Aimed at an artist, the phrase ‘Love Your Work’ can be sincere or suspect. This unforgettable 1999 fresco by Rochelle Feinstein brilliantly isolates the phrase below an envy-green field of paint. Color takes center stage in Feinstein’s latest body of work, now on view online in Sperone Westwater’s viewing room. Inspired by a photo she took in Rome of a double rainbow, the recent work foregrounds the color spectrum and the mutability of art. (Online through June 25th).
One of Dutch artist Guido van der Werve’s best known performances involved walking just 16 yards in front of an ice breaking ship in the Baltic sea, an example of the physical punishment and risk he’s willing to endure for his art. Now for a new on-line exhibition, Luhring Augustine Gallery, GRIMM Gallery and Monitor Gallery are teaming up to present still photographs from the artist’s mind-bending 2012 performance ‘Nummer Veertien, home,’ for which he swam, biked and ran 1,200 miles across Europe. Van der Werve’s journey began at the location of Chopin’s interred heart (Warsaw) and ended at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris where the rest of the composer’s body is buried. In Paris, the artist delivered a small container of soil from outside Chopin’s childhood home, connecting the two places and creating a profound link between his own history and that of his favorite composer. (On view through June 19th).
The U.S. flag becomes a symbol not just of the nation, but of the country’s continuous transformation in Ajay Kurian’s abstracted, epoxy rendition. Peeling, scale-like segments suggest old skin giving way to new in brilliant color. A similar piece from Kurian’s 2018 exhibition at 47 Canal is now showcased on ‘Inventory,’ a new platform organized by artist Darren Bader to present artwork that might otherwise languish in gallery storage while galleries are closed.
Known for portrait-like works created with a range of materials and techniques from paint to photo transfer (like the image pictured here from a ’19 exhibition at David Zwirner Gallery), Njideka Akunyili Crosby recently simplified her procedure in paintings presented at last summer’s Venice Biennial. Two of these are highlights of ‘Side By Side,’ a new on-line collaboration between David Zwirner Gallery and Victoria Miro Gallery for which the two galleries are presenting works via 3-D renderings by VortecXR. Specifically addressing how to see artwork without being present in front of it, Side By Side showcases technology as much as the art, both of which are worth a look.
‘Klaus on Paper,’ a concisely curated, attractively presented five-artist exhibition of paintings and drawings on paper by Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery stands out among the many new on-line outlets for art. Liz Luisada’s contributions continue to consider the importance of grids and webs; in this painting from her summer ’18 solo show at the gallery, Luisada suggests that human activity creates and causes movement in each system.
Is your garden too dry or your day too sunny? Olafur Eliasson offers a solution in ‘Wunderkammer,’ a selection of augmented reality artwork available for download that includes a placeable raincloud complete with the sound of pattering raindrops. A puffin, a rainbow, a ladybug and more join the cloud as part a recent project launched by the newly high profile AR Art platform Acute Art to allow participants to create their own ‘cabinet of curiosities.’
After presenting paintings of lone figures at Pace Gallery’s new 25th Street headquarters in February of this year (a highlight of which is pictured here), British painter Nigel Cooke is back at pacegallery.com with new characters made while working in isolation. Working at night has created an even more solitary environment for the artist from which he’s tried to capture how ‘perceptions are always changing when things are uncertain.’ Collectively titled ‘Midnights,’ each new work carries titles like ‘Shore,’ ‘Waiting’ or ‘Islands,’ that speak to the idea of a figure looking out to sea. (On view at pacegallery.com through June 2nd).
Sara Ludy’s artwork connects to both virtual and physical worlds manifesting as actual objects inspired by a VR dream house; here, in pieces from 2018, the artist combined glass and copper to create sculptural environments for imagined birds. Ludy’s ability to create compelling work in digital and physical media makes her an ideal artist for her gallery, Bitforms, to showcase in the inaugural Future Fair, currently operating on-line due to the pandemic. Check out her latest images, attractive abstractions which appear simultaneously organic and highly manipulated, intimate yet without reference to scale. (On view in the Future Fair through June 6th).
Installed in late April though the show will likely never be seen in person by the public, The Hole NYC’s exhibition ‘Second Smile’ asks how Surrealism continues to surface in contemporary painting. The show includes work by Emily Mae Smith, whose painting of two candles in a clandestine nighttime meeting was a memorable part of her show at Simone Subal Gallery in 2017. (On view at The Hole NYC through May 24th).
Titus Kaphar’s latest paintings, the subject of a special Artist Spotlight at Gagosian Gallery, take a dramatic turn for the colorful as they continue to explore historical representations of people of African descent. This standout from Kaphar’s 2015 show at Jack Shainman Gallery takes art historical representation as its subject by exposing two figures whose relationship would remain hidden without a revealing cut. Kaphar’s new subjects – women in charge of children who have been cut out of the canvas – exist in charged landscapes that are “…a reflection of an emotional and psychological space.”
Sam Falls records a direct experience of nature by allowing the elements to interact with the plant material and pigment he places on canvas and leaves outdoors. His beautifully presented on-line exhibition at 303gallery.com includes photos that elaborate on his process and his ceramic practice, which includes a series of intricate ceramic tile archways on the High Line featuring designs every bit as enticing as the lush foliage surrounding them. (On view in 303 Gallery’s on-line viewing room through May 15th).
Fashion, art history and the relationship between works in an exhibition drive the color choices that make Carol Bove’s hybrid sculptures stand out. Sharp contrasts between aged, found steel and the smooth geometries of urethane-covered forms give pause to consider the relationships between two familiar yet seemingly mismatched materials. This piece (seen in detail) from the artist’s last major Chelsea solo show at David Zwirner Gallery in ‘16 juxtaposes found steel with urethane-covered steel to create a wonderfully misleading suggestion of pliability. When a sculpture’s color can make it appear to have a digital effect, Bove’s at her happiest. She explains this and more on davidzwirner.com where a new on-line exhibition showcases select new works.
