Category: Hottest Show

In recent boom times, some dealers and artists were accused of catering too much to the demands of the market. So will the recession mean more adventurous, less sellable artwork? If Dario Robleto’s solo exhibition at D’Amelio Terras’ booth at this week’s ADAA Art Show is any indication, dealers will just find ways to be even more sales savvy.

Robleto’s meticulously crafted sculptures, constructed from materials like audiotape on which recordings have been made or 19th century ‘hair flowers’ made from the hair of loved ones, represent personal stories to those in the know. In addition to six new pieces at the Art Show, Robleto is offering a “unique commissionable sculpture” titled “Love Survives the Death of Cells,” for which couples will record their heartbeats, which will be transferred to audiotape that will be stretched into hair-like strands and braided together to create a Victorian style keepsake.

Maybe it’s the proximity of the fair and the commission offering to Valentine’s Day, but the ‘sculptures’ sound more like luxury gift item than artwork. I could be a sucker for a romantic gesture, but is this the quality of artwork appropriate for one of the most prestigious art fairs in the country? As portraiture, the pieces won’t represent individuals, as multiples, they signify little, instead promising to come across as tchotchkes by an otherwise uniquely inventive artist.

You don’t have to make it to Chelsea to see New York’s hottest shows this month. Peter Doig’s first New York solo show in a decade takes place on the Upper East Side at Michael Werner Gallery and in the West Village at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise where new canvases feature ping-pong players, human moths and mysterious landscapes.

Also on the painting front, South African artist Marlene Dumas’ figurative paintings in her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art are dark but arresting. Critics from the LA Times Christopher Knight to the New York Times Roberta Smith point out the prominent pros and cons of the show, and it’s easy to walk through and create your own checklist of art historical references, not an unrewarding task.

Nevermind the global financial turmoil (finally starting to be reflected in the art market), a bevy of new Chelsea gallery shows are making November and December good months for gallery goers.  At 303 Gallery, Anne Chu – who New York Times critic Roberta Smith called “one of the best figurative sculptors around” – has toned down the aggressive style that once led her to make Tang Dynasty style ladies with chainsaw and wood, but the results of her more conceptual approach are still a must-see.  

 

Meanwhile, splash and burn painter Barnaby Furnas opens his fourth solo show at Marianne Boesky Gallery with distressed canvases loaded with poured and splattered paint.  His long-running portrait series of Civil War abolitionist John Brown is starting to wear thin and the outraged political caricatures from his last show are unfortunately no where to be seen.  But abstracted images of spot lit rock concerts and ‘black flood’ paintings are provocatively discordant mixtures of pleasure and disaster.

 

On the same block, don’t miss Cindy Sherman’s gargantuan new photos of herself in the guise of various aging society matrons at Metro Pictures.  Glitzed up and surrounded by markers of status, these ladies will no doubt look mighty familiar to many of the art community’s power lunching gallery hoppers.

October is the perfect month for gallery visits, when the season is back in full swing and great weather makes it irresistible to get out and see what’s new. Among the best shows is Doug Aitken’s latest solo at both locations of 303 Gallery, where the mesmerizing video ‘Migration,’ stars American migratory animals confined in rooms at a series of down-at-the-heel motels. A bison knocking down chairs, a deer sipping from the pool and beaver in the bathtub suggest that animals can survive our encroachment – but can we?  Speaking of animal nature, Cecily Brown is back with more paintings exploring her signature subject matter – sex. The act is discernable in a few canvases but most are abstract, allowing viewers to make their own conclusions about where her writhing brushstrokes take us. Ernesto Neto’s social spaces are decidedly more public. For his sixth solo show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, a cave resembling a giant caterpillar takes up residence on the ground floor while upstairs, architectural maquettes allow visitors even more intimacy with the artist’s ideas for the space around us.

Video art may be notorious for not selling as well as other media, but several Chelsea galleries are having a moment with the medium this month. Miami-based Luis Gispert delivers the weirdest show in a dual appearance at Zach Feuer Gallery and Mary Boone Gallery with an enormous projection featuring the gruesome exploits of a libidinous butcher. At the opposite extreme, Israeli artist Guy Ben-Ner’s videos at Postmasters Gallery starring the artist and his two super-cute children thankfully manage to be more amusing than saccharine. Those looking for intellectual challenge can check out ‘the royal game’ embodied by Diana Thater’s chess matches at David Zwirner, or for ‘the beautiful game,’ visit Greene Naftali Gallery and see German filmmaker Harun Farocki’s twelve screen compilation of footage and analysis of the 2006 World Cup. And no video tour through Chelsea would be complete without stopping at Iran-born video art legend Shirin Neshat’s latest videos and photos at Barbara Gladstone Gallery.

For dates of shows and gallery locations, visit Zach Feuer Gallery, Mary Boone Gallery, Postmasters, David Zwirner, GreeneNaftali and Barbara Gladstone Gallery.