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!
Richard Bosman at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
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 at Miles McEnery Gallery
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).
Agnieszka Kurant in ‘No Forms’ at the Hill Art Foundation
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).
Gracelee Lawrence at Postmasters Gallery
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).
