Jennifer Packer’s portraits of friends and family don’t fully materialize before us; a fading foot or face that hasn’t quite come into focus keep each sitter’s identity unfixed. Here, in a captivating portrait titled ‘The Body Has Memory,’ Packer suggests that past experiences manifest physically in the body. (On view in Chelsea at Sikkema Jenkins & Co through Jan 19th).
Torn and damaged-looking, Bianca Beck’s past paintings have drawn comparison to anguished post-WWII art movements. Eleven seven-foot-high sculptures dominating Rachel Uffner Gallery‘s back space couldn’t be more different, however. Towering over visitors with raucous poses and vibrant color, they were inspired by Plato’s Symposium, which imagined humans so spirited they had to be disciplined by Zeus. (On view on the Lower East Side through Dec 23rd).
Construction sites, abandoned objects on the street and even a rubbish-filled alley have inspired Phyllida Barlow’s gritty sculpture, now on view at Hauser & Wirth Gallery in Chelsea. Barlow once described her work as ‘hideous,’ and in her current show, ‘tilt,’ her sculpture stands in apparent defiance of gravity, incorporating jarring angles and textured surfaces that offer more for the eye to puzzle over than to delight in. This towering accumulation of jagged forms entices with its pink color but is ultimately menacing, suggesting immanent catastrophe. (On view through Dec 22nd).
In small doses, bark from the Ordeal tree (Erythrophleum guineense) is medicinal; in larger amounts, it’s fatal. This exercise in balance is at the heart of Sopheap Pich’s 17 foot long sculpture, ‘Ordeal,’ now on view at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in Chelsea. At exaggerated scale, the seed pod magnifies the ordeal of drinking water poisoned by the bark as a test of innocence, as defendants were once forced to do, and presents an object that can be used for good or ill. (On view through Dec 21st).
Mark Grotjahn’s latest show at Gagosian Gallery, ‘New Capri, Capri, Free Capri’ links in name to a private exhibition the artist organized at the Casa Malaparte on the island of Capri. In practice, the show is important for the artist in marking a departure from his signature face paintings, in which elongated eyes emerge from a center point surrounded by strong lines like a parting in fur. Still dominated by linear patterns, the new work is entirely abstract, foregrounding shape and color. (On view through Dec 22nd at Gagosian’s 24th Street location).
