Felix Gonzalez-Torres at locations around the world

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

This pile of foil-wrapped candy by late artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres pays homage to a sheet of gold – an artwork by Roni Horn that gave Gonzalez-Torres and his dying partner hope.  Intended to be taken by individual visitors, Gonzalez-Torres’ free sweets are a gesture of generosity and an expression both of pleasure and of loss as the pile of candies gradually dwindles.  Similarly, his ‘Untitled’ (Fortune Cookie Corner) from 1990 offers participants a positive message in the form of a fortune cookie, piles of which are currently installed from Buenos Aires to Beijing in hundreds of places, from parks to public kitchens, outside of museums and stores and in private homes.  Initiated by Andrea Rosen Gallery & David Zwirner Gallery, the New York Times suggests that the project “addresses the grief of today’s pandemic – just as it did the AIDS crisis.”  (On view through July 5th.)

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, installation view of “Untitled” (Placebo-Landscape – for Roni), candies individually wrapped in gold cellophane, endless supply, overall dimensions vary with installation, ideal weight: 1,200 lbs, Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin, 1993.

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess at kaufmannrepetto.com

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Though Minnie Mouse and other comic icons are a recurring subject for Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, they’re new every time she makes them.  This is apparent in this sculpture of Minnie holding a Prada bag and cocking her head thoughtfully to the side from Suarez Frimkess’ 2017 show at Kaufmann Repetto.  The gallery’s current on-line show of Suarez Frimkess’ features insights from the artist, more Minnies and diverse work that draws on art historical sources from Egyptian sculpture to pre-Columbian art.

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Untitled, ceramic, glaze, 8.25 x 4 x 3 inches, 2016.

Ai Wei Wei’s ‘Heaven and Earth’ at lissongallery.com

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Arrested and held by the police for 81 days in Beijing in 2011, politically outspoken artist Ai Wei Wei was eventually accused of tax evasion, charges which he fought in court.  Lisson Gallery is currently showcasing one of the several artistic responses Ai Wei Wei has made since, a nearly 7-hour long Henan Opera that recreates the court proceedings in language, “…couched in complex, obfuscating legalese and riven with dead ends.” (Lisson Gallery).  Pictured here is an image from New York Art Tours’ archive of Ai Wei Wei’s first artwork in response to his detention, an installation recreating scenes from his prison life that was on view at the Brooklyn Museum in 2014. (‘Heaven and Earth’ is on view at lissongallery.com through June 15th).

S.A.C.R.E.D., six dioramas in oxidized metal, wood, fiberglass, polystyrene and sticky tape, 2013.

Charles White’s 1945 mural @michaelrosenfeldart.com

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Strong, capable and key to the nation’s economy, this female figure was a highlight of Charles White’s 2018-19 MoMA retrospective.  Now, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery is spotlighting a mural study by White, created for the International Workers Order interracial, co-ed kids summer camp in NJ where White oversaw the art program in the summer of 1945.  An accompanying text highlights this White’s politics and digs into the mural’s complex iconography, which melds west African and Buddhist references with influence from Mexican mural painting tradition.

Charles White, Our Land, egg tempera on panel, 1951.

Toyin Ojih Odutola at jackshainman.com

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Behind Toyin Ojih Odutola’s portrait-like drawings (including this 2017 artwork from New York Art Tours archives) are fictional narratives, hinted at through the images but not detailed in words.  Her latest body of work opens on-line this week at Jack Shainman Gallery as protesters around the world demand respect for black lives and justice for George Floyd and others killed by police.  Ojih Odutola’s new work continues to picture the complexity of black subjectivity in an uncharacteristic pairing of images and texts in which, as the artist puts it, “exactitude is elusive.”  Instead, meaning comes from the gap between pictures and words, a place that prompts viewers to consider how their expectations inform interpretation.

Toyin Ojih Odutola, Manifesto, charcoal, pastel and pencil on paper, 18 ¾ x 23 ¾ inches, 2017.