Flowing water, curling strands of cable and licorice come to mind when encountering Richard Deacon’s dynamic steamed wood sculpture ‘Under the Weather #2.’ Appearing to both hang down from above like a Sheila Hicks fiber installation and rise up from the floor like a rearing snake, the piece is energized by its contradictory suggestions of slackness and tense energy. (On view on 57th Street at Marian Goodman Gallery through Feb 16th).
While sketching a tree stump in an area of trees lost to climate change near his home, California sculptor Charles Long was inspired by the devastation caused by patriarchal culture to merge a cross section of the dead plant with that of a human penis. Strangely humanoid, the transection is rendered in a huge scale at the back of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, a plaintive and comedic monument to loss. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 9th).
James Baldwin’s intellectual legacy and his powerful impact on contemporary culture is the subject of David Zwirner Gallery’s current group exhibition, or ‘collective portrait,’ of the late writer and thinker. By displaying the work of other artists alongside documents and ephemera related to Baldwin, curator Hilton Als considers how the writer may have continued to make art had his career developed differently after the seminal ‘The Fire Next Time.’ In one of the show’s highlights, Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s collaged photo draws on images from Nigerian and U.S. West Coast cultures, creating a provocative hybridity. (On view in Chelsea on 19th Street through Feb 16th).
Jeanette Mundt’s vivid red poppies look anything but innocent in this painting, testifying to the power of the plant as a drug. Painted from an on-line source, inspired by Van Gogh’s poppies and including a hidden image of a reclining woman, this rich and seductive image speaks to the possibility of multiple sources to reconfigure as a meaningful image. (On view in ‘The Rest’ at Lisson Gallery through Feb 16th).
Swiss artist Claudia Comte makes walls the focus of her latest solo show at Chelsea’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery, nodding to US politics, cave paintings and installations like Sol LeWitt’s rule-based wall drawings. Destined to be popular on Instagram as selfie-backdrops, the show reinforces Comte’s wish to make art not just for the art world elite but for everyone. (On view on 24th Street through Feb 16th).
