Four hands repeat a gesture with multiple interpretations in the roughly woven lattice of Athansios Argianas’ bright, electroformed copper wall sculpture at On Stellar Rays. Interpretable as OK, perfection (if kissed by the lips), zero or something ruder, the sign is enhanced by a long title that suggests that seeing is as changeable as the sea. (On view on the Lower East Side through June 25th).
Anne Neukamp’s post-analogue paintings picture office tools in large-scale, graphically simple images that look as if they’ve been composed in digital space, yet are manifest before us in oil, tempera and linen. Titled ‘Morsel,’ this tantalizing icon offers a puzzle piece and a mystery envelope, dangling meaning in front of viewers. (At Chelsea’s Marlborough Contemporary through June 24th).
From the front, Ryan Johnson’s ‘Driver’ looks like a single, solid disk. From the side, the form becomes a steering wheel and a driver materializes, instantly morphing the sculpture from a mysterious biomorphic abstraction into an everyday scenario. Johnson’s sense of humor also comes across in his stylized ‘mother’ at rear, a stylized caryatid whose belly makes her all the more dramatic. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery through June 25th).
Organic shapes snake around and into a wooden box in this work by Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno, suggesting that whatever is inside cannot be contained. A trumpet-like ceramic form introduces the idea of broadcasting sound, offering the possibility that an unheard song might further animate this alluring organism. (At Sikkema Jenkins & Co through June 30th).
Round the corner into Metro Pictures smaller back gallery and suddenly you’re in the valley of an enormous wave, dwarfed by a ominous black swell that prompts terror even on dry land. The scene is the highlight of Robert Longo’s show of huge, charcoal drawings, a body of work that pictures refugees, CIA prisoners and Ferguson protesting football players in a tour de force of contemporary conflict. (On view in Chelsea through June 17th).
