Swedish designer Mattias Sellden’s eureka moment, when he settled on his signature use of minimally processed planks of wood to create dynamic furniture items, came from a simple aversion to altering a piece of wood he admired. Calling the creations now on view at Friedman Benda his ‘little wooden friends,’ Sellden allows his audience to find use-value in the constructions or simply enjoy them as they are. (On view through August 12th).
See Greek and Roman sculpture like never before in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new show ‘Chroma,’ which presents reconstructions of ancient sculpture in vivid tones based on traces of original pigment. Using tools like multispectral photography, German professor Dr V. Brinkmann and Dr U. Koch-Brinkmann of the Liebieghaus sculpture collection in Frankfurt, Germany reveal how ancient Mediterranean cultures favored vibrant color. Join me on a Met Museum highlights tour to see these works and more. (On view through March 26th, 2023).
Can art compete with nature? Emily Mullin’s ceramics at Yossi Milo Gallery, presented on wall-mounted shelves and offset by a rectangle of background color, are crowned by show-stealing floral arrangements. Yet like the flowers, which will change as the piece is displayed, Mullin sees her hand-made ceramic pieces as unique individuals, almost characters. Together, this quirky assemblage of sculpture, support and background challenges expectations, existing, as the artist puts it, “…between the space of representation and reality.” (On view through August 12th in Chelsea).
Have you seen this eye-grabbing new installation by Barbara Kruger in the Museum of Modern Art’s atrium? Don’t miss the rest of the show at David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea, where the gallery’s three adjoining spaces on 19th Street showcase work from a recent exhibition of Kruger’s work at the Art Institute of Chicago and the LA County Museum of Art. Join me on a Chelsea gallery tour to see the show before it closes on Aug 12th.
Evoking light from heaven as well as the rising sun, Cuban artist Yoan Capote’s use of gold in a show of new seascapes at Jack Shainman Gallery’s Chelsea locations offers immediate uplift. After a 2019 visit to Italy, where Capote had access to abundant medieval and early Renaissance art, the artist adopted gold backgrounds and the circular format of this painting to create images that are optimistic yet also anxious. Connecting the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean with many Cubans’ struggle to cross the Caribbean, Capote embeds fishing hooks in recent work, picturing the sea as a barrier. (On view through Aug 5th).
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery’s summer group show ‘Fruiting Bodies,’ curated by Sam Rauch, the gallery’s Director of Commissions and Special Projects, showcases art projects that focus on food, from beer to fungi. Here, Kathleen Ryan uses nearly two dozen semi-precious stones to construct a rotting lemon. Known for creating interest in what appear to be everyday objects through dramatic shifts in scale (memorably, a necklace composed of bowling balls at Arsenal Gallery), here Ryan also creates tension between alluring materials and repellent decay. (On view in Chelsea through July 29th).
Tribeca has quickly become one of the best places to see contemporary art in New York. Over the past few years, some of the city’s most established galleries have opened locations here, joining mid-sized spaces and younger dealers to create a diverse and lively new art scene. Check out the neighborhood in this video, and join me soon in Tribeca!
No one falls off a cliff or screams into the rain in Richard Bosman’s paintings at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, a departure from the artist’s signature film noir subject matter. Instead, a selection of Bosman’s work from the past thirteen years pays homage to icons of European/U.S. art history in the form of a painting on wood recreating Van Gogh’s palette and a view of mid-20th century abstract artist Barnett Newman’s studio. The show’s highlight and biggest work is a 2015 installation titled ‘Museum Wall,’ a selection of paintings mimicking a Frieda Kahlo portrait, James Ensor’s masked characters, Van Gogh’s sunflowers and more. Painted as if in elaborate frames, each canvas is pinned directly to a grey-painted wall like a poster, an homage to influential artists that also comments on the easy consumption of art. (On view in Tribeca through July 29th).
Isca Greenfield-Sanders’ landscape paintings at Miles McEnery Gallery point out the filters through which we see scenery; here, a pinkish cast to this beach scene recalls aged film, but the artist’s paintings also suggest layers of time and distance. Painting from found vintage photographs of places she’s never been, Greenfield-Sanders singles out scenes that have a familiarity that many in her audience will recognize from their own experience. After making several versions of an image, tinkering with placement of details and doing preparatory watercolors, Greenfield-Sanders creates a final version of the painting which embodies the transitory, ‘captured’ images of a photo in the more labor-intensive medium of painting. (On view in Chelsea through July 23rd).
In the words of one curator, conceptually oriented artist Agnieszka Kurant “makes the fictional actual.” Whether it’s commissioning authors to write books referred to in works of fiction or creating maps of mythical places, Kurant investigates what she calls ‘phantom capital,’ or value waiting to be realized. In this sculpture titled ‘Air Rights 2’ in the Hill Art Foundation’s summer group show in Chelsea, the artist finds a parallel in the real estate concept of air rights, the potential useable space above a property. Here, a constructed rock hovers over a pedestal as if by magic; held in place by electromagnets, the ordinary appears to be extraordinary. (On view through July 15th).
Is it natural to manipulate nature? Gracelee Lawrence’s 3D printed sculpture of fruit and the human body, two commonly modified objects, question how far we’re willing to go. In new work now on view at Postmasters Gallery in Tribeca, Lawrence prints versions of her own body in vegetable-derived bioplastic, merging it with plant or fruit-forms to create an extra-fertile figure. Fruits and veg displayed on rotating disks include this giant (7 inches in length) strawberry, an object to admire but no longer to consume, at least in its traditional capacity as food. (On view through July 23rd).
20th century new media pioneer Nam June Paik integrated nature and technology in iconic artworks like his TV Garden (monitors set amid live plants) and robots that mimic the human figure. One of the robots is a standout in Gagosian Gallery’s current two-part exhibition of multi-media work from Paik’s career. Composed of radios – mass produced, found objects that spread information and culture globally – Paik’s late career robot sculptures don’t move, rather their bodies feature movement via circular inset monitors. Excited by the merger of technology, art and music and the advance of technology into daily life, Paik used TV sets like canvases and constructed cellos from stacked monitors. Both on display in the current show testifying to the artist’s hopeful and creative vision. (On view in Chelsea through July 22nd and at Gagosian’s uptown from July 19th – Aug 26th).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is switching up its contemporary galleries regularly these days in an exciting change from past years. For the last month, this lush, abstract painting by Brooklyn-based painter, writer and activist Carrie Moyer has enticed mezzanine visitors, celebrating Pride Month and offering up pure visual pleasure. Titled ‘Pirate Jenny,’ the piece refers to a song in Bertoldt Brecht and Kurt Will’s ‘Three Penny Opera’ about a hotel maid who triumphs over her scornful fellow townspeople, sailing away to happiness.
