An LED lighting strip turns Miguel Abreu Gallery an eerie green color, illuminating a puddle of synthetic liquid based on a pigment found in rainforest worms. Accompanied by a soundtrack of Amazon jungle noise played backwards, this installation by young Swiss artist Pamela Rosenkranz creates a surprisingly atmospheric faux-natural environment on the Lower East Side. (Through Dec 22nd).
Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto opens a new chapter in his colorful immersive installations with this homage to the birth of humanity. Hand-crocheted hanging sculptures in the shape of a womb invite visitors to enter and walk back to a communal space with drum and guitar. Allusions to Adam and Eve in both western and indigenous Amazonian culture find common ground in the pursuit of knowledge. (At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 17th).
Young painter Loie Hollowell depicts the nude body as landscape in a way that evokes Judy Chicago’s core imagery and Georgia O’Keeffe’s eroticized flower paintings and western landscapes. Here, Deep Canyon offers a road into the unknown. (At Feuer Mesler Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 18th).
Before being torn down to make way for a new development, 284 Grand Street has been transformed by Korean artists Jong Oh and Jinsu Han into a series of powerfully ephemeral site-specific installations. The least monumental of these is Jinsu Han’s tiny ‘Socket Branch,’ which foretells both the coming winter and the end of a season for this property. (At Marc Straus Gallery’s 284 Pop Up location through Dec 4th).
In the past, front-page news has been source material for Dashiell Manley’s canvases; his recent series explores his emotional and psychological reactions to the news of the day. (At Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea through Dec 17th.)
