Tyler Ballon at Deitch Projects

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

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

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

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

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

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

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

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

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

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.