Polly Apfelbaum in ‘Painters Reply: Experimental Painting in the 19702 and now’ at Lisson Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest Show, Inside ViewPosted on Comments are Disabled

Why paint?  In 1975, Artforum magazine posited the question to artists at a moment when enthusiasm for more contemporary approaches – from conceptual art to video – seemed to have pushed painting out of the vanguard.  Lisson Gallery’s summer group show visits responses then and now as painters pushed the boundaries of what could be considered painting.  Here, Polly Apfelbaum’s synthetic velvet and dye piece ‘Blue Joni’ takes painting off the stretcher and even off of the wall.  (On view in Chelsea through August 9th).

Polly Apfelbaum, Blue Joni, crushed four way stretch synthetic velvet and dye, 152.4 x 426.7cm, 2016.

Raqib Shaw at Pace Gallery

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Raqib Shaw’s richly imagined scenes at Pace Gallery are dominated by the verdant Kashmiri landscape and a tribe of cavorting and lounging peacock-headed characters, who echo the poses of picnicking Parisians lounging in a park in Manet’s 1862 painting Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe.  Intricately painted in vibrant enamel colors, Shaw’s new paintings are a feast for the eyes. (On view in Chelsea through May 18th).

Raqib Shaw, detail of ‘From Narcissus to Icarus (After Dejeuner sur l’herbe),’ acrylic liner and enamel on birch wood, 60 5/8 x 71 5/8 inches, 2019.

Victoria Sambunaris at Yancey Richardson Gallery

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Tankers arrayed like a minimalist piece of land art in this photograph by Victoria Sambunaris turn an otherwise drab landscape near Salt Lake City into study in form and function.  Ringed by a barely visible mountains and spread out under voluminous clouds, the trains in their tight formation dominate the natural world in this image.  (On view at Yancey Richardson Gallery through May 11th).

Victoria Sambunaris, Untitled (Tankers), Salt Lake City, chromogenic print, 40 x 56 inches, 2018.

Ken Price at Matthew Marks Gallery

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Late sculptor Ken Price evoked bodies and nature in a humorous, accessible and endlessly colorful way for decades until his death in 2012.  In a show of work from the ‘90s to 2010 at Matthew Marks Gallery, Price’s evocative forms continue to elicit puzzlement and delight in equal measure.  (On view on 24th Street in Chelsea through Dec 22nd).

Ken Price, Formerly The Slump, fired and painted clay, 5 ¼ x 18 ½ x 13 ¾ inches, 2001.

Daniel Arsham at Galerie Perrotin

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Inspired by the DeLorean in the movie ‘Back to the Future,’ Daniel Arsham imagines the car as a relic from even further back, a remnant of the past now studded with sparkling patches of quartz crystal and pyrite.  Alongside a similarly eroded Ferrari and a pile of obsolete consumer electronics, Arsham points out that given time, our castoffs revert to objects of desire.  (On view at Perrotin through Oct 21st).

Daniel Arsham, Eroded DeLorean, stainless steel, glass, reinforced plastic, quartz crystal, pyrite, paint, h. 44 7/8 x l. 166 x 73 1/8 inches, 2018.