Peering down from chartered planes and helicopters, photographer Jeffrey Milstein sees the world from an ordering distance. Here, a container ship moves ahead with tugs in its wake. Like Milstein’s aerial photos of cities and transportation networks, his nautical views turn monumental manmade objects into a creative play of color and form. (On view at Benrubi Gallery through March 17th).
Vignettes repainted by Chris Oh from a highly detailed early northern Renaissance painting transcribe a scene of veneration onto a soccer ball. In the original 15th century painting, St Anthony honors the Christ child. Here, he appears like an apparition on another object of worship. (On view on the Lower East Side at Sargent’s Daughters through March 11th).
Working with materials salvaged from destroyed buildings, Dutch artist Marjan Teeuwen creates abstract arrangements of forms that suggest paintings. Here, she worked in an abandoned school in Johannesburg, South Africa during a 2015 residency to create an installation that speaks to a key theme – the inevitability of destruction and but also the hope of renewal. (On view through April 14th at Bruce Silverstein Gallery in Chelsea.)
Lesley Dill describes Emily Dickinson’s poems as having a physical effect on her as she experienced ‘an ocean of images’ while reading. Similarly, Dill’s series of sculptural characters now on view at Nohra Haime Gallery in Chelsea are covered and overpowered by their own words. The show includes figures like John Brown and Sojourner Truth – who were driven by powerful experiences of the spiritual world. (On view in Chelsea through March 17th).
Gao Rong’s meticulously crafted and embroidered pay phone replicates the chips and scratches of a once-shiny public pay phone. As the importance of the payphone diminishes in the face of cell phone usage, Gao Rong’s 2012 sculpture lovingly preserves its memory in cloth, foam and wood. (On view at Klein Sun Gallery through March 11th).
