The painting furthest from the door is the first to attract attention at Paula Cooper Gallery’s show of recent work by New York abstract artist Dan Walsh. Glowing like a tower-top beacon, a stylized ziggurat resembling the pinnacle of the Empire State Building lures visitors into minimalist painting by a self-styled ‘maximalist.’ (On view in Chelsea on 26th Street through Feb 15th).
It’s hard to look away from New York artist Christina Nicodema’s vividly colored paintings, packed with brightly plumed birds, a dramatic mandrill baring its teeth and piles of edibles designed to entice. Like a contemporary interpretation of traditional Dutch genre painting, the images bring together plants and creatures from different environments in a celebration of excess, but Nicodema’s addition of porcelain, a painted egg and a cake dangerously ablaze with candles hints at the costs of luxury and human desires. (On view at Hollis Taggart Contemporary through Feb 22nd).
After encountering a box of photos of the Berlin Wall taken by East German border guards in the mid-60s shortly after the wall was erected, photographer Arwed Messmer and writer Annett Groschner turned their research toward the topography of the 140km long structure, resulting in the sobering images now on view at Chelsea’s Walther Collection. Thirty years after the fall of the Wall, the photos speak to a failed effort at social control. This grid of ladders left behind in successful escape attempts, are an uplifting element in a show that otherwise expresses the grim realities of the wall. (On view through April 25th).
Late California-based sculptor Viola Frey’s huge standing man is a highpoint of the Whitney’s current exhibition rethinking the presence of craft in fine art; three tondos by the iconic artist at Nancy Hoffman Gallery are a more human-scaled exploration of humanity. This strikingly colorful, theatrical character whose face resembles a tragedy mask, holds a circular form that appears to be a plate or similar artwork, suggesting a tongue-in-cheek portrait of an artist. (On view in ‘The Circle’ through Jan 30th).
If you can’t get to politically-oriented artist Hans Haacke’s New Museum retrospective before it closes on Jan 26th, check out his huge pack of Marlboros in Paula Cooper Gallery’s tiny 21st St vitrine-like space, a sculpture about the relationships between art, politics and commerce. Made in 1990, the piece highlights cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris Company’s contradictory support both for the arts and for North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, who was famously critical of government support for the arts. Each five-foot long cigarette features a copy of the constitution (the company offered to supply a copy to anyone who asked), while the packaging bears the statement that the company’s ‘fundamental interest in the arts is self-interest.’ (On view through Jan 25th).
