Ugo Mulas at Matthew Marks Gallery

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

Late Italian photographer Ugo Mulas made his name documenting the Venice Biennials from 1954 – 1972 and establishing relationships with Italy’s major post-war artists.  In the ‘60s, his purview expanded to New York where he met and photographed now iconic avant-garde artists from Barnett Newman to Marcel Duchamp.  These photos and more at Matthew Marks Gallery in Chelsea offer a peek at yesteryear’s art scene, from the police closing a Warhol loft party to intimate shots of Jasper Johns at work.  Here, Roy Lichtenstein inhabits one of his cartoon scenarios with good humor.  (On view through August 16th).

Ugo Mulas, Roy Lichtenstein, vintage gelatin silver print, 10 ½ x 17 7/8 inches, 1964.

Dona Nelson in ‘Painters Reply: Experimental Painting in the 1970s and Now’ at Lisson Gallery

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

Dona Nelson’s walk around frames turn painting into sculpture, insisting that viewers have access to (and equally value) both front and back.  In ‘Bells,’ blues and greens with a horizontal section of yellow suggest a sunset seen through a window while sections of white canvas deceptively imply transparency.  (On view in Lisson Gallery’s ‘Painters Reply:  Experimental Painting in the 1970s and now through Aug 9th.)

Dona Nelson, Bells, acrylic and acrylic medium on canvas, 80 x 80 inches, 2017.

Amy Bennett at Miles McEnery Gallery

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

Amy Bennett’s meticulously rendered oil on panel paintings catalogue disfunction in the suburbs, from a distant couple in ‘Anniversary’ sitting on two different sides of a wrap-around porch to the deeply sad images of kids in ‘Drills’ who practice hiding in school.  Privy to moments that are both tense and personal for each painting’s isolated characters, our remove from them (sometimes aided by a bird’s eye perspective) adds alienation and intrigue.  Here, ‘Floating Lessons’ parallels and seem to prefigure another of the show’s best and most alarming images in which a body (alive?) floats in an above-ground pool.  Bennett’s disturbing but fascinating vision stops viewers from conflating comfortable surroundings with happiness or family life with security. (On view through August 16th at Miles McEnery Gallery in Chelsea.)

Amy Bennett, Floating Lessons, oil on panel, 22 x 22 inches, 2018.

Dana Hoey at Petzel Gallery

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

Photographer Dana Hoey describes former world champion boxer Alicia Ashley’s shadowboxing as ‘sublimely beautiful.’  Here, in a 44-foot-long wall mural at Chelsea’s Petzel Gallery, Ashley engages with Hoey’s humanoid, diamond-patterned assemblages in a series of movements that showcases the boxer’s art and her agency.  (On view in Chelsea through August 2nd).

Dana Hoey, Alicia “Slick” Ashley Shadow-boxing, vinyl wall adhesive, 168 x 528 inches, 2019.

Graham Nickson in ‘Summer!’ at Betty Cuningham Gallery

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

New York Studio School dean Graham Nickson’s beach paintings have been described as “extreme, impenetrable, and haunting” for their isolated figures inhabiting landscapes pared down to horizontal bands of color.  Here, a lone figure’s ambiguous activity (Is she shielding her face from the sun?  Reading a giant book?) lends mystery and import to a leisure activity that might otherwise be overlooked.  (On view in ‘Summer!’ at Betty Cuningham Gallery on the Lower East Side through August 2nd).

Graham Nickson, Untitled from Bather Series, acrylic on canvas in artist’s frame, 48 x 48 inches, c. 1980.