Antoine Catala’s charmingly strange solo show at 47 Canal remakes emojis as extra-terrestrial faces adorning ‘breathing’ socks and shopping bags. Commenting on what he sees as emojis’ sudden ubiquitous and alien presence in our lives, Catala asks what damage is occurring (band-aids are a theme) and how much ‘cute’ we’re willing to consume at what cost. (On view on the Lower East Side through Dec 17th).
A heavy, fascinating stillness pervades Matt Bollinger’s paintings and animation at Zurcher Gallery on the Lower East Side, extending even to this sculpture of a hand ashing a cigarette. The hand (crafted in resin and foam with painted highlights) looks like it’s been extracted from a painting, miraculously appearing in 3-D form before us. (On view through Dec 21st).
Young LA artist Becky Kolsrud has fun with the old assertion that women are ‘closer to nature’ by literally cloaking her female figures – giantesses who dominate the landscape – with bodies of water that act like robes or shields. (At JTT Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 17th).
In Jonathan Monaghan’s latest fantastical animation, Disco Beast, a unicorn is captured and drained of energy by a predatory cell phone charging station only to be reborn in a luxury building’s hidden disco. Here, the unicorn is penned in by a ring of TSA scanners, an allusion to the Renaissance Unicorn Tapestries (which act as metaphor for marriage, among other things) and an update on the experience of being ‘captured.’ (On view at Bitforms on the Lower East Side through Dec 10th).
When Hayv Kahraman fled Baghdad during the first Gulf War, one of the few non-essential items her family took was a mahaffa, a traditional fan woven from palm tree fronds. In recent works at Jack Shainman Gallery, the artist has woven her paintings together in strips that recall the fan, artfully combining different realities. (On view in Chelsea on 24th Street through Dec 20th).