Things don’t look good for this couple, whose lives have literally come crashing together in this monumental painting by Nicole Eisenman at Chelsea’s Hauser and Wirth Gallery. Though the flying cyclist and tumbling cat rescuer look as if they’re going to be injured, their faces are impassive, lacking even a hint of regret or fear and the title – Destiny Riding Her Bike – reveals that resistance would be useless. In a profile article in The New Yorker, Eisenman connected the scene to their own romantic partnership; swirling patterns and intense colors in the landscape speak to the intensity of this couple’s relationship. (On view through July 29th).
Known for high-relief acrylic and foam paintings, Gina Beavers’ work on paper now at Chelsea’s Marianne Boesky Gallery still leaps off the surface, even though it’s fully 2-D. Inspired by enticing ‘food porn’ images and ubiquitous makeup tutorials available on-line, Beavers combines the two here in ‘Hot Dog Nails.’ (On view through August 5th).
New York-based artist Woomin Kim describes Korean street markets with nostalgia, as places to hang out with friends or enjoy snacks. Accordingly, her textile works on view at Chelsea’s Susan Inglett Gallery depict market stalls as colorful and inviting places to buy everyday items or marvel at the abundance and variety of goods. Here, a ribbon store offers towers of stacked wares, alluring in their patterns and possibilities. (On view through July 29th.)
While traveling the world in his various roles as art dealer, artist, art activist, art impresario, and beer and cheese maker, John Riepenhoff has made time to appreciate the night sky from a variety of vantage points, from urban rooftops to wilderness. In the latest from his ongoing series of sky paintings created in the dark of night and now on view at Broadway in Tribeca, he continues to configure the heavens in surprising ways, filling canvases with vertical dashes or elliptical forms that suggest a view from inside a rain storm. Blooms of purple-reddish color and scattered flecks of orange or yellow light further encourage appreciation for the wonders of nature. (On view through July 15th).
Clementine Keith-Roach’s sculptures at PPOW Gallery combine found vessels with casts of her own body to explore her experience of motherhood. During her first pregnancy, the artist felt as if she was a ‘labouring vessel’ and made the connection literal by joining carefully painted limbs to used and worn ceramics. Paired with her husband Christopher Page’s paintings depicting mirrors with no reflection and cloud-filled windows, the exhibition explores interiority in both the physical and psychological realms. (On view through July 1st in Tribeca).
The late artist Robert Colescott, painter of the iconic art-historical remake ‘George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware,’ addressed racial stereotypes by confronting them head-on. Here, in ‘Nouvelle Cuisine’ from 1988, now on view at Tribeca’s George Adams Gallery, Colescott lifts the cover off of the inequitable power structure in this fine dining establishment. Hidden labor and a trash can full of wasted food speak to behind-the-scenes realities ignored in the candle-lit dining room. (On view through July 1st).
Known for huge paintings of sunsets, giant sculptures of dark sunglasses and other emblems of life in Los Angeles, Alex Israel continues to channel the allure of Hollywood and its environs with wave paintings and a fantasy street scene sculpture at Greene Naftali Gallery. Titled ‘Sunset Coast Drive,’ the 44-foot-long strip of fictional and real buildings includes Israel’s own studio at one end and his favorite burger place at the other. In the foreground of this photo, Israel revives a mural he painted on a building in Venice, CA before it was painted over. The rest of the gallery is dominated by vividly colored acrylic on fiberglass panels depicting crashing waves inspired by Hokusai and surfing logos. Their bright colors are alluring, but abstracted to the point of resembling reaching hands, the waves may be less innocuous than they first seem. (On view in Chelsea through June 25th).
Cuban artist Glenda Leon’s conceptual artwork varies from a grid of colorful used soaps decorated with line drawings made from hair, to a textile depicting the molecular structure of controlled substances that appear to be constellations in the night sky; in its own way, each piece makes poetic reference to the human body. Both soap and textile works are included in her current solo show at Bienvenu Steinberg and Partner in Tribeca, along with this Remington typewriter, its keys covered with pieces of chewed gum. Coming from the mouth, origin of the spoken word, to arrest the written word that might otherwise be created with this typewriter, the gum represents a form of sticky control. (On view in Tribeca, through June 30th).
Citing the “mysterious and utterly sensual paintability of CGI,” Montreal-based artist Vickie Vainionpää combines digital and traditional art-making with her hand-painted renderings of alluring, digitally-generated forms. A new body of oil on canvas paintings and an immersive video at The Hole in Tribeca from her continuing ‘Soft Body Dynamics’ series feature thick, undulating tubes of color winding through space. Like reflective mylar party balloons, the upper squiggle feels celebratory while the lower, intestine-like duct is slightly visceral though the palette brings cotton candy to mind. (On view through June 18th).
The dramatically-patterned drawn curtains in this painting by young Antwerp-based artist Bendt Eyckermans shut out the sun, but a sense of illumination is nevertheless strong in this symbol-laden interior scene at Andrew Kreps Gallery. Working in the studio that both his artist father and grandfather have used before him, the youngest artist in a lineage that goes back at least five generations ponders his inheritance by picturing objects with meaningful history. A sculpture reminiscent of his father’s work crouches on the table in this picture titled ‘The successor,’ while two figures on the left (one nearly hidden behind the other) presumably picture artistic forebears. A green marble on the orange-toned carpet reads like a warning to self not to slip in their watchful presence. (On view in Tribeca through June 18th).
During the pandemic, many people became extremely familiar with their domestic spaces. Philadelphia-based artist Becky Suss turned up the intensity on her introspection by moving back into her childhood home with her young child and proceeding to paint scenes of her childhood bedroom from different points in her life. Now on view at Jack Shainman Gallery, the new work reveals how she mined her memory for details from her past, creating scenes within scenes; here, each window in the dollhouse represents a setting from a different children’s story. (On view in Chelsea on 24th Street through June 18th.)
Human or animal, alive, dead or in spirit form, the most haunting and memorable aspect of Brad Kahlhamer’s current solo show at Garth Greenan Gallery are the many faces that populate his graphically strong paintings. In this untitled canvas, several heads have hair that extends down and out like roots, joining stylized figures and a modified dream catcher to create connections across space and between characters. This half-human, half raptor individual appears tranquil but the figures around her suggest intense inner life. (On view in Chelsea through June 18th).
The architecture and people of South-Central Los Angeles inspire LA artist Lauren Halsey’s sculptures at David Kordansky Gallery’s new Chelsea location, from low relief carvings of barbershop advertising to this sprawling mixed media installation titled ‘My Hope.’ Featuring a version of Kindle’s Do-nuts colossal signage, a doll-sized version of a church service, mini-pyramids and much more, the assemblage speaks to the vibrancy of life in Halsey’s neighborhood. A collector of images since youth, Halsey expands her archives in daily early morning walks through the streets of South-Central; here, her findings from all over combine to create an architecture of pride and promise. (On view through June 11th).
