Carol Bove at David Zwirner Gallery

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Crushed tubular steel in an electric orange color provocatively juxtaposes and compliments salvaged sheets of rolled steel in Carol Bove’s dramatic sculptural installation at David Zwirner Gallery.  Titled ‘Chimes at Midnight’ after a 1965 Orson Wells film in which two characters speak of mortality, the sculptures’ industrial materials summons the past while soft, malleable-looking orange segments speak to a future in formation.  In its reckoning between past and present, the sculptures continue Bove’s engagement with history in her current sculptural commission on the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  (On view at David Zwirner Gallery).

Carol Bove, installation view of Chimes at Midnight at David Zwirner Gallery

Pieter Hugo at Yossi Milo Gallery

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Invited by curator Francisco Berzunza to make new work to show in Mexico on the themes of sex and death, South African photographer Pieter Hugo spent months meeting people from all walks of life including this community theater group formed by sanitation workers in Oaxaca de Juarez.  Here, they reenact a scene from a mural painted in the 50s by David Alfaro Siqueiros at Chapultepec Castle, bringing revolutionary attitudes into the present day.  (On view at Chelsea’s Yossi Milo Gallery through Feb 29th).

Pieter Hugo, After Siqueiros, Oaxaca de Juarez, archival pigment print, 47 1/8 x 63 inches, 2018.

Lee Bae at Perrotin Gallery

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Korean-Parisian artist Lee Bae’s medium is more than a means to an end.  Since buying a cheap bag of charcoal as a cash-strapped new arrival to the French art scene in 1990, Lee’s interest in the medium has expanded to drawings, sculpture and 2-D mosaics of polished charcoal.  He points to the role of charcoal in Korean culture (from art medium to building material) to connect to age-old tradition to his production today.  At Perrotin Gallery’s spacious upstairs space, the artist has installed sculptures of Korean pine turned to charcoal in his own kiln, a month-long process which results in a piece of material with endless possibilities.  (On view through Dec 21st.)

Lee Bae, installation view of ‘Promenade’ at Galerie Perrotin, Nov 2019.

Anish Kapoor at Lisson Gallery

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After confronting viewers with visceral, blood-red sculpture in his last New York show, Anish Kapoor is back with a two-venue exhibition bound to seduce his audience.  Front and center in Lisson Gallery’s 24th Street space is Tsunami, a towering stainless steel sculpture that lures visitors in to marvel at the spatial distortions created by the curved metal.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 20th).

Anish Kapoor, Tsunami, stainless steel, 143 5/8 x 161 3/8 x 133 ¾ inches, 2018.

Mary Heilmann in ‘Abstract, Representational and so forth’ at Gladstone Gallery

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Mary Heilmann’s red and black ceramic sculpture ‘Curl’ seems to defy its title with its angular panels, yet each segment dynamically spins around a central core like a step on a spiral staircase seen from above.  Each tile evokes a riser with three treads or a chunky version of the Egyptian deity Isis’ throne in Constructivist colors that make a bold statement.  (On view at Gladstone Gallery’s 24th Street Chelsea location through July 26th).

Mary Heilmann, Curl, glazed ceramic, 15 ½ x 20 ½ x 2 ¼ inches, 1984.