Walead Beshty’s exhibition at Petzel Gallery opens like a revenge drama on uncooperative office equipment, with this sculpture composed of a monitor, skewered by a steel pole and spewing out its interior components. Rather than commenting on frustration or alienation with technology, however, Beshty’s piece expresses his ongoing interest in exposing behind-the-scenes aspects of conceiving of, creating and displaying art. (On view through June 17th).
Iconic Brazilian Neo-Concretist Lygia Clark explored the experience of space in both two and three dimensions, in paintings and her famous bicho (critter) sculptures that could be handled and manipulated. At Luhring Augustine Gallery in Chelsea, 2-D pieces, like this study for a modulated surface, suggests the organic world with tones that allude to earth and sky. (On view through June 17th).
Rachel Harrison’s latest solo show at Greene Naftali Gallery seems to step away from the overt politics of her most recent shows, instead questioning the value and role of art (as presented in an imagined conversation between several famous artworks featured in a gallery handout). In this piece, what appears to be a bald eagle in a bandana is held at gunpoint, a symbol of power reduced to a captive state as the color of money dominates. (In Chelsea through Jun 17th).
Brooklyn performer, writer and sculptor Lee Relvas offers tantalizing fragments of figures in her first solo show at Callicoon Fine Arts, enticing her audience into trying to grasp who and what is being portrayed. In the front, a sculpture titled ‘Deciding’ wears a friar’s belted robe, a twisting figure at rear is ‘Thinking,’ and a reticent woman is ‘Withholding.’ (On the Lower East Side through May 21st.)
In this boldly textured, late-career work by the Spanish artist Josep Grau-Garriga, soothing blue color and thick nautical-like rope recall the sea. Part of a handsome exhibition that presents work from the last forty years of the artist’s life, including early work evoking political violence, this piece evokes summons both the tranquility of the beach and excitement of the sea. (At Salon94 Bowery on the Lower East Side through June 3rd).