Just as this fifty-foot-long sculpture by Glenn Kaino at Pace Gallery multiplies and extends Olympic gold winner Tommie Smith’s raised fist on the podium at the 1968 Olympics, the athlete’s gesture for social justice continues to impact protest in and beyond the sports world. The installation – Kaino’s first at Pace Gallery – comes on the heels of his ‘Pass the Baton’ NFT project, through which digital renderings of a baton used by Smith in record-breaking races have been sold to raise funds for activist organizations. The piece is on view through Saturday, but if you don’t catch it at Pace Gallery, an earlier, larger sculpture from the Bridge series will go on view next year in the Smithsonian’s permanent collection in Washington DC. (On view through June 11th in Chelsea).
Celeste Rapone’s dynamic paintings at Marianne Boesky Gallery create interest through the distortions of their mostly female central figures. Viewers must first make sense of twisting limbs, then take in story-suggesting details which here include cough drop wrappers, a weed and a parking ticket at the bottom on the canvas. Dressed in a pink track suit, the woman here appears to be an over-enthusiastic volunteer, digging a cavernous hole for a tiny oak sapling, all while somehow simultaneously standing in the hole and balancing on tippy-toe on a skinny wrought iron fence. Interested in how women can ‘occupy impossible positions’ both literally and metaphorically, Rapone manifests complicated mental states in physical form. (On view through June 11th).
Dozens of brightly colored creatures, cobbled-together from everyday objects and other found materials by Scooter LaForge form a fun menagerie at Theodore Art in Tribeca. Those featuring LaForge’s expressive faces, familiar from his expressionist painting practice, are immediately engaging with their lively aura and quirky expressions. LaForge tells AM New York that making them brought him joy, a feeling that he extends to his audience. (On view through June 18th).
‘American Animals,’ an uncannily orderly yet apocalyptic vision of the heads of white men subsumed by waves of water or hair, dominates Robyn O’Neil’s current solo show at Susan Inglett Gallery. Known for drawings that feature multitudes of middle-aged men wreaking various kinds of havoc, O’Neil suggests with this enormous drawing that the men are receiving their comeuppance, perhaps from a feminine force engulfing them with hair or from nature, overcoming them with waves of water. Who are the men? Why is their response to calamity so strangely passive? O’Neil keeps us guessing with provocative questions. (On view in Chelsea through June 4th).
Positioned on the floor of Mendes Wood DM’s new Tribeca gallery space, Brazilian artist Paulo Nazareth’s water-filled glass vessels and sand-filled ceramic dishes look vulnerable to a careless visitor’s foot, yet each one is a container for something more fragile – a tiny replica of a ship. Accompanied by a cast-iron sink, its top painted with a globe, the vases, jugs, glasses and dishes appear to represent travel on the earth’s land and seas; the term ‘nau’ in the title referring to the masted sailing ships used from the 14th century by the Portuguese. Fragile and toy-like, the small boats recall child’s play, but given the artist’s fascination with travel from the Middle Passage to the present day, the piece also carries the weight of history. (On view through June 10th.)
Young Brooklyn-based sculptor Didi Rojas makes portraits in the form of ceramic shoes, titling her current show at Launch F18 ‘Felt Cute, Might Delete Later’ after the selfie meme. This sneaker is titled ‘I really don’t think I’m like other girls but whatever, you’ll believe what you want to believe,’ suggesting a speaker’s bid for independence and doubt that (s)he’ll be taken seriously. In past work – yellow platform crocs or bright red high-heeled boots – Rojas has seduced us with standout fashions; here, more muted colors and everyday styles speak to identities we put on every day. (On view in Tribeca through June 11th).
Angelo Filomeno’s latest works, now on view at Chart Gallery in his first New York solo show in seven years, lure visitors closer via bold color contrasts and a literal glow from his materials. Appearing to be ‘painted with a sewing machine,’ as the New York Times once put it, the embroidered works on silk shantung resemble painting in presentation and scale but are marked by a richness of color and abundance of light afforded by their material. Filomeno’s work never strays far from the theme of mortality; here, an iceberg illuminated by lightning brings our changing environment into focus. (On view through June 18th).
In the darkened space of Hales Gallery’s Chelsea location, Ebony G. Patterson’s ‘night garden’ entices with elaborately cut works on paper and wall-mounted tapestry installations decorated with strings of beads, glitter and other alluring objects. Each features a female figure (here in pink) with missing face or other body parts, a representative of loss who is literally no longer whole herself. Patterson explains that on occasions of mourning, it’s often women who are the public face of their family or community; as such, this central, sequined figure, like the garden around her, represents ‘beauty concealing trauma and violence.’ (On view through June 18th).
Look at photos of the Streif ski slope in Kitzbuhel, Austria and it’s clear why it’s considered to be one of the most dangerous in the world. Still, its steep downward angles are nothing compared to Andreas Gursky’s version of the run, now on view in his current solo show of new photography at Gagosian Gallery. Monitors mounted along the run show skiers wiping out, but all is calm on the course. The new work is alert to dangers of another sort as well, addressing climate change and the deleterious effect of making fake snow. (On view in Chelsea through June 18th).
Hair, clothing and jewelry were of utmost importance in the small town where Italian artist Bea Scaccia grew up. Now a New Yorker and long-since escaped from the cultural norms of her youth, the artist is showing painted assemblages at Tribeca’s JDJ Gallery of items – wigs, gloves and ornaments – that allow individuals to role-play through dress. Titled, ‘A belief in physio-gnomic principles,’ this grouping of ringlets and puffs of fur hints at a figure without revealing one, mock-suggesting that accoutrements make the person. (On view through May 27th).
In his latest multi-screen video installation, ‘Wilderness’ at 303 Gallery, renowned artist Doug Aitken asks, “How far we will continue to evolve, and at what cost?” Aitken’s last major show in ‘18 at his Chelsea gallery featured communications expert and cell-phone pioneer Martin Cooper pondering how connected we actually need to be. Here, the artist takes this train of thought further, shooting footage on the beach near his Venice home to suggest land’s end as a kind of metaphorical end to pre-digital life. Beachgoers mouth phrases like ‘You sound so sweet and clear but you’re not really there,’ but the audio is from AI generated digital voices. Alluring and alarming, Aitken’s scenes give pause for thought as we witness hands photographing the sunset becoming hands that hail the new. (On view through May 27th).