London and Berlin-based artists and photography professors Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin’s short film, ‘The Bureaucracy of Angels’ grabs the imagination immediately with an unlikely casting choice; the star of the show – a mechanical wrecking arm – makes a riveting appearance as a soulful ballad singer lamenting the pain of migration. Currently available to watch via the Lower East Side gallery Signs & Symbols’ website, the piece’s premise is absurd but the effect is first mesmerizing, then moving. Part destroyer, part guardian, the machine keeps watch over migrants being intercepted by rescue agencies before eventually wrecking boats abandoned by travelers who made it to Sicily. (Available online at signsandsymbols.art through May 13th).
Rebecca Morgan’s skewering of elitist urban attitudes towards rural Americans has shifted towards the grotesque in recent years. You wouldn’t guess this to judge by this highlight of Morgan’s 2014 show from New York Art Tours archive, a sensitive portrayal of the artist wrapped in her ‘depression blanket.’ Audacious and merciless as ever, Morgan’s latest work at Asya Geisberg Gallery is part of a group exhibition of work priced under $3k; her young woman in a face mask is a highlight of the presentation.
West coast light and the pleasures of color define Hilary Pecis’ recent work at Rachel Uffner Gallery and Timothy Taylor Gallery’s current on-line show ‘Dwelling is the Light.’ Working from a photo archive that includes the homes of friends and family, Pecis creates vibrant portraits that leave out actual individuals but make you wish you could meet the characters who’ve created such sunny environments. (On view at timothytaylor.com through May 15th).
Two Moroccan women navigate the changing face of traditional Aita music in Meriem Bennani’s mesmerizing video ‘Siham & Hafida’ from ’17, seen here at The Kitchen in a photo from New York Art Tours’ archive. Two quite different characters – a pair of lizards in Brooklyn – navigate a separate set of challenges in Bennani’s new video series, launched with filmmaker friend Orian Barki in mid-March as a break from COVID-19 mandated isolation. Entertaining and short, the videos speak to the surreal quality of life during the pandemic. (Episode One. Episode Two).
The centerpiece of Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s current on-line show at James Cohan Gallery is ‘The Boat People,’ a video about a heroic group of survivor children who’ve become the last humans alive. They parade through their lonely world carrying wooden artifacts (sculpture hand crafted in Bataan, Philippines) that speak to war and migration pre-apocalypse. The Bodhisattva Guanyin reappears throughout the exhibition (here making a benevolent gesture), repeatedly orienting the narrative toward compassion. In a must-see video, Nguyen explains that the dark, burned areas on the wood point to fire as ‘a strong metaphor for freedom and liberation, both spiritual and political.’ (On view through May 3rd).
Exhibition walkthroughs and artist interviews have abounded since the pandemic cut off access to physical gallery spaces, but few videos have been as engaging and personal as Rebecca Morris’ recent Q & As with painter friends at bortolamigallery.com. The untitled work here from New York Art Tours’ archive (May ’16) prefigures the silver and gold paint and the play between organic and inorganic shapes prominent in her show installed through June at Bortolami Gallery in Tribeca.
Canadian-Trinidadian artist Curtis Talwst Santiago’s invented ancestors are conduits to an inaccessible past, allowing him to imagine the lives of those who came before him. The fabulously beaded Jab Jab Knight seen here breaks through a wall of netting and stone to dominate Santiago’s recent show at Rachel Uffner Gallery; at the Drawing Center where the artist’s drawings and installations are now on view on-line, Santiago walks visitors through the show, introducing his knights and inspiring consideration of ‘genetic imagination.’
Liza Lou is no stranger to communal art projects, having run studios in California and South Africa employing dozens of craftspeople to hand-make sheets of beads as seen in this textile piece at Lehmann Maupin Gallery from fall ‘18. Now isolated in her studio by the pandemic, she’s launched #apartogether_art, an open invitation to the on-line community to take inspiration from childhood security blankets and make textiles using materials at hand. With hundreds of postings, the project testifies to the ubiquity and diversity of the creative impulse. (Also accessible via apartogether.com).
Louise Bourgeois’ spiders may be her best-known work (this image from New York Art Tours’ archives captured a bronze arachnid appearing to scale a wall at the American Museum of Natural History), but for 70-years of the late artist’s career, drawing played a key role in expressing states of mind. Hauser & Wirth Gallery’s inaugural on-line exhibition features a selection of drawings from 1947-2007 that channel Bourgeois’ unconscious and personal history.
Beijing gallery Tang Contemporary Art recently reopened (after closing in January to prevent the spread of COVID-19) with a showcase of work by artists represented by Konig Galerie in Berlin. The exhibition includes Austrian artist Erwin Wurm’s deliberately absurd ‘abstract sculpture’ (formed from variously sized cast bronze frankfurters) which brings to mind recent work at New York’s Lehmann Maupin Gallery which involved food treated as an object rather than something to eat. Made entirely of concrete, this sculpture is a permanent version of Wurm’s One Minute Sculptures, in which participants interact with everyday objects. (Photo from New York Art Tours’ archive, Jan ’20).
Whether she’s transforming plastic cups into glacial landscapes or Styrofoam into clouds, Tara Donovan has a knack for turning masses of everyday materials into wondrous installations. In this June ’14 image from New York Art Tour’s archives, index cards become termite mounds or stalagmites at Pace Gallery. The gallery’s current on-line group exhibition, ‘Material Matters,’ features a delightful artwork by Donovan crafted from Slinkys that appear to have massed together and come to life. (On view through April 21st).
Titled ‘Pathological Color,’ James Welling’s on-line exhibition of photography at David Zwirner Gallery assaults the senses with intense color contrasts generated by the artist’s experimental practice in Photoshop. This detail of a photo by Welling from New York Art Tours’ archives features images of dancers layered with modernist buildings and landscapes, each suggesting performance on a different kind of stage. Aiming to explore our perception of color, Welling draws on ‘pathologies’ described by Goethe, who considered the impact of particular colors on the senses. For more images, including early examples of his technique, visit David Zwirner Gallery’s on-line Viewing Room.
