Leo Villareal’s light sculptures have transformed the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the walkway between buildings at DC’s National Gallery and many other high profile sites. On a smaller scale but with no less mesmerizing impact, Villareal has transformed Pace Gallery’s 24th Street location with hanging stainless steel bars displaying an ever-changing combination of LED lights. (On view through June 17th).
This comically alarmed puffer fish is apparently startled by the empathy of an unnamed individual; in a thought bubble, the fish remarks that ‘his great melancholy eyes swim in a mist of commiseration.’ As comment on warming seas and endangered wildlife, the painting pits emotion vs action. (At David Zwirner Gallery’s 519 West 19th Street location).
The heart of Anselm Kiefer’s latest exhibition at Gagosian Gallery is a series of large-scale handmade books crafted from cardboard covered in plaster and painted with watercolor. Titled ‘Walpurgia,’ after an 8th century English nun, this lush, flesh-colored rendering of flowers echoes the erotic nature of the new paintings. Though the subject matter seems like a departure for Kiefer, it continues work begun in the 70s for which he merged the landscape and female bodies. (At Gagosian Gallery’s 21st Street location through July 14th).
From amid sweeping and energetic forms in Ali Banisadr’s painting ‘Myth’ emerge odd faces that suggest a camel (upper left) a clown with a tall, spotted cap (middle left) and a cast of slightly sinister characters. The Iranian born, NY-based artist explained that the paintings in his current show at Sperone Westwater Gallery were inspired by politics in the US; he suggests both mass migration and a barbed wire fence in the sky and a mass of menacing figures in the foreground. (On the Lower East Side through June 24th.)
Displayed on a lightbox, Canadian artist Rodney Graham’s staged photographs are enticing, glowing portals into the past. In this unlikely scenario, a jazz drummer from yesteryear uses his kit as a table for a traditional meal of Salisbury Steak. (At 303 Gallery in Chelsea through June 2nd).
