How much can a line graph really tell you about the world? Canadian artist duo Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens offer a tongue-in-cheek response to this question and the quest to present data in graphical form with sculptures like this one, that aims to illustrate ‘one man’s progress learning paths of least waste.’ (At Jane Lombard Gallery through May 26th).
Body-building and fashion magazines provide the material for Dominique Paul’s riotous collages of hybrid humans and altered insects. Using 17th and 18th century illustrations of plants and insects by artist Maria Merian as a framework, Paul mixes old and new in a bizarre but intriguing microcosm. (At Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery through May 27th).
Long strands of clear and white plastic beads by late artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres are an austere version of the usually colorful plastic beading hung in homes. Here in the huge, Spartan spaces of David Zwirner Gallery (which marks joint representation of the artist with Andrea Rosen Gallery with this show), the curtain has the sobering effect intended, heightening our awareness of passing from one state to another. (On 20th Street in Chelsea through June 24th).
A devotional sculpture of Mary melds with the body of an anonymous girl in this provocative sculpture by northern Italian artist Gehard Demetz. Though each figure looks fragmented, the merger seems neither violent nor ecstatic (along the lines of Bernini’s Saint Teresa.) Instead, the girl is absorbed by the inner life shared with the saint. (At Jack Shainman Gallery through June 3rd).
Roni Horn once said that glass can convey ‘the most ideal expression of color.’ In two same-but-different cast-glass sculptures at Chelsea’s Hauser & Wirth Gallery, a tranquil, blue form immediately invites visitors to draw near and marvel at the reflections of light on the water-like surface of a substance that is neither fully liquid nor solid. (On view through July 29th).