Contemporary art inspires. Take your on-line engagement with art to a deeper level on a remote gallery tour. Join Merrily on an hour-long virtual walk through of some of the most beautiful and thought-provoking shows of the moment, seeing and discussing images and video. Tours take place via Zoom. 50% of profits in April go to New York City’s COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund.
Virtual exhibitions have replaced in-person shows at many New York galleries, but David Zwirner Gallery’s new ‘Platform’ offers something different by showcasing work by individual artists represented by twelve established, smaller New York galleries. The initiative highlights painting and sculpture, conceptual and digital art by groundbreaking artists and includes Keegan Monaghan’s impasto oil paintings. Monaghan’s ‘The Screen’ – pictured here from New York Art Tour’s photo archive from Jan ’18 at James Fuentes Gallery – perfectly illustrates how pictures can ‘serve alternatively as barriers and entry points’ as we look at someone looking at someone looking.
Intimately scaled and vibrantly colored, Bayne Peterson’ abstract sculpture is both a pleasure and puzzle for the eye. In this Sept ’15 photo from New York Art Tour’s archives, a series of interlocking triangular forms made from dyed plywood segments joined by dyed epoxy creates a jittery pattern belied by the sculpture’s soothing curves. Peterson’s latest work – currently featured by Kristen Lorello Gallery – was inspired by the dynamism of classical sculpture and the unique optical abilities of the mantis shrimp. To see his recent sculpture, visit Kristen Lorello Gallery or check out the gallery’s special Learning Opportunities.
Berlin-based artist Kathrin Sonntag is no stranger to quiet moments in the studio; past photos of seemingly banal environments allude to the paranormal or time travel. As part of Thomas Erben Gallery’s ‘First Responders’ series – an ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic by gallery artists – Sonntag presents a series of images made in the solitude of her workspace in 2004. The photos turn the everyday moment into magic; here, nail scissors come to life and mince across the floor. To see more from Sonntag’s unique POV, visit the gallery’s Instagram or Facebook page.
While museums and galleries are closed, a walk through Bushwick’s outdoor art gallery is a great alternative way to get your art fix. This huge painting of a Brazilian jaguar by Sao Paulo street artist Tito Ferrara dominates the intersection, standing out among the many superb murals commissioned by the Bushwick Collective. If you can’t get to Bushwick, check out the latest murals @thebushwickcollective or watch a short video of Ferrara strolling through the neighborhood @titoferrara.
Figures emerge and recede in Cecily Brown’s energetic gestural expressionism; this Nov ’17 photo from New York Art Tour’s archives features a face so subtle it seems to have emerged by chance from the drips and lines of paints surrounding it. It’s a great moment to catch up with Brown’s latest work on Instagram @dellyrose – where she’s been posting paintings featuring far more direct characters – and via The Brooklyn Rail’s daily live lunchtime conversation tomorrow, April 1st with Jason Rosenfeld, Editor-at-large. (Access is free and by Zoom. Visit Eventbrite to book).
With galleries and museums shut down, what are artists doing these days? Jennifer Guidi’s recent Instagram posts show her doing what she always does – logging hours in the studio. This image from her now-shuttered show at Gagosian Gallery ponders the impact and attraction of color and form. Originally inspired by a diagram illustrating Goethe’s color theory, Guidi was also influenced by Austrian naturalist Ignaz Schiffermuller’s color wheel, remaking here it as a painting that dominates one of Gagosian’s huge walls. It’s her meticulous mark-making, however, that has generated such excitement over her work. Here, two Instagram posts demonstrate the repetitive processes underlying Guidi’s work.
New Delhi-based British artist Bharti Kher breaks and recombines clay figures she’s collected over the years, inventing hybrids that combine supposed opposites – male and female or divine figures from different faiths. Her show at Perrotin Gallery on the Lower East Side is no longer open to the public, but Kher shared her process in an insightful video shot during a residency in the UK. This piece, Ardhanarishvara, represents a manifestation of the Hindu divinities Shiva and Parvati. Roughly joined from mass produced figurines, they’re far from divine perfection. Instead, they represent the artist’s ability to remake the known world, in this case with mysterious materials packed into conjoined bodies.
Operating under the premise that, “Art makes a positive difference at all times and in all circumstances” Hauser & Wirth Gallery has reverted to on-line exhibitions and other Internet-accessible strategies to make art available. The gallery’s recently released exhibition walk-through with Light and Space artist Larry Bell wonderfully conveys Bell’s exploration of how glass ‘reflects, absorbs and transmits light.’ We can’t visit the artist’s reflective glass panels right now (seen here in a smaller sculpture), but the next best thing is watching him activate his ‘Standing Wall’ installations to shift the space around him.
Waiting for the bus (or just walking past the bus stop) isn’t quite so mundane if you’re fortunate enough to encounter one of 100 bus shelters in all five boroughs currently hosting Farah Al Qasimi’s photographs. Brooklyn-based Al Qasimi cites her upbringing in the Emirates for her attraction to an abundance of color and pattern and explains that in her series ‘Back and Forth Disco,’ presented by the Public Art Fund, personal style choices combat anonymity in the city. In this image, spotted on Graham Avenue in Brooklyn, a woman performs a beauty treatment, blocking the procedure but enlivening the salon’s subtle décor with her own vibrant outfit. (On view through May 17th.)
‘Moth,’ a 3-minute stop motion animation by Allison Schulnik was a highlight of her PPOW Gallery show in Chelsea and is also available on Vimeo. Over 14 months, Schulnik painted gouache on paper frames for the piece, following a moth’s unconventional metamorphosis into a variety of creatures. Created after a move from LA to the desert landscapes of Sky Valley, CA, and while becoming a mother, Schulnik’s personal transformation inspired an engrossing mediation on change. (Chelsea’s PPOW Gallery is closed to the public to help stop the spread of COVID-19, but Moth can be seen on Vimeo).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art may be closed to deter the spread of COVID-19 but one of its most exciting new commissions is still on view outside. In never-filled niches designed to hold statuary, Wangechi Mutu has installed four bronze sculptures of powerful women wrapped in coiled garments that the artist describes as ‘living, tactile and fleshy’ but which also act protectively. Polished disks (here, at the back of this figure’s head) echo traditional ornament worn by women of status in many African cultures. Though inspired by caryatid sculptures in which women support a burden (from prestige stools to the Vanderbilt mantlepiece) these queenly and otherworldly figures are leaders, not servers. (On view outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art through June 8th, 2020).
