Sanya Kantarovsky’s hauntingly dark new paintings at Luhring Augustine Gallery in Chelsea channel Edvard Munch, James Ensor and Henry Matisse to fascinating but disturbing effect. The green skinned woman at the center of ‘Needles’ may be in hooked up to an IV but the demon-like figure propping her up suggests suffering more than recovery. (On view through June 15th).
Addis Ababa-based artist Elias Sime continues to turn discarded electronics into compositions that can suggest aerial maps or abstracted landscapes in his latest show at Chelsea’s James Cohan Gallery. Computers made in China, sold in the US and discarded in Ethiopia make their way into artworks that implicitly question resource distribution and rampant consumption. (On view through June 29th.)
What happens to humanity if global warming leads to drastic sea level rise? Josh Kline envisions the end of life as we know it in a provocative sculpture series featuring submerged cities and preserved specimens of everyday 21st century life at 47 Canal on the Lower East Side. Inside lab hoods, preserved doll-house sized domestic and office environments suggest that what’s normal now may soon be a thing of the past. (On view through June 9th).
Coretta Scott King speaks in a photo held by a silent man who himself is superimposed over an elaborate ornamental structure in this photo collage by Todd Gray. Liberation and the legacy of oppression, particularly of European colonization in Africa and the architectural expressions of wealth it allowed in Europe, come head-to-head in new photo collage by Todd Gray at David Lewis Gallery on the Lower East Side. (On view through June 16th).
Whether she’s boldly charging into the Pacific Ocean or gingerly stepping into a placid pond to expose a cyanotype, Meghan Riepenhoff continues to generate fascinating and beautiful cameraless images of water. For this multi-panel work, the artist dipped her prepared photo paper into Utah’s Great Salt Lake, sprinkled on salt from the ground and allowed the work to dry, propped in the sun. (On view in Chelsea at Yossi Milo Gallery through June 22nd).
