Finely sifted red soil imported from Oklahoma becomes a patterned carpet in Rena Detrixhe’s first New York solo show at Spencer Brownstone Gallery. Using a trowel to smooth down the dirt, then imprinting it with modified shoe soles, the Kansas-based artist considers the symbolic value attached to land in the mid-west while alluding to mankind’s impact on it. (On view on the Lower East Side through June 16th).
Inspired by his home country’s rich tradition of textile working, Malian artist Abdoulaye Konate employs colorful patterns, cut-out shapes and embroidery to depict a sea abundant with life. As with many of his representational works, Konate alludes to social issues including the desertification of the country and the lack of access to clean water while he celebrates the beauty of its traditional fabrics and indigo dyes. (On view at Blain Southern in Chelsea through June 15th).
Sanya Kantarovsky’s hauntingly dark new paintings at Luhring Augustine Gallery in Chelsea channel Edvard Munch, James Ensor and Henry Matisse to fascinating but disturbing effect. The green skinned woman at the center of ‘Needles’ may be in hooked up to an IV but the demon-like figure propping her up suggests suffering more than recovery. (On view through June 15th).
Addis Ababa-based artist Elias Sime continues to turn discarded electronics into compositions that can suggest aerial maps or abstracted landscapes in his latest show at Chelsea’s James Cohan Gallery. Computers made in China, sold in the US and discarded in Ethiopia make their way into artworks that implicitly question resource distribution and rampant consumption. (On view through June 29th.)
What happens to humanity if global warming leads to drastic sea level rise? Josh Kline envisions the end of life as we know it in a provocative sculpture series featuring submerged cities and preserved specimens of everyday 21st century life at 47 Canal on the Lower East Side. Inside lab hoods, preserved doll-house sized domestic and office environments suggest that what’s normal now may soon be a thing of the past. (On view through June 9th).