Pittsburgh-based artist, poet and performer Vanessa German’s vibrant installations of photo and sculpture stand out around Rockefeller Center, luring viewers with their dramatic color and abundant detail. Initially puzzling for their lack of commercial message in an environment designed to sell, photos of fabulously dressed women and sculptures of German’s signature power figures convey feminine power. The Center’s shows and attractions have ground to a halt due to COVID-19, but German’s semi-divine, haloed figure remains. (On view in Midtown through April 5th. Organized by Art Production Fund).
Born and raised in Beijing, Chicago-based artist Guanyu Xu was unable as a youth to openly express his queer identity. Returning from the US to Beijing to visit, he transformed his parent’s apartment with photo installations that tell the story of his identity in some of its complexity. Captured in photos, the arrangements appear to be digitally collaged but are in fact staged in real time and space, temporarily occupying an environment in a fleeting moment of openness that took place while his parents were away from their home. (Originally planned to be on view to the public in Chelsea at Yancey Richardson Gallery through April 4th, Xu’s work can be see on the gallery’s website and his own website.)
A haze of cool colors hovers over and obscures energetic line drawings featuring human figures in Rita Ackermann’s new paintings at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, creating a juxtaposition between painterly gesture and drawing. Titled ‘Mama,’ each painting links in title to a feminine source while channeling an Ab Exp style better known for its male adherents. Simple drawings of circles and an occasional animal add in a child’s touch, further complicating the family relationships alluded to in the paintings. (On view in Chelsea through April 11th).
The deep impact of children’s literature on young imaginations is the subject of Becky Suss’s marvelously detailed new paintings at Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery, each of which focuses on a particular text. Here, Suss calls on her own childhood experience of acting out Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Egypt Game with neighborhood friends, her memories of the book and the actual play mingled together in her recollection. (On view through March 28th).
Light and space artist Doug Wheeler’s installation at David Zwirner Gallery makes light a transformative medium, turning the white cube into a glowing and changeable environment to challenge the senses. Light disperses before our eyes as it fades from the bright glow of neon tubes installed in a recessed space to the darker areas of the wall, floor and ceiling at the end of the long rectangular gallery. (On view in Chelsea through March 21st).
A metal panel bolted closed on a grimy subway wall, a garage door and barred windows of an industrial building and other snapshots of the built environment are among the inspirations for Jane South’s new wall-mounted assemblages at Spencer Brownstone Gallery. Posted to her Instagram account as #streetsources and #subwaysources, the photos speak to the long and varied life of the structures surrounding us as translated into canvas, tarp, batting and other materials. (On view on the Lower East Side through April 5th).
Proto-surrealist James Ensor and the fantastical Netherlandish painter Hieronymous Bosch figure as influencers on Chicago Imagist Gladys Nilsson’s odd characters, no surprise, given their pervading oddness and ambiguous identities. This symmetrically arranged meeting of two couples, elderly, possibly blind, and with facial features straight out of a folk tale challenges belief even before spotting the tiny horns tucked into their mouths. Are they communicating in honks? Are they tooting at each other to avoid colliding on the sidewalk? The fun is in the guessing. (A selection of work from 1963 to 1980 is now on view at Matthew Marks Gallery in Chelsea through April 18th).
Abraham Lincoln morphs into a teenager, a senior, a woman in glasses and other characters in Krzysztof Wodiczko’s ‘A House Divided…’, as interviews shot with a variety of Staten Island citizens with varying political views are projected onto two replica of the Lincoln Memorial at Chelsea’s Galerie Lelong. In some exchanges, friends acknowledge their differences while respecting each other; in other conversations, barriers remain high. Wodiczko’s goal is to encourage the exchange regardless, making dialogue the goal of his art production. (On view through March 7th).
Taking in stray cats changed young artist Fumika Koda’s painting career, focusing her practice on the feline subjects and driving her to find intimate ways to portray their habits and personalities, often in connection to the seasons. Koda even aims to empower the cats, as she puts it, “…giving them their power back over the people who left them,” but it’s her evident respect for the cats’ beauty and intelligence that stands out. (On view at Sato Sakura Gallery through March 28th).
British artist Nigel Cooke has long blurred the line between abstraction and figuration, but recent monochromatic paintings on raw canvas at Pace Gallery convey new urgency and dynamism. By contrasting surface areas of relative calm with intersecting webs of paint receding into the distance, Cooke suggests that focus can be achieved and released, instantly altering our perspective on the environments surrounding us. (On view through Feb 29th).
Ja’Tovia Gary pictures the variety in Black womanhood in her new three-channel video installation at Paula Cooper Gallery with footage shot of the artist in Monet’s garden at Giverny intercut with video of Nina Simone’s 1976 performance at the Montreux Festival and street corner interviews with women of African descent in Harlem. Through direct animation on archival film, internet footage and her own images as well as montage, Gary employs a variety of techniques to present a complex view of Black interiority. (On view in Chelsea through March 21st).
At over twenty feet tall, late Catalan fiber artist Josep Grau-Garriga’s monumental tapestry ‘February Light’ dominates visitors to Salon94 Bowery. Made in the 70s after Grau-Garriga had pioneered a move away from realist tapestries crafted with expensive materials into expressionist compositions fashioned from fibers including string, hemp and even old sacks, February Light’s wooden rods and ropes give the piece a remarkable boldness. Created in the years just after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the many openings in the blood-red areas of the artwork seem to continue Grau-Garriga’s frequent political allusions. (On view on the Lower East Side through Feb 29th).
