Hans Haacke at Paula Cooper Gallery

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

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).

Hans Haacke, Helmsboro County, silkscreen prints and photographs on wood, cardboard and paper, 30 ½ x 80 x 47 ½ inches, 1990.

Crystal Z. Campbell in ‘A Field of Meaning’ at Callicoon Fine Arts

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

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).

Crystal Z. Campbell, Notes from Black Wall Street: Receptive, Soft and Absolute, mixed media on birch wood panel, 24 x 30 inches, 2019.

Nicolas Party at FLAG Art Foundation

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

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).

Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, Portrait of a woman with pink ribbons, n.d., pastel on paper, 17 5/8 x 25 5/8 inches and Nicolas Party, Still Life, soft pastel on wall, 84 inches, 2019.

Joanne Greenbaum at Rachel Uffner Gallery

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

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).

Joanne Greenbaum, Untitled, oil, acrylic, neo-color and marker on canvas, 88 x 77 inches, 2018.

Jonathan Schipper at Pierogi Gallery

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

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).

Jonathan Schipper, At Any Given Moment, wood, UV cured resin, approx. 53 (h) x 131 (w) x 55 (d) inches, 2019.