Like finding shapes in the clouds or interpreting a Rorschach inkblot, Roy Lichtenstein’s brushstroke head sculptures from 1987 build a portrait from a few well-placed marks. Though she’s derived from Pop Art and Abstract Expressionist painting techniques, this blond muse rejects painting altogether, manifesting as a 3-D bronze sculpture. (At Castelli Gallery through Jan 28th).
A tree acts as a pedestal for a climbing figure and as a screen to stop us from seeing him or her in this painting by British artist Hurvin Anderson. To continue the theme of seeing and not seeing, the painting mimics the effect of both a photographic positive and negative, offering an ethereal image that considers the limits of perception. (At Michael Werner Gallery on the Upper East Side through Jan 14th).
David Shrigley explores a new side of the banal with his monumental stone ‘Memorial,’ a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the short-lived usefulness of the shipping list. (Presented by the Public Art Fund at the entrance to Central Park at 60th Street and Fifth Ave, through Feb 12th).
Soon after the scandal over tainted drinking water in Flint, Michigan broke in spring 2016, Matthew Brandt visited the beleaguered General Motors town, creating beautiful images using toxic water. Brandt collected river water and used it to wash over and degrade cyan, magenta and yellow sheets bearing an image of the river’s dam. Recombined in a lightbox, a damaged image represents a devastated landscape. (At Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 21st.)
Paris-based Belgian photographer Tomas Van Houtryve captured this eerie scene – dominated by long human shadows and strange white grids – by flying a drone over a school in California as kids played below. Bold geometries and stark tonal contrasts make each picture look strange, playing to Van Houtryve’s point that drones are increasingly prevalent, yet we see little of them and what they see. (At Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side through Dec 31st).
