Coretta Scott King speaks in a photo held by a silent man who himself is superimposed over an elaborate ornamental structure in this photo collage by Todd Gray. Liberation and the legacy of oppression, particularly of European colonization in Africa and the architectural expressions of wealth it allowed in Europe, come head-to-head in new photo collage by Todd Gray at David Lewis Gallery on the Lower East Side. (On view through June 16th).
Whether she’s boldly charging into the Pacific Ocean or gingerly stepping into a placid pond to expose a cyanotype, Meghan Riepenhoff continues to generate fascinating and beautiful cameraless images of water. For this multi-panel work, the artist dipped her prepared photo paper into Utah’s Great Salt Lake, sprinkled on salt from the ground and allowed the work to dry, propped in the sun. (On view in Chelsea at Yossi Milo Gallery through June 22nd).
California Light and Space artist Helen Pashgian’s striking acrylic columns are both warm and austere, drawing visitors to Chelsea’s Lehmann Maupin Gallery in closer to see the mysterious, barely visible shapes within. Calling them ‘presences,’ Pashgian acknowledges that each distinct body has a character that can be perceived by alert viewers. (On view through May 24th).
Curvy harlequins and female clowns populate French artist Elsa Sahal’s latest solo show of ceramic sculpture at Natalie Karg Gallery on the Lower East Side. Inspired by Picasso’s actors in diamond-patterned clothing, these two truncated figures enact a choreography that could be read as erotic or menacing. (On view through June 15th).
In the Arctic, ‘so much believed to be white is actually – strikingly – blue,’ writes award-winning American poet Robin Coste Lewis in a text applied to the wall at the entrance to Lorna Simpson’s solo show at Hauser & Wirth. Titled ‘Darkening’ and featuring monumentally scaled paintings combining text and images from Ebony magazine, the AP and National Archives, the new work pictures bodies and icy landscapes commenting on, as Simpson has explained, ‘inhospitable conditions and how to survive those conditions.’ (On view in Chelsea through July 27th).
