Titled ‘Joy Revolution,’ Salon94’s exhibition of late French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle’s painting, sculpture and work on paper celebrates color, pleasure and play. Just inside Salon94’s stunning new 89th Street location, a 17,500 square foot former mansion built by philanthropist Archer Huntington, two lions originally intended as garden decoration greet visitors. Intended to entice kids to climb them, they serve here as guardians and greeters. (On view through April 24th).
It’s not unusual to consider where and how our everyday consumer goods were manufactured, but Amsterdam-based design team Studio Drift goes deeper. Via their ‘Materialism’ project – samples of which are now on view in Pace Gallery’s current tech-friendly group show – Drift practices a kind of reverse engineering by breaking down light bulbs, cell phones and water bottles, as well as historic weapons and this bicycle, into component parts which are then displayed as pleasingly tidy arrangements of colorful cubes. Guessing what each piece represents is an engaging game that ultimately prompts viewers to question how much we know about the goods we consume. (On view on 25th Street in Chelsea through April 24th).
Titled ‘Tradewinds,’ Paul Anthony Smith’s latest show of hand-worked photos at Jack Shainman Gallery celebrates home, memory and the act of celebration itself. More contemplative than some of the artist’s images of parties and get-togethers, this image suggests thoughts as a kind of cloud-cover or camouflage around this young man. Here, Smith’s signature picotage technique – involving a series of tiny rips on the surface of the image – becomes a kind of simultaneous damage and decoration. (On view in Chelsea through April 3rd).
Late South African photographer David Goldblatt didn’t leave it to chance that his photos would be read without context, titling them with notes on their circumstances. Currently on view at Pace Gallery in an exhibition curated by South African photographer Zanele Muholi, who worked and trained in Goldblatt’s studio, the photos consider visibility of women, segregation, privilege, labor conditions and more. Here, Goldblatt records the forced removal of Black families from land designated by the government as ‘white.’ (On view in Chelsea through March 27th).
“The hierarchy of the word ‘front’ is so strong…” explained painter Dona Nelson in a recent interview, concisely conveying how rule-breaking it still feels to exhibit paintings in an upright freestanding frame vs wall mounting them. Her current show at Chelsea’s Thomas Erben Gallery includes two-sided paintings like ‘Early September,’ a canvas that combines a grid system and patterns of dripped lines to play order and chaos against each other. (On view through April 3rd).
