Both ‘blue jeans’ and ‘the blues’ are listed as materials in Vanessa German’s towering sculpture ‘Sad Rapper,’ the title piece of her current solo show at Chelsea’s Kasmin Gallery. Not only a visual artist but a poet and performer, German creates descriptions of her assembled sculptures that double as poetic reflections on the thought processes behind the work. Dressed in blue and standing on a platform of red and white stripes, this figure represents a less easily recognized ‘American’ character, one covered in prayer bundles but laden with society’s expectations. (On view through Oct 22nd).
Vanessa German, Sad Rapper, wood, tar, 75 pounds of old blue jeans, the blues, sorrow, cuz in 1983 rappers could be bad but could not be sad— or gay, holiness, salt, a groan, tears, African blue and white cloth, love, meanness, the way that it feels to need to cry but not be able to cry— for an exceptionally long time, convinced of muscle instead of tenderness, grief, yarn, twine, loneliness, old blue bed sheets, heartbreak and lying about it, canvas, prayer beads, shame, black pigment, delusion, love, love, love, you gonna be ok ni$$a, you ain’t alone homie, it’s ok, just go’on ahead and be broken for a little while, shit~ life is hard sometimes, red and white paint, foam, ptsd, glue, plaster, heat, 78 x 48 x 40 inches, 2022.
Arranged on a long, low mound of gravel, Masaomi Yasunaga’s stone-infused ceramics at Lisson Gallery look as if they’ve been excavated from an ancient site. Allowing glaze, granite, slip and unrefined porcelain to fuse together in unexpected ways in his kiln, the Japanese sculptor invents a surface for his unconventional pieces that suggests natural forms built up over time. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 15th).
Masaomi Yasunaga, Vessel fused with stone I, glaze, colored slip, granite, kaolin and silver leaf, 52 3/8 x 36 5/8 x 12 5/8 inches, 2022.
Amusingly excessive, Lindsay Lou Howard’s new ceramics at Launch F18 speak to overconsumption with a sense of humor and a lot of imagination. Here, ‘Plant Based’ offers nutrition to the worms still wriggling in the dirt (?) or fake meat (?) of this giant, 2-foot-tall sandwich. Other pieces in the show, including a lamp made of thick spaghetti in red sauce (interspersed with chocolate, veggies and a can of Sprite) and a sandwich holding a giant ‘Faberge’ egg between pieces of white bread, ask if we really ‘want it all.’ (On view in Tribeca through Oct 15th).
Lindsey Lou Howard, Plant Based, stoneware, glaze, 30 x 15 x 15 inches, 2022.
In the middle of Chelsea’s bustling Pace Gallery, it comes as a surprise to hear your own heartbeat filling the cavernous room housing Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s interactive installation ‘Pulse Topology.’ Placing your hand under one of three small monitor suspended from the ceiling not only broadcasts the sound of your heartbeat but translates it into flashing lights in one of thousands of lightbulbs suspended in an undulating pattern from the ceiling. Though essential to life, we often take our beating hearts for granted; making them the focus of an artwork not only flips interior functions to the exterior, it speaks to something visitors have in common. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 22nd).
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Pulse Topology, 2021, 3,000 LED filament lightbulbs, DMX controllers, custom-made photoplethysmography sensors, computers, covers any area between 1,000 and 5,000 square feet.
Lima and Amsterdam-based artist Claudia Martinez Garay constructs a complex image of Peruvian culture and history by combining images sourced through different means. In a piece now on view in her solo show at Grimm Gallery in Tribeca, a winged hybrid creature and stepped geometries inside a flat-topped pyramidal form bring to mind Peruvian mythologies and architectures. In the foreground, academic drawings of native flora are mounted on aluminum, expanding representations of Peru into the gallery and into the realm of new understandings. (On view through Oct 15th).
Claudia Martinez Garay, Ghost Kingdom, painted wall mural, sublimated print on aluminum (9 parts), steel stand (6 parts), 199 x 186 x 115 inches, 2022.
