Shio Kusaka at David Zwirner Gallery

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

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.)

Shio Kusaka, installation view of ‘one light year’ at David Zwirner Gallery, April 2022.

Al Loving at Garth Greenan Gallery

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

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.)

Al Loving, Untitled, mixed media on canvas, 83 x 106 inches, 1975.

Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu at Sapar Contemporary

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

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.)

Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu, Zoom Meeting, acrylic on canvas, 55 1/8 x 55 /18 inches, 2021.

Walton Ford at Gagosian Gallery

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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).

Walton Ford, Tiger Study for Chay, watercolor, pen and ink on paper, 9 x 12 inches, 2022.

 

Eva LeWitt at Luhring Augustine Gallery

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

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).

Eva LeWitt, installation view at Luhring Augustine Gallery, March 2022.