In an homage to the way that reading has shaped her view of the world, Diane Samuels’ ‘First Lines’ inscribes the first line of text from each of the over 1,700 titles in her personal library on the pieces of handmade paper that make up this stunningly detailed wall hanging. (At Pavel Zoubok Gallery in Chelsea through May 20th).
A horizon line made of charcoal surrounds visitors to Teresita Fernandez’s haunting installation of burnt and burning landscape at Lehmann Maupin Gallery on the Lower East Side. Though Fernandez has explained that she wants to question the reality of the ‘virgin’ landscape described by early European settlers in North America by pointing to existing slash and burn farming methods, this handsome installation tantalizingly offers many interpretations. (On view through May 20th).
A landscape is never just a beautiful view in Ori Gersht’s photographs. A past series pictured tranquil scenes not far from a former concentration camp; the more recent ‘Floating World’ images – shot in Kyoto’s formal gardens – play up the multi-layered meanings of meticulously planned spaces like this one by combining reflected and inverted images. (At CRG Gallery on the Lower East Side through May 21st).
Colorful patterns of birds, swirling handprints resembling flowers, floating bodies and looping text fill this small, intense painting by Mexico-based artist Domenico Zindato. Though isolated in triangular fields bounded by lettering, the small, anonymous characters shoot rays from their fingertips, making them pulse with energy. (At Andrew Edlin Gallery on the Lower East Side through June 4th).
A figure with a body made of rebar hunches over an iPad in Siebren Versteeg’s solo show at Bitforms Gallery, scrolling through social media, distributing ‘likes’ willy nilly. Just as a real body is not necessary to consume content, existing media is sufficient for making more art – on the walls, paintings made with software that mines Internet images mimic the form of Jay DeFeo’s famously massive ‘Rose’ painting, built up from years of accumulated paint. (At Bitforms Gallery on the Lower East Side through May 28th).