Jolie Ngo is having her first solo show in New York at R & Company, but her debut happened a few years ago as an undergrad when her renowned professor Glenn Adamson highlighted her ceramics on his personal Instagram. Curators and gallerists bought the work, which she’d crafted from her 3-D printed designs. Now wrapping up her MFA at Alfred University and only in her mid-20s, Ngo’s showing new pieces in Tribeca that were conceived in a 3-D modeling program, brought into the round using 3-D clay printing, glazed and fired. Painted with gradients and affixed with add-on forms, Ngo’s so-called ‘cyborgian pottery objects’ are a unique mix of fascinating and fun. (On view in Tribeca through August 12th.)
Shining copper panels shaped like the squares of a sidewalk, marked with outlines of candles and other items left by mourners on a street memorial are beautiful reminders of the terrible cost of the pandemic and of racially-motivated violence in Nari Ward’s latest solo show at Lehman Maupin Gallery. Downstairs, four text-based works in one of his signature materials – hanging shoelaces – cite songs, poetry and the Emancipation Proclamation. ‘What’s Going On,’ references Marvin Gaye’s 1971 song, inspired by US involvement in Vietnam and the civil unrest in Watts. In the past, Ward has collected shoelaces from museum visitors to make word-based installations, establishing an association with the personal that brings the text closer to home. (On view in Chelsea through June 4th).
Inspired by their residency at the natural-history treasure-trove, The Lloyd Library and Museum in Cincinnati, artist duo Future Retrieval have filled Denny Dimin Gallery in Tribeca with sculpture, cut paper and rugs inspired by the natural world. Here, an image of mushrooms carefully crafted from cut-paper towers over porcelain specimens, together creating a mini-garden celebrating fungal diversity. Called a ‘mycological trophy case’ by the artists, the piece pays homage to mycologist Curtis Gates Lloyd’s extensive research and study. (On view through June 4th).
Five huge photorealist portraits by Israeli-New Yorker Roy Nachum dominate the creatively titled Chelsea gallery ‘A Hug from the Art World.’ The sense of immediacy that their size generates in this compact space is amplified by expressionist painting on their surfaces. At first puzzling for the contrast between styles, an upstairs video reveals the paintings to be layered portraits, collaborations between Nachum and blind makers like Rosie Lopez, pictured here. Once explained, the portraits become fascinating expressions of self-representation. (On view through May 7th).
Hawaii-born master ceramicist Toshiko Takaezu’s sculptural forms from the 90s, on view at James Cohan Gallery, synthesize Abstract Expressionism and Japanese art tradition with understated beauty. Working in a palette of colors inspired by nature in her home state, Takaezu ventured beyond earthly inspiration to create ‘moon pots’ like this one from two half-spheres. (On view in Tribeca through May 7th).
Roses float through the air in Alex Anderson’s wall-mounted earthenware sculpture at Deli Gallery, evoking a romantic daydream. But whimsy turns to horror as it becomes apparent that the flowers are being severed from their stems by flying needle-like forms, resulting in tiny spurts of blood that suggest human, not plant anatomy. Presented on a mirror-like form (other shapes resemble serving platters and emoji hearts), in which we should expect to see our reflection, the piece prompts self-examination. Set against blue skies and wispy clouds, the piece warns of vulnerability in the virtual realm. (On view in Tribeca through May 7th).
Rosa Barba’s ‘Language Infinity Sphere,’ a form created from old letterpress blocks now on view at Luhring Augustine’s Tribeca space, speaks with its circular form to the ongoing output of these blocks over the years. Other text-related work in the show includes handwritten words on a filmstrip that rotates around a lightbox cube and a 35mm film depicting images and text from the Library of Congress’ massive campus, the largest media archive in the world. Language appears in unexpected forms in this show, even as marks on the landscape in a film showing disposal sites for radioactive material in the western U.S. (On view through May 21st).
In an Instagram post, Brooklyn-based artist Xiao Wang wrote, “I consider adding highlights as one of the most joyful moments in painting.” The pleasure is all ours in observing the light as it illuminates the gingko leaves and rests on his model’s cheek in this standout piece from the artist’s solo show at Deanna Evans Projects. Featuring moody, nighttime paintings populated by young people, semi-obscured by plants and bouquets, the new paintings make nature an active participant in each scene. (On view in Tribeca through May 28th).
In her solo show at Paula Cooper Gallery, Monserrat-born, England-based artist Veronica Ryan engages themes of global movement and trade with humble materials including fruits, seeds and other organic matter. Ryan has pointed out that familiar foods bring people together to share meals and memories; she has also incorporated materials like ash from the Soufrière Hills volcano, which has covered the town in which she was born. Pleasure and trauma also meet in this pile of stoneware cocoa beans, a product that brings happiness to many, sometimes at the expense of enslaved workers. (On view in Chelsea through May 28th).
The paintings in Philadelphia-based artist David Aipperspach’s current solo show at Tribeca’s Chart Gallery, ‘Prologue to a Garden Dark’ anticipate the slow end of a summer’s day by blending light and color from different times in a single scene. At the show’s entrance, a small painting tracks the path of the sun as it sinks though a grid of darkening colors, acting as a Rosetta stone for the same color shifts that appear in rectangles of stacked colors inset in the paintings. Acting as ‘clocks,’ the rectangles break into tranquil scenes, acting as abrupt reminders of the passage of time. (On view through April 30th in Tribeca).
‘Follow me you coward,’ reads an arresting command on the wall of Nora Turato’s current show at 52 Walker, along with the cliched, ‘a lifetime of action and adventure with no clock to punch,’ and tantalizing ‘all is forgiven.’ The show’s title, ‘Govern Me Harder,’ a puzzlingly submissive, perhaps masochistic demand was inspired by a sticker she saw in an Amsterdam dog park; other expressions were gathered from news, ads, online sources and, says the artist, her own thoughts. In this enamel on steel panel, the last word of the sentence, ‘I sold it for million bells,’ derails expectations of a million dollar sale, leaving us in a thought-provoking lurch. (On view in Tribeca through July 1st.)
The vast scale of the three artworks in Thomas Bayrle’s current solo show at Gladstone Gallery’s cavernous 21st Street gallery speaks to the huge public profile of his subjects: the Pope, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Kim Kardashian. Composed of repeated images arranged to create a portrait, Bayrle’s ‘superforms’ mimic the repetition of information via mass media and suggest that a person’s identity is formed by their messaging. In this case, Kim Kardashian’s persona merges with the means of disseminating it – the iPhone. (On view in Chelsea through April 23rd).
The artists in ‘say the dream was real and the wall imaginary,’ Jane Lombard Gallery’s excellent group exhibition organized by curator and critic Joseph R. Wolin, deftly negotiate cultural boundaries in contexts that vary from imaginary cities to remote villages. Margarita Cabrera’s cacti are a standout; known for her ongoing collaborations with immigrants in the Southwestern U.S., Cabrera creates plants crafted from border patrol uniforms and invites Mexican migrants to embroider them with emblems that communicate personal histories. Featuring designs including an American flag, stick figure portraits of family members, a church building and more, the sculptures communicate shared values and dreams. (On view through April 23rd in Tribeca).
