Shortly after his grandfather died, Beijing-based artist Li Songsong began painting this portrait of him absorbed in a personal moment. Using a thick oil painting technique that obscures detail, the artist explains that he nevertheless captured the essence of the man. The takeaway for the artist was to observe how painting can embody truths that the artist himself may not even want to acknowledge. (On view at Pace Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 21st).
The line to enter Yayoi Kusama’s latest mirror-lined infinity room at David Zwirner Gallery stretches around the block, but you can walk right up to her infinity mirror, ‘Ladder to Heaven.’ Look up and visitors are presented with an endless (theoretical) climb or, conversely, a bottomless descent, suggesting that our fate is in our own hands. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 14th).
Inspired by the city grid, jail cell windows, high-rise buildings and other structures designed to regulate and control human activity, Peter Halley’s Neo-Geo abstraction has exceeded into own regulatory bounds in a dramatic, maze-like installation at Chelsea’s Greene Naftali Gallery. Up and down stairs, around blind bends and through an eye-popping assault of day-glo color, visitors find their way through an environment that feels as if we’d stepped into one of Halley’s paintings. Here, a painting composed of stacked forms has an altar-like presence at the top of a vividly green staircase. (On view through Dec 20th).
Known since the 90s for exploring the myriad possibilities of geometric abstraction, Tomma Abts continues to innovate while adopting slightly larger, shaped canvases that showcase more boldly shape-shifting patterning. Here, the bottom quarter of the painting appears to sheer away from the bent, folded and upward tilting bands above. With a curving wave breaking the entire composition into new color sequences, Abts appears to embrace visual complexity for its own sake, offering viewers a pleasurably engaging visual experience. (On view at David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 14th).
Korean-Parisian artist Lee Bae’s medium is more than a means to an end. Since buying a cheap bag of charcoal as a cash-strapped new arrival to the French art scene in 1990, Lee’s interest in the medium has expanded to drawings, sculpture and 2-D mosaics of polished charcoal. He points to the role of charcoal in Korean culture (from art medium to building material) to connect to age-old tradition to his production today. At Perrotin Gallery’s spacious upstairs space, the artist has installed sculptures of Korean pine turned to charcoal in his own kiln, a month-long process which results in a piece of material with endless possibilities. (On view through Dec 21st.)
