Known for making alterations to documentary photography in work that questions both history and how we consume photography, Cai Dongdong reframes a shot of guerrillas on Lake Honghu at Klein Sun Gallery. Armed fighters contrast the lake’s tranquil beauty in a spot that saw conflict during China’s civil war. (On view in Chelsea through Jan 6th).
Photographer Sage Sohier looks ambushed by her former-model mother and her sister, who make Sohier up with gusto in this family portrait. Our sympathy is tempered by mom’s and sis’s smiles, but as Sohier stages beauty treatments and time at home in her mother’s company, viewers are prompted to consider the role of beauty and appearances in Sohier’s life and our own. (On view at Foley Gallery on the Lower East Side through Jan 7th).
Working without training on a handloom, Brent Wadden crafts wonky abstractions in pleasingly complementary colors and dizzying black and white lines. (On view at Mitchell-Innes and Nash’s Madison Ave location through Jan 5th).
If a hard-edged abstract painting liberated itself from the stretcher and tottered off, it might look something like Billy Copley’s acrylic on paper sculpture, which appears to be blowing streamers for the new year. (On view at Edward Thorp Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 27th).
Andrea Grutzner turns framed excerpts from the built environment into surprising and colorful abstractions; here, in six images from her Tanztee series, amid wildly patterned clothes, Grutzner builds a structure from the arms and hands of dancers at a tea dance in rural Germany. (On view at Julie Saul Gallery through Feb 3rd).
