Young Chicago-based artist Alex Bradley Cohen channels the vibrant color and inventive perspectives of David Hockney’s 80s paintings in expressively distorted portraits of friends and family now on view at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery. Against a fiery orange carpet and cool blue background beyond the terrace, this subject comes across as both guarded and open, inviting viewers to engage further. (On the Lower East Side through Nov 10th).
Drawing on the 11th century Persian epic poem ‘The Book of Kings,’ Arghavan Khosravi abuts the fantastical and mundane in absorbing and beautiful paintings that contrast Iran’s storied past and post-Revolution political realities. Here, a pensive young woman in a glass-walled enclosure holds Simurg, a mythical creature that sustained one of the poem’s heroes by providing him sustenance in difficult times. (On view at Lyles and King on the Lower East Side through Nov 10th).
The experience of curling up with a good book in a comfy chair isn’t what you might expect in Meredith James’ ‘Library,’ a standout in her show of delightfully strange sculpture at Jack Hanley Gallery. Stocked with blandly-colored, identical volumes, the miniature library set in a chair, feels more ominous than wonderful. A gallery handout suggests that James’ new work explores ‘things in various stages of disappearance or obsolescence,’ offering an uncertain future for the written word. (On view on the Lower East Side through Nov 10th).
Can you guess who is the housekeeper in each of these photos and who is the employer? Columbian artist Ruby Rumie and French-American photographer Justine Graham teamed up to question the perceived and real differences between one hundred women in photographs and accompanying interviews at Nohra Haime Gallery. As the uniform white shirts worn by the women suggest, Rumie and Graham emphasize the women’s shared hopes, fears and more in questionnaires and videos that foreground their similarities. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 16th).
After the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro was ravaged by fire in Sept 2018, renowned Rio and NY based artist Vik Muniz reached out to offer help. The resulting series ‘Museum of Ashes,’ now on view at Sikkema Jenkins & Co in Chelsea, mourns the loss of artifacts that range from dinosaur fossils to Egyptian artifacts by recreating images of the objects created from their own ashes. (On view through Nov 16th).