On her way to developing an abstract, dripped-paint style that influenced Jackson Pollock in the 1940s, New York artist Janet Sobel painted scenes inspired by the shtetls of her native Ukraine. Now on view at Andrew Edlin Gallery, a selection of Sobel’s work shows her flattening of space and merger of a flowery landscape, patterned skirt and floral headdress in a way that flirts with all-over abstraction. (On view on the Lower East Side through Feb 22nd).
Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz brings the destruction and theft of ancient artworks to public attention at Jane Lombard Gallery with a beautiful but barren reconstruction of the banqueting hall of 9th century BC Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II at the Palace of Nimrud. Though destroyed by the Islamic State in 2015, panels from the Palace of Nimrud are housed in many museums, a point Rakowitz highlights by crafting ‘empty’ walls as meticulously as the patterned ones. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 22nd).
Dutch photographer Dana Lixenberg’s iconic photos for Vibe magazine in the 90s of Tupac Shakur & Biggie appear at the center of schematic mural at Grimm Gallery that demonstrates the incredible currency that photos can have. Radiating from the center, remakes of Lixenberg’s photos of the two music legends appear in the foam of a latte, on tattoos and via The Simpsons characters among other iterations. (On view on the Lower East Side through Feb 29th).
Young LA painter Noah Davis died from cancer in 2015, but the hundreds of artworks he left behind are currently impacting the New York art scene thanks to a double-gallery exhibition at David Zwirner Gallery. Davis’ style can shift from washy to realistic in the same canvas, creating surprising effects as representation dissolves into uncertainty. Here, two napping figures on a couch evoke a languorous afternoon, made intriguing by the almost melting space above the lap of a third figure. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 22nd).
Finding that her female figures were often misinterpreted, Iranian-born, Chicago-based artist Orkedeh Torabi decided to depict only men as she continued to make work commenting on patriarchal societies. The title of this painting, ‘Where are all the houries?,’ a standout in a group show at Fredericks Freiser Gallery, imagines the arrival in heaven of a martyr who is looking for his virginal beauties. (On view through Feb 22nd).
Chicago-based artist and professor Jan Tichy found an outlet for his ‘socially conscious formalism’ in the context of the Lower East Side’s lighting district, where he made work in and in response to the neighborhood’s dwindling number of lighting fixture stores. Layering images shot in the lighting stores, their bright wares hung enticingly from the ceiling, with exposures of actual fixtures on light sensitive paper in the darkroom, Tichy created this frenetic print which mirrors the pace of change in the city. (On view at Fridman Gallery through Feb 23rd).
Butterflies are a reminder of the brevity of life, but the Xerces Blue perching on this crate is an extinct species, adding a note of finality even as the nearby Venus Flytrap demonstrates abundant health. Jeanne Silverthorne’s new sculpture at Marc Straus Gallery also includes silicone rubber crates which symbolize unknown creative possibilities. Acting as pedestal and art object, they range from sturdy to dilapidated, suggesting the coexistence of ideas that will someday manifest as artworks and those that will not. (On view on the Lower East Side through Feb 16th).
Emotion and vulnerability continue to be strong themes in Jesper Just’s latest body of work at Perrotin Gallery on the Lower East Side. American Ballet Theater dancers lie and sit on the floor while receiving muscle therapy via patches applied to their skin. Though nearly motionless, this individual’s alert state and a single tear suggest powerful goings on beneath a calm exterior. Panels separated from the main display join blocks of concrete on the gallery floor in order to engage viewers more personally by forcing us to consider our own bodies in the gallery space and our own efforts at constructing meaning. (On view through Feb 15th).
The man in the foreground of this huge charcoal, graphite and pastel drawing by Melanie Baker leans forward conspiratorially, his own identity concealed as he shields the figure before him from view. Ironically framed on each side by lit sconces, the two shadowy figures seem to have paused in the halls of power to engage in an intense and private discussion that Baker invites us to question. (On view on the Lower East Side at Cristin Tierney through Feb 22nd).
LA’s trash is Jon Pylypchuk’s treasure, transformed via glitter and wood glue into a series of humorous portraits of alien-like creatures now on view at Chelsea’s Petzel Gallery. The family trio featured in this panel is quirky and cute with their big eyes (actually cue balls) on cartoonishly large heads but also grotesque with their sagging and twisting flesh (composed of pants). The title, ‘I used to be your internet kids,’ jokingly suggests that the passage of time wears on everyone, human and alien alike as offspring grow up and move on. (On view through Feb 29th).
Stars swirl around a young woman in this painting by Issy Wood as if the Paramount logo or the European Union flag’s emblems had risen to encircle her. Though she appears to be calmly shielding herself, the painting’s title ‘Study for me getting nostalgic’ suggests that the doughy, green stars are moving away from the London-based artist in an image that depicts a mental navigation of Brexit. (On view at JTT Gallery on the Lower East Side through Feb 9th).
Invited by curator Francisco Berzunza to make new work to show in Mexico on the themes of sex and death, South African photographer Pieter Hugo spent months meeting people from all walks of life including this community theater group formed by sanitation workers in Oaxaca de Juarez. Here, they reenact a scene from a mural painted in the 50s by David Alfaro Siqueiros at Chapultepec Castle, bringing revolutionary attitudes into the present day. (On view at Chelsea’s Yossi Milo Gallery through Feb 29th).
Enormous, reptilian eyes and rough-hewn features give Robin F. Williams’ female characters – named Siri and Alexa – a memorable boldness that runs contrary to the perky helpfulness of their digital namesakes. Titled ‘Siri Defends Her Honor,’ this painting casts Apple’s assistant into the role of a mob boss’s wife as played by Uma Thurman in an iconic scene from ‘Pulp Fiction,’ examining constructed AI personalities via female roles in cinema. (In ‘Xenia: Crossroads in Portrait Painting’ at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea, on view through Feb 15th).
