Isa Genzken’s Rose III at Zuccotti Park

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

Berlin-based sculptor Isa Genzken loves New York.  Years ago, she visited the city as a teen and has returned regularly, expanding her interest in the interrelation between buildings and other aspects of the urban fabric.  Versions of her 26-foot-tall rose, a token of love, debuted on the façade of the New Museum and dominates MoMA’s currently closed sculpture garden.  This iteration, installed permanently on the corner of Zuccotti Park and Trinity Place, winkingly adds ornament to the stripped-down modernist buildings in the area while continuing to express affection for the city on still-quiet downtown streets.

Isa Genzken, Rose III, aluminum, galvanized steel, lacquer, 2016.

Art 2 Heart mural project in SoHo

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

Aiming to send messages of “optimism, healing and love” the Art 2 Heart’s SoHo mural project has transformed SoHo’s boarded up storefronts.  Here, on the corner of Spring and Greene Streets on panels over the John Varvatos store windows, artists remember those who’ve lost their lives to police violence and insist that Black lives matter. (On view until businesses reopen).

Jeppe Hein at LaGuardia Airport

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

Last weekend’s biggest art opening didn’t take place in a gallery (they’re mostly still closed) but at LaGuardia Airport, where four artists including Danish artist Jeppe Hein have installed new work as shiny as Hein’s work at 303 Gallery last September (pictured here).  Featuring steel balloons affixed to the ceiling and curvy benches designed to encourage  conversation, Hein’s new installation strikes a celebratory mood that’s a little out of step with current concerns about flying during the pandemic but a worthy gesture of hopefulness for the future.

Jeppe Hein, Intersecting Circles, high polished stainless steel, 87 3/8 x 85 x 70 inches, 2019.

Ann Agee at ppowgallery.com

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Bathrooms and all their bodily associations inspired this unforgettable life-sized porcelain and stoneware sculpture by Ann Agee.  Another less private domestic object – folk art salt cellars from Florence, Italy – prompted the ceramic sculpture in the artist’s current online exhibition at ppowgallery.com.  Merging the functional with the devotional, each artwork features a Madonna and child-like pairing but with a twist – the youngsters are girls. (Online at PPOW Gallery through June 27th).

Ann Agee, Lake Michigan Bathroom (II), porcelain and stoneware, 98 ¾ x 121 ½ x 22 inches, 2014.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres at locations around the world

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

This pile of foil-wrapped candy by late artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres pays homage to a sheet of gold – an artwork by Roni Horn that gave Gonzalez-Torres and his dying partner hope.  Intended to be taken by individual visitors, Gonzalez-Torres’ free sweets are a gesture of generosity and an expression both of pleasure and of loss as the pile of candies gradually dwindles.  Similarly, his ‘Untitled’ (Fortune Cookie Corner) from 1990 offers participants a positive message in the form of a fortune cookie, piles of which are currently installed from Buenos Aires to Beijing in hundreds of places, from parks to public kitchens, outside of museums and stores and in private homes.  Initiated by Andrea Rosen Gallery & David Zwirner Gallery, the New York Times suggests that the project “addresses the grief of today’s pandemic – just as it did the AIDS crisis.”  (On view through July 5th.)

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, installation view of “Untitled” (Placebo-Landscape – for Roni), candies individually wrapped in gold cellophane, endless supply, overall dimensions vary with installation, ideal weight: 1,200 lbs, Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin, 1993.