Doug Aitken at 303 Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

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).

Doug Aitken, Wilderness, installation view, eight-channel composited video, 2022.

Jolie Ngo and R & Company

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

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.)

Jolie Ngo, installation view of Memory Palace at R & Company, (foreground) a unique ceramic vessel in porcelain, glaze, luster and PLA plastic, 2021.

Nari Ward at Lehmann Maupin Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

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).

Nari Ward, What’s Going On, shoelaces, 78 x 81.5 x 1 inch, 2022.

Future Retrieval at Denny Dimin Gallery

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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).

Future Retrieval, Fungiculture, porcelain, cut paper, wood, 47 x 38 x 12 inches, ’21 – ’22.

Roy Nachum at A Hug From the Art World

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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).

Roy Nachum, Rosie Lopez, oil on canvas, 84 x 71 inches, 2015 – 2022.