The painting furthest from the door is the first to attract attention at Paula Cooper Gallery’s show of recent work by New York abstract artist Dan Walsh. Glowing like a tower-top beacon, a stylized ziggurat resembling the pinnacle of the Empire State Building lures visitors into minimalist painting by a self-styled ‘maximalist.’ (On view in Chelsea on 26th Street through Feb 15th).
It’s hard to look away from New York artist Christina Nicodema’s vividly colored paintings, packed with brightly plumed birds, a dramatic mandrill baring its teeth and piles of edibles designed to entice. Like a contemporary interpretation of traditional Dutch genre painting, the images bring together plants and creatures from different environments in a celebration of excess, but Nicodema’s addition of porcelain, a painted egg and a cake dangerously ablaze with candles hints at the costs of luxury and human desires. (On view at Hollis Taggart Contemporary through Feb 22nd).
After encountering a box of photos of the Berlin Wall taken by East German border guards in the mid-60s shortly after the wall was erected, photographer Arwed Messmer and writer Annett Groschner turned their research toward the topography of the 140km long structure, resulting in the sobering images now on view at Chelsea’s Walther Collection. Thirty years after the fall of the Wall, the photos speak to a failed effort at social control. This grid of ladders left behind in successful escape attempts, are an uplifting element in a show that otherwise expresses the grim realities of the wall. (On view through April 25th).
Late California-based sculptor Viola Frey’s huge standing man is a highpoint of the Whitney’s current exhibition rethinking the presence of craft in fine art; three tondos by the iconic artist at Nancy Hoffman Gallery are a more human-scaled exploration of humanity. This strikingly colorful, theatrical character whose face resembles a tragedy mask, holds a circular form that appears to be a plate or similar artwork, suggesting a tongue-in-cheek portrait of an artist. (On view in ‘The Circle’ through Jan 30th).
If you can’t get to politically-oriented artist Hans Haacke’s New Museum retrospective before it closes on Jan 26th, check out his huge pack of Marlboros in Paula Cooper Gallery’s tiny 21st St vitrine-like space, a sculpture about the relationships between art, politics and commerce. Made in 1990, the piece highlights cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris Company’s contradictory support both for the arts and for North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, who was famously critical of government support for the arts. Each five-foot long cigarette features a copy of the constitution (the company offered to supply a copy to anyone who asked), while the packaging bears the statement that the company’s ‘fundamental interest in the arts is self-interest.’ (On view through Jan 25th).
By revisiting historical events through one individual’s point of view, Crystal Z. Campbell reconsiders the 1921 race massacre that devastated Tulsa, Oklahoma’s burgeoning African American Greenwood District. The artist personalizes this archival photo of a Tulsa woman, adding color and patterning and thereby making it impossible to overlook this peaceful scenario as ordinary or every day. (On view in ‘A Field of Meaning’ at Callicoon Fine Arts on the Lower East Side).
Visitors to Nicolas Party’s optically lush installation at FLAG Art Foundation encounter this intriguing pairing of a 18th century woman by French painter Jean-Baptiste Perronneau with a background still life mural painted by the celebrated young Swiss artist. Both artworks were created with pastel, Party’s favored medium and Perronneau’s specialty. Here, Party places ‘decadent’ court style in proximity to plump, slouching fruits with wan little stems that enact a kind of excess and pampering akin to the lady in her finery. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 15th).
Joanne Greenbaum’s paintings do what words can’t, conveying relationships that don’t translate easily into verbal language. Watching the artist find a balance between lines and shapes, of color spread across the canvas, and of lighter vs bolder marks is the attraction in paintings that pleasurably upend expectations. (On view at Rachel Uffner Gallery on the Lower East Side through Jan 12th).
A charred tree trunk overtaken by a crystalline-looking mass or spreading fungal growth dominates Pierogi Gallery’s Lower East Side space. At close range, the lightly colored substance materializes into thousands of tiny 3-D printed human figures locked in what could be combat or an interconnected embrace, acting out love-hate relationships en masse. With the piece, New York State artist Jonathan Schipper contemplates the consequences of human drives, specifically consumption, that come at the cost of our habitat. (On view on the Lower East Side through Jan 12th).
This quilt by an unknown South Carolina maker is a standout among innovative textiles from the 1930s to the 1970s from the Arnett Collection now on view at Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea. Working in a variety of styles and creatively adapting traditional techniques, the quilters produced vibrantly colored and patterned textiles in designs that jump off the wall. (On view through January 18th).
In his photographic images featuring cotton plants now on view at Chelsea’s Laurence Miller Gallery, John Dowell aims to ‘evoke the remembering, feeling and sense of wonder in African American ancestral strategies of survival.’ Dowell inserts cotton fields in photos of Central Park, Wall Street, Trinity Church and other famous New York sites, creating haunting images and recalling injustices inflicted on African American communities at these places and elsewhere. The show’s centerpiece, ‘Lost in Cotton,’ invites visitors to enter an enclosure of hanging panels that recall the artist’s grandmother’s frightening childhood experience of getting lost among tall cotton plants. (On view through Jan 25th).
Though her lined-based, labor-intensive drawings have been described as resisting language in favor of the emotional potential of color, Zipora Fried’s own words best describe the inspiration for her latest work. She explains that the ‘sky and mud colored lizards, soft-toned cicada shells, sunsets echoing exploding worlds…,” the tides and sands of Lamu Island, Kenya prompted her vivid color choices. Short repeated pencil strokes and tonal variety make each image appear to shimmer in an unfixed meditation on her experience of the island. (On view in Chelsea at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. through Jan 18th).
A host of fractured figures, relatives to the artist’s signature box-headed, grimacing characters, greet visitors to Rashid Johnson’s latest show at Chelsea’s Hauser & Wirth Gallery. Described by their past titles as ‘anxious men,’ Johnson’s new people bear titles relating to their brokenness, as if the damage to their psyche’s or bodies has become more profound. The show climaxes in Johnson’s new film ‘The Hikers,’ in which two men meet while ascending or descending a mountain in Colorado, enacting a dance that expresses their anxiety and extends the theme into the three-dimensional world. (On view through Jan 25th).