Paris-based conceptual artist Andre Cadere’s multi-colored rods seem unobtrusive now, but they caused a stir in the 70s when he brought them into other artists’ exhibitions and positioned them in public places. Featured in an exhibition of Cadere’s work from the 60s and 70s at Ortuzar Projects, the hand carved bars were composed of wood segments with color patterns that the artist would disguise with a deliberate ‘error;’ the artist intended them as a means of merging painting and sculpture as well as a way to bring art into the public realm. Here, a bar positioned in the corner of a NYC subway mimics the train’s poles and exudes personality. (On view in Tribeca through May 14th).
Arranged on a narrow runway of shiny copper plates, new ceramics by Shio Kusaka at David Zwirner Gallery enchant visitors with their color, pattern and subtle sense of humor. Led plate by plate into the gallery, visitors explore relationships between pairs of vessels or clusters of related forms. Further down the line, Kusaka injects a simplified anime aesthetic into ancient cylindrical Haniwa sculptural forms and elsewhere, riffs on neolithic Jomon period patterns. (On view through April 30th.)
Renowned in the ‘60s for his hard-edge abstraction, Al Loving introduced softer geometries in textile works from the ‘70s, like this dynamic assemblage now on view at Garth Greenan Gallery in Chelsea. Inspired by African American quilting tradition and Romare Bearden’s collage, Loving created works of ripped, braided and dyed fabric, which the gallery likens to pennants, streamers, tattered flags and garments. In this piece, a colorful pattern spreads from the top right, traveling down and across a dark surface creating a feeling of work in progress and complex depth. (On view in Chelsea through May 7th.)
Even if you’re tired of Zoom meetings, you’ll be tempted to join Mongolian artist Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu’s online gathering in this painting at Sapar Contemporary, part of her New York solo show debut. Featuring a woman in traditional dress, flower stalks composed of tiny humans an undersea woman with her pet dog and more, each painted video frame is an introduction to a fascinating earthly or mystical world. (On view in Tribeca through April 30th.)
Though the tiger in this prep study for Walton Ford’s painting Chay, now on view in his solo show at Gagosian Gallery, looks ferocious, it represents an animal that is injured and seconds away from finding relief. Tragic misunderstandings or false assumptions about animals throughout history inform Ford’s large watercolor, gouache and ink drawings. In the finished painting (also included in the show), a tiger leaps into a pool of water, ropes trailing from his body in a reenactment from a Vietnamese folk tale about how a farmer’s trickery results in the tiger’s stripes. (On view in Chelsea through April 23rd).
Using silicone and metal beads, sculptor Eva LeWitt creates a series of hanging spheres in Luhring Augustine’s Chelsea space that shape-shift as light passes through them. The artist has explained that for her, spheres are ‘a beginning and an end…a period, a punctuation.’ Hung in a ring around the middle of the gallery at varying lengths, they seem gathered as if for conversation or play. (On view in Chelsea through April 30th).
Known for his portraits of stylish Black people painted from the ‘60s onward, Barkley L. Hendricks’ lesser-known body of work merging minimalism and basketball is now on view at Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery. Between attending the Pennsylvania Academy of Art and Yale, Hendricks worked for the Philadelphia Department of Recreation as an artist with access to the courts and games that inspired pieces like ‘Two!’ Though the ball is in motion here, a sense of stillness pervades, as if the artist is savoring a moment in a game. Though circular and rectangular forms dominate and bring to mind hard-edge abstraction, Hendricks evokes the flat stillness of a momentous scene in an early Renaissance painting. (On view in Chelsea through April 30th).
Norway-based American artist Camille Norment conceives of social relationships past and present in terms of sound in two new commissions at the Dia Art Foundation in Chelsea. For this untitled piece, microphones in the gallery pick up ambient sound and send it down the stem and into the bell below. As sound creates more sound and feeds back into the loop, auditory events in the room become, in Norment’s words, “an exponential saturation of voice, existing and experienced as a negotiation of control.” (On view through Jan 2023).
Describing his new stoneware vessels at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery as ‘imperfect reliquaries,’ London-based artist Jonathan Baldock imprints the cylindrical forms with evidence of his own hand and adds cast body parts and funereal herbs. In additional sewn works, 3-D heads emerge from flat felt and hessian textile backgrounds, staging a miraculous entrance from the picture into real space. Likewise, the uncanny ceramic forms suggest an unknowable quality to the human body and its manifestations. (On view in Tribeca through April 2nd).
Betrayal and concealment are words applied to Mika Horibuchi’s deceptively masterful paintings at 55 Walker, which replicate her grandmother’s amateur watercolors. At first glance, triangular tabs appear to be adhered to the surface to hold up a printed photo. A closer look reveals that they, like the ‘photo,’ are meticulously painted. The cat image is a rendition of a printed snapshot sent to the artist in Chicago by her grandmother in Japan, who has taken up painting later in life. A nearby display case shows the original snapshots along with other photos, drawings, and more. Here, the professional mimics the hobbyist, but the work conveys respect and consideration. (On view in Tribeca through March 26th).
What carries the idea of rocks as artwork? ‘Massive weight,’ replies Michael Heizer in a gallery statement announcing his current exhibition of new stone and steel sculpture at Chelsea’s Gagosian Gallery. Sheer size, heaviness, and a certain kind of audacity in relocating huge pieces of nature blasted out of place and trucked into art-related settings are the hallmark of Heizer’s practice. In the recent sculpture, rocks seem to almost perch on thick planes of rusted steel in geometric shapes, setting up a dynamic interplay between manmade and natural forms that suggests both symbiosis and antagonistic struggle. (On view on 21st Street through April 16th).
Kay WalkingStick’s paintings at Chelsea’s Hales Gallery traverse and glory in the North American landscape, from mountain peaks, to eroded canyons to windy shorelines. Each is overlaid with a pattern derived from imagery created by Native American peoples who have lived in the areas depicted. Together, the patterns and scenery speak to the deep connectedness of Native histories and culture and the land. (On view through April 16th.)
Christopher Myers’ applique textiles at James Cohan Gallery picture dramatic moments in history; here, a star-shape on the head of 19th century Xhosa leader Mlanjeni speaks to his vision of resistance to British colonialism in South Africa, specifically his prophesy that the Xhosa would be impervious to British bullets. Created from a patchwork of patterned textiles, each hanging work speaks to an individual creator employing material with its own histories and associations into a larger, conceptually layered image. Likewise, Myers’ subjects, who range from Paiute Ghost Dance advocate Wovoka to Hong Xiuquan, who fought the Qing Dynasty leaders to create an earthly Heavenly Kingdom, crafted diverse and complex ideologies of resistance. (On view in Tribeca through April 2nd).
