ‘scores,’ each artwork in his latest solo show is a kind of event; the 2-D pieces are shaped by an algorithm trained to produce ‘Channing Hansen artworks,’ based on the characteristics of his previous work.  (On view in Chelsea through Oct 16th. Masks required).

Channing Hansen, Tangible Engine, California Variegated Mutant (Myth), California Variegated Mutant (Rhea), California Variegated Mutant (Sriracha), California Variegated Mutant (Talia), Jersey Wooly (Miss Maple), Romeldale (January), Romeldale (Qassiopeia), Romedale (Saffron), Romedale (Shelby), and Teeswater (F2019-0339) fibers; Tussah silk, and Mulberry silk; holographic polymers, and photo-luminescent recycled polyester fibers; Ingeo corn, and pineapple fibers; Sequoioideae Redwood, 50 x 45 in., 2020.

Louise Giovanelli at GRIMM Gallery

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Draped curtains, sparkling suits and partial viewers of singers’ faces summon the magic of the stage in British artist Louise Giovanelli’s paintings at GRIMM Gallery’s new Tribeca space.  Here, a carefully coifed wave of blond hair creates a bold, organic geometry that suggests a force of nature while testifying to the artifice of show-biz.  (On view through Oct 23rd).

Louise Giovanelli, Plexus, oil on canvas, 10 1/8 x 8 inches, 2021.

Nathaniel Mary Quinn at Gagosian Gallery

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Divisions both stark and subtle dominate Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s drawing ‘Double-Barreled Shotgun,’ a standout in his current show at Gagosian Gallery’s uptown location.  Prompted by a bad experience with a family member, this piece unites two figures only to show their differences.  Created with a technique that appears to be collage, yet is entirely hand drawn in charcoal, gouache and soft pastel on Coventry vellum paper, the work manifests invisible hurt in disfigured faces. (On view through Oct 30th).

Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Double-Barreled Shotgun, charcoal, gouache and soft pastel on Coventry vellum paper, 48 x 45 inches, 2021.

Avery Singer at Hauser & Wirth Gallery

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Beneath an overlay of doodles depicting the Wojak meme in various iterations including Martin Luther, an executioner and a victim of the guillotine, the hulking face of Maximilien Robespierre exudes menace in Avery Singer’s painting at Hauser & Wirth Gallery.  Reintroduced to the bloodthirsty leader of the French revolution’s ‘Reign of Terror’ via the game Assassin’s Creed, Singer blends adopts this oversized historical personage to consider modern-day digital expressions of violence. Titled ‘Edgelord,’ the piece draws parallels between the destruction wrought on-line today and by extreme characters of the past.  (On view through Oct 30th).

Avery Singer, Edgelord, acrylic on canvas stretched over wood panel, 100 ¼ x 120 ¼ x 2 1/8 inches, 2021.

Raven Halfmoon in ‘Claypop’ at Jeffrey Deitch, New York

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Two towering heads are positioned back-to-back in Raven Halfmoon’s powerful monumental stoneware sculpture ‘Bah’hatteno Nut’tehtsei (Red River Girl in Caddo).’  A standout in ‘Claypop,’ Jeffrey Deitch Gallery’s new group show of contemporary ceramic artwork curated by director Alia Williams, the work’s textured surface suggests rock carved from the landscape while Halfmoon’s spray-painted face-markings and signature on the side connects the piece to contemporary urban artistic expression. (On view in SoHo through Oct 30th.)

Raven Halfmoon, Bah’hatteno Nut’tehtsei (Red River Girl in Caddo), stoneware, glaze, 2021.