As machines take over tasks formerly performed by people, Addie Wagenknecht’s programmed Roomba has complicated the role of the artist. In her past work using Yves Klein blue, the Roomba replaced the female bodies Klein used as paintbrushes. Here, the machine paints using a mix of art media (linseed oil and turpentine), grooming products (cosmetics, botox and perfume) and stimulants (wine, tequila and CBD oil) suggesting the symbolic expressive potential of non-traditional art media. (On view in ‘Embedded Parables’ at Bitforms on the Lower East Side through Jan 19th).
When German painter Daniel Richter radically switched painting styles c. 2015, moving from newspaper or history book-inspired representational scenes to more expressionistic scenarios, he explained that he wanted to get away from the ‘theater stage,’ and from ‘…knowing what I’m about to do.’ His recent paintings at GRIMM Gallery feature powerful, abstracted encounters between unknown actors, creating dramas that go beyond a particular moment in time. Here, two figures emerge from a dark background locked in combat against a dramatically lit sky, their large scale suggesting an apocalyptic encounter between the toga-clad character on the left and the alien-like combatant with elongated, insectoid leg on the left. (On view on the Lower East Side through Jan 4th).
LA based painter Rosson Crow’s recreation of the Garden of Eden, seen here in detail and part of her current show ‘Trust Fall’ at The Hole, was inspired by a creationism theme park that looked more like a cheap film set than an idyllic landscape. Splashed and dripped paint on the canvas surface makes it clear this is a painted representation, alluding to notions of ‘fake’ and ‘real’ that define political discourse today. Meanwhile, a Greek-inspired urn abandoned in the foliage reading ‘how does it feel to want?’ speaks to contemporary concerns about extremes of wealth and poverty. (On view on the Lower East Side through Dec 29th).
‘No one had really made a painting of’ the character in The Pundit before, Hernan Bas explains of his image of a young news anchor lost in thought. Though the news cycle pervades the day-to-day, journalists rarely appear as subject matter in the Chelsea galleries, never mind at the center of a newsroom turned geometric abstraction, making this painting feel like a discovery. (On view at Lehmann Maupin Gallery through Jan 4th).
Award-winning photographer Namsa Leuba points to her Swiss Guinean heritage as inspiration for a practice that takes her around the globe making images that she calls ‘documentary fictions.’ A standout in Aperture’s eye-poppingly vibrant show of fashion-related photography, ‘The New Black Vanguard,’ curated by Antwaun Sargent, Leuba’s work illustrates the show’s desire to show off ‘new perspectives…on race and beauty, gender and power.’ (On view in Chelsea through Jan 18th).
Beijing-based artist Chen Fei channels Dutch still life in his painting of tempting foodstuffs but substitutes dumplings for bread and banana leaf wraps for grapes. He cites Renaissance historian Vasari to question whether still life can be as engaging as portraiture, forcing the issue by presenting figurative painting in the downstairs gallery and still life upstairs. While the large-scale nude characters downstairs steal the show with their unconventional personalities, the still lifes still wow with their sheer abundance. (On view at Perrotin on the Lower East Side through Dec 21st).
A broken column constructed of foam core and covered by custom handmade silk Kashmiri rugs in Baseera Khan’s current show at Simone Subal Gallery suggests an empire toppled, its segments like gears in a massive, defunct machine. Instead of dominating visitors with its huge size though, the pillar entices thanks to its decorative patterns and appears mysteriously futuristic due to its liquid-looking resin core. Fascinating remnants entice us to consider the historical past as complicated and unknown, suggesting new legacies for the future. (On view on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd).
Shortly after his grandfather died, Beijing-based artist Li Songsong began painting this portrait of him absorbed in a personal moment. Using a thick oil painting technique that obscures detail, the artist explains that he nevertheless captured the essence of the man. The takeaway for the artist was to observe how painting can embody truths that the artist himself may not even want to acknowledge. (On view at Pace Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 21st).
The line to enter Yayoi Kusama’s latest mirror-lined infinity room at David Zwirner Gallery stretches around the block, but you can walk right up to her infinity mirror, ‘Ladder to Heaven.’ Look up and visitors are presented with an endless (theoretical) climb or, conversely, a bottomless descent, suggesting that our fate is in our own hands. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 14th).
Inspired by the city grid, jail cell windows, high-rise buildings and other structures designed to regulate and control human activity, Peter Halley’s Neo-Geo abstraction has exceeded into own regulatory bounds in a dramatic, maze-like installation at Chelsea’s Greene Naftali Gallery. Up and down stairs, around blind bends and through an eye-popping assault of day-glo color, visitors find their way through an environment that feels as if we’d stepped into one of Halley’s paintings. Here, a painting composed of stacked forms has an altar-like presence at the top of a vividly green staircase. (On view through Dec 20th).
Known since the 90s for exploring the myriad possibilities of geometric abstraction, Tomma Abts continues to innovate while adopting slightly larger, shaped canvases that showcase more boldly shape-shifting patterning. Here, the bottom quarter of the painting appears to sheer away from the bent, folded and upward tilting bands above. With a curving wave breaking the entire composition into new color sequences, Abts appears to embrace visual complexity for its own sake, offering viewers a pleasurably engaging visual experience. (On view at David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 14th).
Korean-Parisian artist Lee Bae’s medium is more than a means to an end. Since buying a cheap bag of charcoal as a cash-strapped new arrival to the French art scene in 1990, Lee’s interest in the medium has expanded to drawings, sculpture and 2-D mosaics of polished charcoal. He points to the role of charcoal in Korean culture (from art medium to building material) to connect to age-old tradition to his production today. At Perrotin Gallery’s spacious upstairs space, the artist has installed sculptures of Korean pine turned to charcoal in his own kiln, a month-long process which results in a piece of material with endless possibilities. (On view through Dec 21st.)