Known for medium-sized, uncannily still wooden figures, South African sculptor Claudette Schreuders explores the notion of doubling with new work at Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery. In response to the experience of social isolation over the last two years, Schreuders has been picturing the self as constant presence and company. Titled Accomplice, this piece considers how a lack of communication can lead to polarization and extreme thinking; however, at the same time, the hand gestures were inspired by a tender moment in a 14th century medieval church sculpture of Christ’s mother Mary greeting her relative, Elizabeth. (On view through April 2nd).
After an over two-decade hiatus from sculpture-making, late west coast Light and Space artist Peter Alexander came back strong, creating cast forms that appear to glow. Pace Gallery’s current show of these works from ’11 to ’20 features this eighteen-foot-long installation of urethane strips. Varying in width and color, the parallel pieces create an irregular rhythm that excites the senses. (On view through March 19th).
Titled ‘Phantom Tail,’ Elizabeth Glaessner’s show of new painting at PPOW Gallery in Tribeca dissolves distinct separation between human and animal bodies in order to probe possible forgotten connections to nature. Searching for what the gallery identifies as “collective primordial knowledge,” Glaessner imagines creatures with long horse-like or spider-like legs and here, sphinxes with tails curling to meet their flying hair. Created using poured pigment and solvent, the washy figures elude definition, as if perceived in a fever-dream. (On view through March 19th).
Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio’s ‘Holbein En Crenshaw,’ a rubber cast of a tree on a LA street dominates ‘The New Bend,’ a standout show of textile-related work curated by Legacy Russell at Chelsea’s Hauser & Wirth Gallery. Layered imagery including a highway exit sign, distorted wheel-like shapes, and advertisements crowd together on one side of this hanging piece, recreating the bombardment of information pedestrians and motorists experience on city streets. On the other side, the rough texture of the cast tree with its burls and imperfections suggests the difficulties of urban life, even for plants. Aparicio explains that his intention is to connect beleaguered, non-native trees to the reception of migrant workers in California while also recognizing the rootedness of both in LA life. (On view through April 2nd.)
At first glance, photos from Sally Gall’s Aerial series at Chelsea’s Winston Wachter Gallery create happy confusion; abstract shapes and vibrant colors lure us into trying to understand what’s being represented. After a longer look, what appeared to be sea life or flowers resolves into items seen from below on a clothes-line. Even after the ‘ah-ha’ moment of identification, Gall’s images continue to entice as colorful and complex abstractions. (On view in Chelsea through March 5th).
This web is a tiny part of Tomas Saraceno’s current show at The Shed in Hudson Yards, but like the rest of the exhibition, it elicits wonder at the natural world, prompting greater respect for the web of interspecies relationships around us. Housed behind glass and spot lit from below, webs created by various species of spiders in Saraceno’s Berlin studio demonstrate the arthropods’ ability to communicate and understand the world around them through motion perceived via webs. Elsewhere in the show, visitors are invited to physically enter a version of a web in the immersive installation ‘Free the Air: How to hear the universe in a spider/web’ by settling on a web of wire mesh netting to listen to a soundtrack that translates spider movements into sound. (On view at The Shed through April 17th).
Pattern and color are the last words in Roxa Smith’s lively paintings of imaginary interiors at C24 Gallery in Chelsea. Smith, who grew up in Venezuela and moved to New York in the 90s, explains that as a child, family trips exposed her to colonial towns and indigenous and folk art that have influenced her current aesthetic. Already drawn to interiors, she became devoted to the subject after visiting an exhibition of Matisse’s painting at the National Gallery in Washington DC. Uplifting, lively and engaging, Smith’s paintings offer a moment of pure pleasure. (On view in Chelsea through March 11th.)
After a long, action-packed adventure described in the Sanskrit epic the Ramayana, Rama returns home to the kingdom of Ayodhya and is crowned alongside his love, Sita. Here, in a standout painting from the exhibition ‘Court, Epic, Spirit: Indian Art 15th – 19th Century’ presented by London dealer Francesca Galloway at Luhring Augustine Gallery, the couple literally glow as they celebrate Rama’s restoration and his triumph over evil. Populated by dignitaries and ascetics and set among opulent furnishings and fabrics, this relatively small painting overwhelms with its intricate detail. (On view in Tribeca through March 24th).
Long walks through New York, Paris and London yield source material for Mary Lum’s complex photo and paint collages, now on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery in Chelsea. Titled 11th Avenue, this piece features slices of urban architecture and facades that dynamically multiply the grid. At center, Lum seamlessly turns a photo of metal piping into a flattened piece of paper that in turn guides our eye up and over a grey wall – all moves that keep our sense of space shifting in an engaging way. (On view through Feb 26th).
To say that British artist Keith Tyson’s art practice is expansive is something of an understatement; for decades, his painting and sculpture have aimed to show the connectedness of all things. Drawing from thousands of paintings created over more than twenty years, grids of images now on view at Hauser & Wirth Gallery in Chelsea suggest links between neural networks, the vastness and changeability of space, mathematical concepts and much more. Here, meteorites embedded in stainless steel prompted Tyson’s mind-boggling question in a recent catalogue essay: “What were the odds at some point in the distant past, when these chunks of matter were on their particular trajectories through outer space, that they would all end up together here in this piece of work?” (On view in Chelsea through April 2nd).
Artist and activist Celia Vasquez Yui’s ceramic sculptures of animals in the Peruvian Amazon are arranged at Salon94 in a mini amphitheater, forming a gathering she calls the ‘Council of the Mother Spirits of the Animals.’ Speakers in the gallery play invocations sung by healers whose intention is to heal the assembled deer, monkeys, jaguars and other animals, encouraging them to hold their own against endangerment. Here, two playful deer are ornamented with kene, elaborate abstract designs that speak to harmony in nature. (On view on the Upper East Side through March 5th).
Inspired by the Pope’s mitre, Chumash tradition, California car culture and much more, young west coast designer Ryan Preciado presents furniture at Canada Gallery that conveys comfort, pleasure and sturdiness. Like Matt Conners’ abstract paintings in the adjoining gallery, color and structure dominate our sensory experience. Practical and welcoming, Preciado’s approach to design was impacted by watching his sister squirm to get comfortable on the family couch. (On view in Tribeca through March 5th).
Rachel Rose’s recent sculptures at Gladstone Gallery juxtapose blown glass and large rocks or, in this case, a wood burl shaped like an egg, to contrast two vastly different natural materials and represent a ‘moment of radical shift.’ The show’s centerpiece, a film titled ‘Enclosure,’ also considers a rupture that continues to impact relations between humanity and nature today. Via the fictional story of a band of thieves who set out to defraud English rural communities of their land, Rose examines how, from the 17th century onward, the Enclosure Acts in England allowed consolidation of large tracts of land, taking them out of collective ownership and putting them into the hands of powerful interests. (On view on 21st Street in Chelsea through Feb 26th).
