By revisiting historical events through one individual’s point of view, Crystal Z. Campbell reconsiders the 1921 race massacre that devastated Tulsa, Oklahoma’s burgeoning African American Greenwood District. The artist personalizes this archival photo of a Tulsa woman, adding color and patterning and thereby making it impossible to overlook this peaceful scenario as ordinary or every day. (On view in ‘A Field of Meaning’ at Callicoon Fine Arts on the Lower East Side).
Visitors to Nicolas Party’s optically lush installation at FLAG Art Foundation encounter this intriguing pairing of a 18th century woman by French painter Jean-Baptiste Perronneau with a background still life mural painted by the celebrated young Swiss artist. Both artworks were created with pastel, Party’s favored medium and Perronneau’s specialty. Here, Party places ‘decadent’ court style in proximity to plump, slouching fruits with wan little stems that enact a kind of excess and pampering akin to the lady in her finery. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 15th).
Joanne Greenbaum’s paintings do what words can’t, conveying relationships that don’t translate easily into verbal language. Watching the artist find a balance between lines and shapes, of color spread across the canvas, and of lighter vs bolder marks is the attraction in paintings that pleasurably upend expectations. (On view at Rachel Uffner Gallery on the Lower East Side through Jan 12th).
A charred tree trunk overtaken by a crystalline-looking mass or spreading fungal growth dominates Pierogi Gallery’s Lower East Side space. At close range, the lightly colored substance materializes into thousands of tiny 3-D printed human figures locked in what could be combat or an interconnected embrace, acting out love-hate relationships en masse. With the piece, New York State artist Jonathan Schipper contemplates the consequences of human drives, specifically consumption, that come at the cost of our habitat. (On view on the Lower East Side through Jan 12th).
This quilt by an unknown South Carolina maker is a standout among innovative textiles from the 1930s to the 1970s from the Arnett Collection now on view at Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea. Working in a variety of styles and creatively adapting traditional techniques, the quilters produced vibrantly colored and patterned textiles in designs that jump off the wall. (On view through January 18th).
