Ghada Amer at Marianne Boesky Gallery

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Inspired by Egyptian traditions of decoration on tents used for weddings or feasts, Egyptian-American artist Ghada Amer substitutes contemporary text for Islamic or calligraphic imagery in new work at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea.  Using applique, in which fabric is sewn onto other fabric, Amer incorporates feminist phrases and text into designs resembling QR codes.  Those these designs don’t scan, they open up histories of struggle for women’s rights via texts by late Egyptian feminist and activist Nawal El Saadawi or late Australian women’s liberation activist Joyce Stevens.  Here, the writing reads, ‘A woman’s voice is revolution.” (On view in Chelsea at Marianne Boesky Gallery through Dec 22nd.  Ghada Amer’s bronze series ‘Paravent Girls’ is on view at Tina Kim Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 9th).

Ghada Amer, A WOMAN’S VOICE,’ “A woman’s voice is revolution,” cotton applique on canvas, 82 ½ x 83 ½ inches, 2023.

Bo Bartlett at Miles McEnery Gallery

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Underexposed to art as a kid and inspired by American painters like Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell, Bo Bartlett has continued in a vein of realism that presents tantalizing, slightly surreal narratives.  In ‘La Corrida’ or ‘The Bullfight,’ a highlight of Bartlett’s current solo show at Miles McEnery Gallery in Chelsea, the toreador has fallen and the bull eyes the open gate from which the artist has perhaps dashed, leaving behind his jacket and materials.  Flecked with blood, the bull has been provoked and further disaster is coming; the absence of people leaves viewers to ponder the question of culpability.  (On view through Dec 9th).

Bo Bartlett, La Corrida, oil on linen, 88 x 120 inches, 2023.

Candice Lin at Canal Projects

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Candice Lin’s fantastical tale of a lithium factory worker reincarnated as a sex demon draws viewers in through an abundance of media including paintings on textile, adapted Korean fermentation vessels, video and workstations featuring ceramic computers, clocks and more in a bizarre but masterful exhibition at Canal Projects.  The installation – coproduced and commissioned by the 14th Gwangju Biennial and Canal Projects – is accompanied by a text detailing the story of a young woman who attempted to steal lithium to make a new life for herself and her lover.  Apparently killed in the effort, she finds herself in the body of a demon – inspired by spirits in Japanese, Chinese and Malaysian lore who are attracted to bodily fluids and functions – who makes her way back to the human realm to haunt the lithium factory and its workers.  Dehumanized by factory work performed to service our reliance on lithium, Lin’s worker ceases to be human, an outcome that serves as a warning to viewers.  (On through on Canal Street through Dec 16th).

Candice Lin, installation view of Lithium Sex Demons in the Factory, Canal Projects, Sept – Dec 2023.

Louis Fratino at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

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Surprisingly, Louis Fratino’s still lives can be the most dynamic of his works – a sink full of dishes or an arrangement of fish in a market stall appear as a jumble of curving or stacked forms in constant motion.  In ‘Latteria,’ from Fratino’s current show at Sikkema Jenkins and Co., the artist creates an intriguing balance of action and repose as he combines the bustle of the figures in the café, tables that tilt and floor tiles that rear up with the stillness of the central figure who sits with a quiet and pensive look.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 9th).

Louis Fratino, Latteria, oil on canvas, 47 x 42 inches, 2023.

Hilary Harkness at PPOW Gallery

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In the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s audio guide to its famous 1866 painting ‘Prisoners from the Front’ by Winslow Homer, the Union general Francis Channing Barlow is described as a ‘restrained Northern Puritan’ type vs the ‘dashing and impulsive’ Southerner at center. In Hilary Harkness’ version of the painting, seen here and now on view at PPOW Gallery, Barlow is nothing of the sort.  In a series of paintings that Harkness created over a four-year period from 2019 to 2023, she reimagines Barlow as a trans man, in love with Charles, the Black Union solider pictured here (a major alteration from the original), who fights with such single-minded fervor for the Union that he pauses only briefly (and secretly) during battle to give birth to Charles’ child.  Told through meticulously detailed paintings that picture Charles’ heroics while documenting the racial injustices and oppression of Confederate culture, Harkness’ narrative is both absorbing and unforgettable.  (On view through Nov 11th in Tribeca).

Hilary Harkness, Prisoners from the Front (1866), commissioned by Arabella Freeman, oil on panel, 12 x 19 inches, 2019.