Fans of James Siena’s rule-driven abstract paintings have new lines of enquiry to follow as the artist experiments with a canvas support (vs enamel on aluminum) and expands his normally intimate scale to sizable new works at Pace Gallery. (On view through Feb 9th in Chelsea).
Borders are front and center in U.S. politics and at James Cohan Gallery where Jorge Mendez Blake’s ‘Amerika’ bisects the main exhibition space, arresting both visitors’ thoughts and physical progress through the show. Mid-way along the base of the wall, Mendez Blake has placed a copy of Kafka’s ‘Amerika,’ the troubled tale of a European immigrant to New York, intimating that migration is a fraught undertaking from start to finish. (On view at James Cohan Gallery’s Chelsea and Lower East Side spaces through Feb 23rd).
Iranian-born artist Fatemeh Baigmoradi’s burnt photographs recall her father’s attempt to avoid arrest by burning his photos of events that tied him to an oppressed political minority after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The artist connects the resulting images – characterized by beautiful halos of color – to a Persian painting tradition that painted a glow around the heads of featureless holy figures. Her installation, seen here in detail, is a standout in Laurence Miller Gallery’s ‘GRACE’ exhibition, a multi-faceted and fascinating exploration of gender, race and identity. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 22nd).
Charles White called painting his weapon in fighting racism and poverty in the United States. His painting of a sharecropper from 1947-48 demonstrates the difficulty of that life and the resilience of the farmers. Part of an exhibition highlighting White’s last mural – a celebration of the achievements of educator and activist Mary McLeod Bethune – the work exhibits White’s commitment to representational art (when abstraction was becoming the new norm) in service of social change. (On view at David Zwirner Gallery through Feb 16th).
Just months before color theorist, abstract art pioneer and teacher Josef Albers passed away, a book titled ‘Sonic Design’ paid homage to his mid-century abstractions that could be discussed in musical terms. In particular, his series of shapes outlined against a dark background appeared simple but, like music, shift over time in how they might be read, with planes receding at one moment and coming forward the next. The book delighted Albers and inspired David Zwirner Gallery’s current show, which brings together select pieces of glass work from Albers’ time at the Bauhaus in Germany, paintings from his iconic ‘Homage to the Square’ series and more, to consider how color, shape and sound might relate. (On view through Feb 16th).
