Despite their tiny size, monitors on twin coin-operated chairs from 1988 by Nam June Paik in the entryway of James Cohan Gallery’s Lower East Side location blast a stream of media content at visitors who can simultaneously watch the world go by on the busy street outside. Resembling test patterns, the chairs’ upholstery invites viewers to submit themselves to media overload. (On view through Oct 20th).
Inspired by her pregnancy and experience as a mother, Loie Hollowell’s new paintings make rich connections to art history while helping to launch Pace Gallery’s stunning new eight story building on West 25th Street. Here, swelling curves (achieved in part by mounting foam on panel) reference an abundant female form in motion across the lower half of the canvas. Recalling Picasso’s doubled Girl Before a Mirror and Duchamps’ blurred Nude Descending a Staircase, the painting’s cool colors and flashes of fierce red convey powerful fecundity and tranquil poise. (On view through Oct 19th in Chelsea).
After famously taking his mobile photo studio to Times Square for his ‘Inside Out’ portrait project in 2013, French street artist JR hit New York’s streets again in Spring ’18 to make detailed photo collages championing the everyday New Yorker, now on view at Galerie Perrotin. Titled ‘Chronicles of New York City,’ the project follows ‘Chronicles’ in Paris and San Francisco and is also currently featured in Brooklyn Museum’s Great Hall. JR invited over a thousand New Yorkers to step into his truck turned studio to ‘present themselves as they’d like to be seen and remembered.’ The resulting collages bring the city’s citizens together in harmony and common purpose. (On view on the Lower East Side through Oct 26th.)
Inspired by Surrealist Meret Oppenheim’s performance ‘Cannibal’s Feast,’ Japanese photographer Michiko Kon’s food-based sculptural creations from the 90s fascinate and disturb in equal measure. This photo, currently on view at Robert Mann Gallery, showcases a boot crafted from ark clam shells and a real fish head. By evoking luxury goods popular in pre-crash 90s Japan and creating them in perishable materials, Kon updates the vanitas genre for more recent times. (On view through Oct 19th).
David Benjamin Sherry’s photos depict familiar-seeming western landscapes but in colors that force viewers to ask what they’re seeing. Man’s impact on the environment comes to mind, as does the emotional value of portraying these spaces in vibrant pink or purple or yellow tones. In his latest series, ‘American Monuments,’ Sherry shot locations newly threatened by having their protected status removed to allow resource extraction. (On view at Salon94 on the Lower East Side through Oct 26th).