Known for artwork that favors experience over objects, Haroon Mirza was inspired by a mind-boggling proposal which he has made into the central concept behind his current exhibition at Chelsea’s Lisson Gallery. Introduced in a British sci-fi novel from the 30s and advanced in the 60s by the physicist Freeman Dyson, the Dyson Sphere is a series of orbiting platforms erected around a star to harvest solar energy. Mirza creates a mini version at the center of the gallery; a ring of solar panels collects energy from the halogen lights at center, providing energy to power various artworks around the gallery, including a terrarium of hallucinogenic cacti and a simple machine that plays a set of drums. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 12th).
In Greek mythology, Narcissus broke hearts and in turn had his own heart broken by falling in love with his reflection in a pool of water. Related imagery appears throughout Mexico City-based duo ASMA’s current show at Deli Gallery in Tribeca, along with a sculpture of the flower that Narcissus was said to have turned into upon his death. Working in a variety of materials including platinum silicon and cast bronze, the artists ponder this posthumous transformative act, considering life between fixed states. Here, a wall-mounted bronze bust of a male torso skews upward and to the side, as if being tugged out of conventional space and time. (On view through Feb 19th).
Mark Ryan Chariker’s atmospheric paintings at 1969 Gallery are an intriguing anomaly, situating contemporary characters wearing fashions inspired by European art history in historic-looking settings. In most paintings, none of the elongated, Mannerist characters seem to be saying a word, but each appears to play a role in an understated drama or fateful moment. Here, in a painting titled ‘Burning Ceremony,’ five figures demonstrate varying degrees of disregard for an unidentifiable flaming object in a huge dish. Lackadaisical and lacking conviction, their ritual suggests a culture adrift. (On view through Feb 26th. Proof of vaccination and masks are required).
Inspired by her love of art history and travel to Italy, New York-based artist Mary Obering infuses modern, minimal style with references to early Renaissance art to create dynamic and luminous paintings. Bortolami Gallery’s current presentation of her work from 1972 – 2003 includes this 1992 painting that balances light and dark colors in a way that moves the eye around the canvas, creating a lively circular movement enriched by glowing panels of gold leaf. Blocks of color in egg tempera – painted to show the artist’s hand through fluctuations of color – have an extra vibrant glow, adding to the uplift and pleasure of the piece. (On view in Tribeca through Feb 26th. Masks and social distancing are required.)
If you enjoyed my recent post featuring Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno’s vibrant abstract sculpture, see more of this gorgeous exhibition in the video below. With her repeated curving, organic forms, Nepomuceno aims to represent movement into our own inner depths as well as an expansion into the infinite.
Indonesian artist Mulyana’s playful knit and crocheted sculptures are an immediate draw at Sapar Contemporary in Tribeca for their fantastical forms and bright colors. Whether replicating a coral reef or crafting one of his signature alien or octopus-like creatures, the artist uses soft materials that create a feeling of comfort and intimate familiarity. His intention is to encourage respect for the wonders of the natural world, titling his show ‘Fragile Ecologies,’ and explaining that for him, the process of creating the work is an act of meditation or prayer. (On view in Tribeca through March 4th. Masks and social distancing required.)
As a teen, Michelle Rawlings used to cut out and rearrange fashion spreads from magazines; her untitled oil on linen canvases at Chapter NY in Tribeca operate on a similar scale (this painting is a mere 12 ½ inches high) and also channel the cool, distanced mood of fashion photography. Here, she captures a different feeling of isolation as a softly sunlit young woman engages in a solitary activity. Set against an intensely green gallery wall that emphasizes the glimpses of nature seen outside the window and accompanied by minimal collages of ribbon and ephemeral plant-related imagery, the paintings are mediations on how meaning is constructed. (On view in Tribeca through Feb 5th. Masks and social distancing required.)
After serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, now-exonerated artist Sherrill Roland makes artwork that reflects on the physical limits and daily realities of prison life. At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, his geometric sculptures trace the outline of a cinder-block cell wall and lightboxes present text of letters written to family. Here, two acrylic glass cubes-within-cubes recall the basketball tournament Roland helped organize while incarcerated and include a hoop and three bags inside one cube containing commissary items as awards for tournament winners. Recalling Damien Hirst’s freestanding steel and glass vitrines, Roland’s less heavy-seeming cubes bear greater psychological weight, conveying personal suffering caused by confinement. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 5th. Masks and social distancing required.)
Young Nigerian artist Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu amazes with her photo realist style and the pleasure she takes in painting elements of Igbo tradition. In this piece titled ‘Umunne (Siblings)’ at Jack Shainman Gallery on 24th Street, Chiamonwu depicts two of her siblings in a moment of peaceful unity as they pose together with closed eyes. A cowry shell bracelet symbolizing prosperity and snail shells signifying abundance speak to the family’s cultural wealth. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 19th. Masks and social distancing required.)
Chris “Daze” Ellis started painting train cars as a teen in the mid-70s and within a few years was showing his work indoors in shows at The Mudd Club and the renowned gallery Fashion Moda. Decades later, he reflects on contemporaries who’ve passed, including Cliff 3YB, Billy 167, Stan 153 and others in this recent painting in his current solo show at PPOW Gallery. Above their names on the subway walls and cars, an expressionist composition of greens, pinks and yellow colors glows like a celestial phenomenon honoring the lives and memory of street art pioneers. (On view through Feb 12th in Tribeca. Masks and social distancing required).
Titled ‘Roda das encantadas,’ or ‘Enchanted Wheel,’ Maria Nepomuceno’s new solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins & Co delights the eye with the Brazilian artist’s signature spiraling forms crafted from straw, beads and resin. Intended to represent a movement into our own inner depths as well as an expansion into the infinite, this assemblage of circular forms also makes more concrete allusions to the body in breast-like ceramic elements and a recurring umbilical cord reference. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 12th. Masks and proof of vaccination are required.)
The hopscotch grid stands out in this painting by Raymond Saunders, now on view in the renowned Bay Area artist’s first New York solo show in 20 years at Andrew Kreps Gallery in Tribeca. Evoking a childhood game drawn out on blacktop as well as marks on a chalkboard, references to growth, learning and play are reinforced by the work’s title, ‘Celeste Age 5 Invited Me To Tea.’ Two children’s drawings of a wayward cat and a reference to Carnegie Mellon alongside a watermelon (the artist attended Carnegie Institute of Technology) link to Saunders’ recurring themes relating to education and race. (On view through Feb 12th).
