Marc Straus Gallery nods to Mark Rothko’s hovering, painted rectangles of color and Josef Alber’s nests of colored squares on canvas, but the real attraction to Spain-born, New York-based artist Antonio Santin’s paintings is the fact that they’re painted at all. Resembling tapestries, Santin’s amazing abstract paintings are made with oil paint in a variety of patterns that suggest a 3D surface with something hidden beneath. (On view on the Lower East Side through Oct 16th).
Berlin-based artist Claudia Wieser takes the 1976 BBC drama ‘I, Claudius’ as inspiration for a gorgeous exhibition featuring wallpaper printed with towering busts from antiquity and a series of refined painted vessels atop a large ceramic tiled pedestal. Rather than tell a story or suggest particular meanings, Wieser evokes elegance and opulence using low-brow materials like wood and mirror-polished steel, perhaps a parallel to politically corrupt Roman rulers whose culture non-the-less produced prized artwork. (On view at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea through April 14th).
Working with materials salvaged from destroyed buildings, Dutch artist Marjan Teeuwen creates abstract arrangements of forms that suggest paintings. Here, she worked in an abandoned school in Johannesburg, South Africa during a 2015 residency to create an installation that speaks to a key theme – the inevitability of destruction and but also the hope of renewal. (On view through April 14th at Bruce Silverstein Gallery in Chelsea.)
Adam McEwen’s escalator stairs, disassembled and scattered on Gagosian Gallery’s floor are readymades related to movement, though unlike Duchamp’s spinnable bike wheel mounted on a stool, they’re solidly in place. Dedicated to mass transit, their egalitarian nature contrasts an upside down image of a stretch limo, printed on cellulose sponge and hung on the wall behind. (On view at Gagosian Gallery’s 980 Madison Ave 5th floor gallery).
After his recent travels to Central and South America, Berlin-based artist Julius von Bismarck returned with study specimens in the form of dried plants and a snake that have been heated in a huge, custom-built oven and flattened in a 50-ton hydraulic press. Backed on shaped stainless steel, the tongue-in-cheek souvenirs present botanical investigation as art. (On view in Chelsea at Marlborough Contemporary through May 20th).
