Ricardo Brey in ‘Re: Bicycling’ at Susan Inglett Gallery

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

Susan Inglett Gallery’s excellent summer group exhibition, co-curated by David Platzker of Specific Object and Alex Ostroy of the cycling apparel brand Ostroy, celebrates the bike as revolutionary object.  From a late 19th century French poster depicting a woman in long dress enjoying the freedom of the road to Rodney Graham’s bike-powered, rotating psychedelic collage, the exhibition extols the power of the bike to take people in new directions.  Here, Ricardo Brey’s standout mixed media sculpture ‘Joy,’ connects bikes to heavenly paths and celestial orbits.  (On view through July 23rd).

celestial orbits. (On view through July 23rd).
Ricardo Brey, Joy, mixed media, 14 3/16 x 25 ¼ x 31 ½ inches, 2018.

Ann Agee at PPOW Gallery

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Inspired by Florentine salt cellars depicting religious imagery, Ann Agee’s contemporary Madonna and child sculptures rethink traditional devotional objects.  After an online taster exhibition featuring mother and child sculpture in summer ‘20, Agee rewards an in-person visit to PPOW Gallery with dozens of sculptures in wonderfully bold patterns and styles that range from detailed to abstract.  Occupying one huge pedestal at the center of the gallery, Agee’s homage to mothers and – in this case female – children is a celebration of variety and invention. (On view in Tribeca through July 23rd.)

Ann Agee, installation view of ‘Madonnas and Handwarmers,’ July 2021.

Hugh Hayden at Lisson Gallery

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The delicacy of hand-crafted materials crashes together with the fast-paced, action-packed nature of basketball in new sculpture by Hugh Hayden at Chelsea’s Lisson Gallery.  Fee-fi-fo-fum (pictured here) and other basketball hoops and backboards fashioned from thorny vines, rattan or synthetic hair are titled after fairy tales, alluding to the tantalizing dream of success via sports.  (On view through August 13th).

Hugh Hayden, Fee-fi-fo-fum, smilax rotundifolia (common greenbier), 118 x 108 x 28 ½ inches, 2021.

Marlene McCarty at Sikkema Jenkins & Co

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Rue is a herb that can be used as a contraceptive and in high doses can kill; it’s one of the plants in Marlene McCarty’s installation ‘Into the Weeds: Sex and Death’ at Sikkema Jenkins & Co which presents plants with medicinal and/or lethal properties in a dumpster outside the gallery and a pile of dirt lit by grow lights inside.  Rue also features in one of the McCarty’s large drawings, positioned in front of The Vessel at Hudson Yards (a symbol of developer’s power and more recently, death by suicide), two Roman sandals and more.  Explained in detail through histories of each plant posted to the gallery website, McCarty’s point is to highlight flora’s power to undermine established order.  (On view through July 30th.  Masks and social distancing required).

Marlene McCarty, installation view of ‘Into the Weeds: Sex and Death’ at Sikkema Jenkins & Co, June, 2021.

Jean Dubuffet in ‘Dubuffet/Chamberlain’ at Timothy Taylor Gallery

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Using a restricted palette dominated by primary colors, champion of non-academic art Jean Dubuffet expressed the whirl of urban life in this 1982 work on paper now on view at Timothy Taylor Gallery.  Six anonymous figures are wide-eyed and grinning but their abstract context resists interpretation, conveying only that they’re navigating their immediate surroundings in the moment.  (On view in Chelsea through July 30th.  Masks and social distancing required.)

Jean Dubuffet, Site Aleatoire avec 6 personnages, acrylic and paper collage on paper laid down on canvas, 26 3/8 x 39 3/8 inches, 1982.