Annette Messager in ‘Don’t Forget to Call Your Mother’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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‘Don’t Forget to Call Your Mother,’ a compact show of photography from the 70s onward from the Met Museum’s collection, showcases complex portraits built from pieces of information rather than a traditional physical likeness.  Snippets from Larry Sultan’s family’s home movies and an image of a solitary bathrobe by Sophie Calle point to specific memories that shaped an individual’s identity, while Darrell Ellis worked with his late father’s photo archive and Sadie Barnette creates a neon-edged photo collage memorial to San Francisco’s first Black-owned gay bar, owned by her father.  Annette Messager’s collection of small, framed photos of eyes, mouths, torsos and other body parts arranged against the wall in a dense, circular cluster by twine and nails creates a collective portrait of an unknown group.  Titled ‘My Vows,’ the images suggestively connect belief and the body.  (On view on the Upper East Side through Sept 15th).

Annette Messager, My Vows (Mes Voeux), 106 gelatin silver prints, bound between glass and cardboard, black tape, twine and acrylic push pins, dimensions variable, 1990.
Annette Messager, My Vows (Mes Voeux), 106 gelatin silver prints, bound between glass and cardboard, black tape, twine and acrylic push pins, dimensions variable, 1990.

Cannupa Hanska Luger at City Hall Park

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Near a text describing City Hall Park as the ‘refuge of the people, the cradle of liberty,’ Native American artist Cannupa Hanska Luger’s steel sculpture of a bison skeleton recalls the deliberate mass slaughter of the animal from the mid-to-late 19th century.  Part of the Public Art Fund’s annual art programming in the park, the solitary sculpture is smaller than past installations but meaningfully and impactfully placed at the park’s dramatic southern entrance.   Titled ‘Attrition,’ the piece speaks to sustained attack on the lives and culture of Native American peoples by the near eradication of bison, yet the bison skeleton’s mechanical, plated design and obviously durable material conveys strength and resilience. (On view through Nov 17th.)

Cannupa Hanska Luger, Attrition, cast steel, 2024.
Cannupa Hanska Luger, Attrition, cast steel, 2024.

Tavares Strachan in ‘Afterlives’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Installed under the Met Museum’s central interior staircase, the atmospheric Byzantine Crypt is host to the exhibition ‘Afterlives,’ a show of contemporary art that engages with life after death.  Tavares Strachan’s ‘ENOCH,’ titled after the Biblical character who, rather than dying was ‘taken up,’ is one of the show’s standout pieces, a monument to Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first Black American astronaut who died in a flight crash in 1967.  The small bronze sculpture resembles an Egyptian canopic urn, a vessel intended to hold partial remains of a deceased person, but is surfaced in gold, adding to the precious quality of the piece.  An edition of the sculpture was launched into space as a small, 3U satellite in 2018, symbolically completing a final mission.  (On view through Jan 25th, 2026).

Tavares Strachan, ENOCH (display unit), bronze, 24k gold, steel, radar retroreflectors and sacred air blessed by a Shinto priest, 14 3/8 x 3 ½ x 4 1/8 inches, 2015-17.
Tavares Strachan, ENOCH (display unit), bronze, 24k gold, steel, radar retroreflectors and sacred air blessed by a Shinto priest, 14 3/8 x 3 ½ x 4 1/8 inches, 2015-17.

Francisco Ratti in ‘Misshapes’ at Praxis NY

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If figures appear at all in Praxis NY’s summer group show ‘Missapes,’ they pose in place or rarely dominate.  Instead, still lives are a commanding presence, particularly Francisco’s Ratti’s large indistinct arrangements of objects that simultaneously look low-res digital and handmade.  The Argentina-based artist’s practice involves drawing on a cell phone screen, then transferring his images to canvas.  Here, ‘Naturaleza’ (Nature) is a pleasant, conventional arrangement of flowers, plants and food stuffs but includes a more realistic painting of a tree trunk inserted onto the larger painting’s surface.  Gashed and supporting a haphazard sign warning that a property is being monitored, the tree imagery complicates what a painting can offer at one time.  (On view in Chelsea through Aug 30th).

Francisco Ratti, Naturaleza, acrylic on canvas, 59 x 78 ¾ inches, 2023.
Francisco Ratti, Naturaleza, acrylic on canvas, 59 x 78 ¾ inches, 2023.

Paula Wilson at 55 Walker

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Art and life meld in Paula Wilson’s engaging, pattern rich paintings and print work at 55 Walker as she depicts domestic environments and desert landscapes like those around her home in the small town of Carizozo, New Mexico.  Images of rugs on canvas, attached to wooden slats and mounted on the wall, depict plants, abstractions or entangled lovers while paintings of stained-glass windows are simultaneously images of an interior, glass art and a landscape beyond.  Wilson, who prints and sews her own clothing, gives this towering figure a dress created from a cinched rug painting, further connecting various creative endeavors in one fertile practice. (On view in Tribeca through Aug 30th).

Paula Wilson, Becoming, acrylic and oil on canvas, 162 x 52 inches, 2024.