Bay Area artist Lucy Puls has returned over the course of her decades-long career to the question of what society values and what it discards. Her photos of bank-owned homes, printed on huge sheets of fabric-like paper and hung high on the walls of Nicelle Beauchene Gallery feature images of places once personally meaningful and now neglected. Weighed down by discarded household items, in this case a metal folding chair, images and objects speak to the passing of time, to change and moving on. (On view in Tribeca through Jan 22nd).
Scottish painter Alexander Guy made a hit on the ‘80s London art scene with his deadpan paintings, which ranged in subject from everyday objects to celebrity images. In a career revival, Guy is now making his New York gallery debut at Harper’s Gallery in Chelsea with oil paintings showing an abundance of processed food, including a freezer stuffed with ice cream and pizza and a carefully arranged array of pink-colored foods from Tesco supermarket. Here, a transatlantic in-flight meal overwhelms with its number of dishes and suggests that more is not necessarily more. (On view through Jan 15th. Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required.)
Suellen Rocca, a founding member of the short-lived but hugely influential group of Chicago artists known as ‘Hairy Who,’ adopted imagery from magazine ads, Sears Roebucks catalogues and other American pop culture sources, but her late-career work took on more personal meanings. Several pieces in Matthew Marks Gallery’s exhibition of the late artist’s work in Chelsea include imagery relating to fish, which came to Rocca in a dream. Fish seem to nurse like babies, breasts morph into fish and, in this painting, fish adorn the body of a deity-like multi-armed figure, picturing female power in terms of feeding, nurture and life. (On view through Jan 29th. Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required.)
South African artist Cinga Samson complicates the act of looking in paintings that are challenging to see. The muted palettes and crepuscular lighting of his individual portraits and figure groups not only disguise his subjects, but aim to create a sense of having intruded on a private scene. Samson’s recent body of work, on view at Flag Art Foundation in Chelsea, features young men like this figure, whose remarkable eyes disrupt easy engagement and suggest moments of looking inward. Each painting is a meditation on mortality, the flower in this piece acting as a symbol of transience. (On view through Jan 15th. Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required).
Brie Ruais’s signature approach to art involves manipulating a 130 lb pile (equivalent to the artist’s weight) of clay into flat rings of ceramic sculpture textured with finger and footprints. Here, she varies her usual circular form with this knot-shaped piece in her current show at Albertz Benda Gallery. The artist has called her work ‘Earth Art that takes place in the studio;’ in this sculpture, the relationship between the body and landscape speaks to interconnectedness. (On view in Chelsea through Jan 22nd.)
Below tiny members of a celestial choir, four earthly singers raise voices in praise in Tyler Ballon’s painting at Deitch Projects in SoHo. Identifying ‘the Black church as a place of comfort and strength,’ Ballon also pictures scenes from the life of a pastor (a job both of his parents have filled) that honor this leadership role. Other paintings feature loving relationships between friends and family and special moments including a graduation and a commemoration of Black lives lost. (On view in SoHo through Jan 15th. Note holiday hours and closures.)
Known for bringing private lives into the public realm through projects like her iconic 1992-3 ‘Signs,’ for which strangers posed with signs sharing their personal thoughts, British conceptual artist Gillian Wearing continues to probe beyond the surface in recent work on view in her career retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. Based on mid-to late 19th century French artist Henri Fantin-Latour’s ‘La Lecture (The Reading),’ Wearing’s update includes herself on the left, not just listening to the reading, but gazing intently upon the reader. Fantin-Latour’s characters famously exist in their private worlds, not always connecting with each other. Wearing, on the other hand, is absorbed by the world inhabited by her companion. (On view on the Upper East Side through April, ’22).
It’s no surprise that #meditation is one of the first tags Cuban painter Tomas Sanchez uses when posting images of new paintings to Instagram. His intensely detailed, imagined landscapes are inspired by his daily meditative practice and celebrate the sublime on both a vast and tiny scale, eliciting wonder at nature’s complexity. Sanchez’s first show at Marlborough New York in over 15 years offers a decade of work – new and loaned from collections. It features not only verdant scenes but a selection of paintings featuring vast fields of discarded consumer items and trash, a disturbing contrast to the boundlessness of nature in the paintings. (On view through Jan 22nd. Note holiday hours and closures.)
Visiting Gettysburg National Military Park can amount to moving from one memorial to another, but Cynthia Daignault’s new series of paintings at Kasmin Gallery, inspired by the Civil War battlefield, focus not on the built environment but the natural world. Called ‘a rumination on the meaning of site and time’ by the gallery, Daignault’s work features ‘witness trees,’ which were alive in the 1860s and are still in place today. Surrounded by graves, the trees operate outside of a human timeframe and offer an alternative perspective on historic events. Painting titles include terms like ‘synecdoche’ or ‘chiaroscuro,’ suggesting that parts of an image can tell a larger story or that events exist in shades of light and dark. Here, ‘Gettysburg (Stereoscopic)’ nods to the popular 19th century photographic technique that creates depth by presenting two near identical images side-by-side. (On view through Jan 8th. Note holiday hours and closures.)
Titled ‘Pyr,’ Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed’s current solo exhibition at Sapar Contemporary in Tribeca refers to the Greek word for fire, a term for a Sufi spiritual guide and the name of his country, ‘a Land Protected by Holy Fire.’ The standout works – three carpet sculptures that appear to melt with heat or rise like a flame – are each titled after a historically important Azerbaijani thinker. Here, the piece ‘Yahya Bakuvi’ refers to the 15th century philosopher and scientist and features muted colors and restricted geometries that allude to self-control. (On view through Jan 6th. Note holiday hours and closures.)
Catherine Murphy’s ‘Begin Again’ greets visitors at the entrance of Peter Freeman Inc’s SoHo gallery, questioning the foundation of the artist’s realist painting practice by juxtaposing emotive gestures with skilled rendering. Painted black outlines resemble ancient handprints in caves or body outlines traced by children and are a stark contrast to Murphy’s naturalistic rendering of her left hand and arm. The painting’s wallpaper-like background suggests an unstoppable creative impulse akin to kids painting on the living room walls. Recently called ‘one of America’s greatest living realist painters’ in the New Yorker and ‘one of our great artists’ in Hyperallergic, Murphy in her mid-70s testifies to the importance of keeping her practice fresh by ‘beginning again.’ (On view in SoHo through Jan 7th. Note holiday hours and closures.)
Dense and complex, this piece by octogenarian sculptor John Pai, now on view in a show of work by three 20th century Asian-American sculptors at Chelsea’s Tina Kim Gallery, evokes a scientific or mathematical model in flux. Piece by piece, Pai welded short steel rods together in a hands-on practice he likened to drawing. Reflecting subconscious activity and taking inspiration from music, science, architecture and more, Pai’s dynamic constructions elicit wonder at complex structures in our own thought processes and the world around us. (On view through January 29th. Note holiday hours and closures.)
