The Campus, Claverack, New York

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Hottest ShowPosted on No Comments

If you’ve ever enjoyed exploring MoMA’s PS1, an art space housed in a former Queens public school, you’ll love rambling around the atmospheric new 78,000 sq ft art space The Campus, housed in a former high school just outside Hudson, NY.  Work by nearly 100 artists, mostly represented by NYC galleries Bortolami, James Cohan, kaufmann repetto, Anton Kern, Andrew Kreps and kurimanzutto fills the gym, hallways, classrooms and grounds around the large, low-slung, 1951 building.  Organized by Timo Kappeller, the handsomely installed inaugural show includes a metal butterfly sculpture by Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj (whose sculpture inspired by graffiti on school desks is currently on the roof of the Met Museum), text pieces by Jenny Holzer (currently showing at the Guggenheim) installed in a boys shower room, Madeline Hollander’s perpetual rolling metal knots (recently part of her solo show at Bortolami) and much, much more.  (Admission is free. Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 12pm – 5pm. On view through Oct 27th.)

The Campus, Claverack, NY

 

 

Petrit Halilaj at The Campus.
Jenny Holzer at The Campus.
Madeline Hollander at The Campus.

Mika Tajima at Hill Art Foundation

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Hottest ShowPosted on No Comments

Mika Tajima’s winter ’24 solo show at Chelsea’s Pace Gallery featured Jacquard loomed tapestries so large that the gallery referred to them as ‘architectural;’ the artist’s current solo show at the Hill Art Foundation takes the concept a step further in its handsome integration of artwork and the gallery space.   Here, a new work from Tajima’s ‘Negative Entropy’ series – referring to an application of energy to move away from disorder – dominates a floating wall, enhancing the dynamic effect of the wave pattern depicted in purple and yellow.  Past pieces from the series indirectly picture sound waves from computer activity or brain stimulation; here, the subtitle ‘Sound Bath…’ suggests a visualization of a healing activity, purposeful if abstracted.  (On view through July 26th).

Mika Tajima, Negative Entropy (Sound Bath, Purple, Full Width, Exa, cotton, polyester, wool, acoustic baffling felt, aluminum, white oak, 131 x 212 ½ x 3 ¾ inches, 2024.

Osgemeos at Lehmann Maupin Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Hottest ShowPosted on No Comments

Known for imagining idiosyncratic characters from dreamed up worlds, Brazilian street-artist twins Osgemeos are back at Lehmann Maupin Gallery with paintings and two installations that fill the gallery with vivid color and sound from a built-in DJ booth.  Pictured here, the gallery’s west wall houses a mystical architectural construction presided over by a nude man whose body has split in two to reveal a glowing inner self.  To either side, a celestial goddess holds a planet in her hand while a man whose head in encircled by flower petals smiles serenely.  In the sky, two heads circled by colorful lights – one of which is emerging from a UFO – light up the already bright skies over an installation that delights and entertains.  (On view in Chelsea through Aug 16th).

Osgemeos, installation view of ‘Cultivating Dreams,’ at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, June 2024.

Diamond Stingily at 52 Walker

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Hottest ShowPosted on No Comments

Diamond Stingily’s ‘Entryway’ sculptures, two of which are on view in her current solo show at 52 Walker, feature a well-worn front door, held upright in the gallery space and supporting a baseball bat.  Inspired by her grandmother’s practice of keeping a bat against the door for protection, Stingily rejects narratives of victimization in favor of female agency.  In other work, the artist sets closets into the gallery wall, their familiar louvered doors signaling the intimate space of the bedroom.  Open to reveal a collection of bats, a stack of bricks or a row of identical white shirts, the objects inside and accompanying articles from the newspaper-lined closet walls touch on a variety of topics, several to do with the exploitation or protection of female bodies.  (On view through Sept 14th in Tribeca).

Diamond Stingily, Entryway (City), door, bat and hardware, overall dimensions variable – as installed: 82 x 33 ½ x 83 inches, 2024.

Yu-Wen Wu in ‘Mother Lode: Material and Memory’ at James Cohan Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Hottest ShowPosted on No Comments

Nature supplies materials and inspiration to the artists in James Cohan Gallery’s 2-venue summer group show ‘Mother Lode: Material and Memory,’ an engaging and diverse exhibition that elicits sensitive regard for the environment.  Yu-Wen Wu’s ‘Acculturation III,’ composed of 143 gilded tea leaves arranged in a grid on the wall, is a standout in the show, and ruminates on the artist’s experience after she arrived from Taiwan to the US as a child.  Using tea – a material related to her family life in both locations – in arrangements that individually recall letters or collectively resemble an instructional diagram, Wu’s piece speaks to both similarity and uniqueness of each segment of tea branch, all encased in a precious material that testifies to the value of individual and group. (On view through June 26th).

Yu-Wen Wu, Acculturation III, 143 gilded tea leaves, metal pins, 10 x 96 inches 2022 – 24.
Yu-Wen Wu, (detail of) Acculturation III, 143 gilded tea leaves, metal pins, 10 x 96 inches 2022 – 24.