Gardens are sites of beauty and loss in Ebony G. Patterson’s rich, cut-paper collages currently on view at Hales Gallery in Chelsea. Draped forms mimic hanging roots and abundant flora that obscure personal items (a doll, a purse) belonging to individuals who are not present. Cut and ripped holes in the assemblage speak to violence that has turned a lush environment into a funerary display. (On view through Dec 20th).
After a devastating car accident left her with acute memory loss, Howardena Pindell reconstructed her life and memories from postcards and photos she’d gathered over the previous decades. This mixed media collage (seen in detail) from 1980-81 marked the beginning of her Autobiography series, for which she combined printed images, paint and a compliment of her signature circular chads of material to regain her life. (On view at Garth Greenan Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 14th).
Many artists work with fascinating methods on which they, unfortunately, don’t elaborate. Walead Beshty’s latest installation at Petzel Gallery swings to an almost opposite extreme, detailing the contents of his studio in over five thousand images picturing tools and objects that have contributed in some way to his production as an artist. Each cyanotype is the product of a simple photographic process that renders objects in white against a treated blue background of newspapers, boxes, personal correspondence and more. Originally commissioned by London’s Barbican Art Center in 2013, the installation (seen only in part at Petzel Gallery) still speaks powerfully to the incredible amount of unseen labor behind today’s art production. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 14th).
Philip Taaffe’s latest body of work serves up an almost overpowering optical experience, even seen in detail, as in this segment of a painting at Chelsea’s Luhring Augustine Gallery. Inspired by natural history and Japanese paper-working technique that involves dipping folded paper in strong dyes, this mixed media artwork favors a grid format that suggests orderly structuring of knowledge even while unleashing wild coloring. (On view through Dec 21st).
Belgian photographer Maroesjka Lavigne has traveled from Namibia to China to the American West photographing animals and landscapes featuring unusual and unexpected color relationships. ‘Rainbow mountains’ in Xinjiang China and sharp pops of color from yellow plants in Argentina are standouts in her solo show at Robert Mann Gallery, but it’s the unexpectedly beautiful soft pastel blooms of rust on the car in this photo that steal the show. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 21st).
Simen Johan’s dramatic photographs of animals are convincing at first glance, then give viewers pause to consider. Johan’s skillful digital manipulations allow a panda to appear ready to nurse furry little black and white creatures which turn out to be skunks, while in another image, a longhorn bull poses comfortably in an Alpine scene, though the animal may be more at home in Texas. In its original setting, this wolf was having its belly rubbed; in the gallery, its blank look and menacing teeth capitalize on preconceived ideas about the animal’s ferocity. (On view in Chelsea at Yossi Milo Gallery through Dec 7th).
Holly Coulis electrifies the traditional genre of still life, painting arrangements of glasses, pitchers and fruit that sometimes appear to defy gravity while popping dramatically off of the canvas in brilliant color. In her latest show at Lower East Side gallery Klaus Von Nichtssagend, a bowl of lemons and one lime materialize in three dimensions to perform a wonderfully dynamic juggling act. (On view through Dec 15th).
What color is the moon? Astronauts disagreed on the answer, and their conversations sparked artist and son of the founders of the Italian fashion company Missoni to reorient his long-term photographic study of the moon to portray the celestial body in brilliant color. In an installation in Benrubi Gallery’s dark side gallery, Missoni presents an installation of back-lit transparencies that give the orb a stunning presence. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 21st).
Known for portraits of her friends and circle that recall the color and lighting of early 20th century European avant-garde painting, Hope Gangloff has refocused her recent paintings on images of plants in nature and indoors. Her still vibrant palette and energetic compositions are as enticing as ever as she turns a screen into a glittering backdrop for a still life showcasing hardy succulents and the artist’s essential tools. (On view at Susan Inglett Gallery in Chelsea through Nov 30th).
After confronting viewers with visceral, blood-red sculpture in his last New York show, Anish Kapoor is back with a two-venue exhibition bound to seduce his audience. Front and center in Lisson Gallery’s 24th Street space is Tsunami, a towering stainless steel sculpture that lures visitors in to marvel at the spatial distortions created by the curved metal. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 20th).
The vanishing point has disappeared in Claire Kerr’s small oil on linen seascape, literally gone missing somewhere between sea and sky. Bringing to mind both the foundational role of the horizon in Western linear perspective and the limits of vision, this small-scale image also contrasts the vastness of the body of water depicted, adding further complication to and pleasure in contemplating landscape. (On view at BravinLee Programs in Chelsea through Nov 27th).
Frank Gehry’s undulating ‘Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health’ in Las Vegas is the subject of this sculpture by young Philadelphia-based artist Kambel Smith, a highlight of his current show at Marlborough Gallery. Diagnosed with autism at a young age, Smith discovered painting and then sculpture in his teens, pouring his energies into sculptural models of Philadelphia buildings. At Marlborough, Smith expands his purview to recreate a bridge in Tbilisi, Georgia and invent a sci-fi city, recalling the creative abundance of Bodys Isek Kingelez’ invented cityscapes but with a sleeker vision. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 16th).
Hannah Wilke’s two drawings of herself as an angel after Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer, now on view at Ronald Feldman Gallery in SoHo, stand out among photo, video and sculpture from the 70s to the early 90s by the feminist art icon. Although known for having defied feminist conventions by displaying her own body in provocative ways; here, Wilke’s audience gazes on her profile not her figure as she manifests as a celestial being. Recalling Durer’s engraving ‘Melancholia,’ in which a female angel represents the artist’s melancholy, Wilke expressionist version offers a more freeing vision. (On view in SoHo through Nov 30th).
Chicago Imagist Karl Wirsum’s gender ambiguous, robotic characters are an odd mix of human and alien, bionic and freighted by imperfect human bodies. This character – a standout in Derek Eller Gallery’s showcase of 50 years of Wirsum’s drawing – has proportions calculated to puzzle and amaze, from tiny eyes and little apple core mouth that contrast a complex and angular nose to broad shoulders that set off a pair of small feet. (On view on the Lower East Side through Nov 10th).
