Drake Carr at The Hole NYC

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

Drake Carr’s acrylic and airbrush on canvas sculptures bring animation into three dimensions in a way that feels both fresh and disconcerting.  To the right, a dancer looks set to leap off the wall.  Behind, Carr nods to his mother’s window dressing business with a curtain arrangement that frames two weight lifters in a dramatic domestic setting.  Two freestanding characters to the left represent residents of Flint (Carr hails from Michigan) whose odd gestures represent the unnatural quality of the city’s tainted water.  (On view on the Lower East Side at The Hole NYC through August 12th).

Drake Carr, installation view of ‘Gulp’ at The Hole, NYC, July 2018.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye in ‘Painting Now and Forever, part III’ at Greene Naftali Gallery

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

Humor, irony and abjection abound in Greene Naftali Gallery’s summer group show ‘Painting Now and Forever, part III,’ a collaboration with Matthew Marks Gallery, but none of these qualities are found in British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s fictional portrait titled ‘Jubilee.’  Instead, Yiadom-Boakye’s elevated characters – backlit in this case by a golden glow – are quietly exalted, seemingly above everyday life and happy in their own company and thoughts.  (On view in Chelsea through August 17th).

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Jubilee, oil on canvas, 41 ½ x 35 ¾ inches, 2016.

Meredith Allen in ‘Les Fleur du Mal’ at Pierogi Gallery

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

Summer takes a slightly sinister turn at Pierogi Gallery’s ‘Les Fleur du Mal’ group show; here, a photo from the late Williamsburg gallery scene stalwart Meredith Allen’s ‘Melting Ice Pops’ series documents a Pokemon treat as it morphs into a dripping demon.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Aug 4th).

Meredith Allen, Moriches Island Road, Pokemon, C-print, 18 x 22 inches, 1999.

Alexis Rockman at Sperone Westwater Gallery

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

Human-created pollution vies with a vividly colored frog to attract the eye in Alexis Rockman’s 2012 watercolor titled ‘Effluent,’ now on view at Sperone Westwater Gallery.  Rockman’s artful activism appears alongside new field drawings from New Mexico of plants and animals from the region that are extinct, living or threatened.  (On view on the Lower East Side through August 3rd).

Alexis Rockman, Effluent, watercolor and ink on paper, 18 x 24 inches, 2012.

Daniel Gordon in ‘Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose’ at Jack Hanley Gallery

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

Taking flowers or nature as the theme for a summer group exhibition isn’t particularly original or necessarily avant-garde.  Still, nature’s beauty and uplift as symbol of regeneration is irresistible to audiences and to the curators of ‘A Rose is a Rose is a Rose’ at Jack Hanley Gallery, who apologetically admit that painting flowers is ‘embarrassing.’  This paper sculpture by Daniel Gordon, which recalls still lives throughout art history (think Cezanne and Matisse) and pushes the possibilities of photography as sculpture, suggests that the show’s organizers have nothing to worry about.  (On view on the Lower East Side through August 3rd).

Daniel Gordon, Poppies, Pitcher & Fruits, pigment prints, glue and wire, 41 x 51 x 18 inches, 2018.