The Haas Brothers at Marianne Boesky Gallery

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Inspired by tree fungus, coral and other structures in the natural world that build up over time, The Haas Brothers’ bronzes at Chelsea’s Marianne Boesky Gallery are typically quirky in form and attractive in their shiny and patinaed bronze surfaces.  Inspired by psychedelic aspects of Stevie Wonder’s 1973 album ‘Innervisions,’ after which the artists titled the show, the works trend towards the hallucinatory. In this piece, tentacle-like forms seem to reach out towards visitors like living extensions of the seed-like form below.  On the wall, patterned paintings formed by squeezing bottles of acrylic paint echo the accretion process used to make the bronzes while adding lush color to the exhibition.  (On view through June 15th).

The Haas Bros, Holden Ball-field, patinated cast bronze, marble base, bronze: 34 x 28 x 13 inches, 2024.

Lubaina Himid at Greene Naftali Gallery

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Water, chickens, talismans and chairs are some of the goods on sale in vibrant and lively paintings of tradesmen and women in Lubaina Himid’s show of new paintings and prints at Greene Naftali Gallery in Chelsea. Accompanying each merchant is a signboard touting the seller’s wares in phenetic spellings that encouraging visitors to sound out each sales slogan.  Here, a woman selling baskets leans into a breeze while the world behind her manifests as a sturdy woven framework.  Her signboard touts the tight weave of her baskets; on the verso appear the seller’s private thoughts – in this case, an invitation, ‘feel them with your fingertips.’ (On view through June 15th).

Lubaina Himid, Basket Seller, acrylic on canvas, 96 x 72 inches, 2023.
Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska, Baskets Tightly Woven, unique screenprint acrylic paint, and Charbonnel etching ink on Somerset Tub Sized 600 gsm paper (double-sided), 36 5/8 x 29 7/8 inches, 2024.
Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska, Baskets Tightly Woven (verso), 2024.

Maurizio Cattelan at Gagosian Gallery

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“I had become addicted to shooting, like one becomes addicted to a drug,” said artist Niki de Saint Phalle of her ‘Shooting Pictures’ from the ‘60s, for which she fired a shotgun at surfaces prepared with bags of paint.  Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Sunday,’ a 71’ wall of gold-plated steel panels marked with holes and bullets on view at Gagosian Gallery, argues something similar, but with the U.S. as the speaker.  Telling the New York Times in a recent interview that “we are completely immersed in violence every day, and we’ve gotten used to it,” Cattelan hired locals at a New York shooting range to create a bullet-riddled gold and steel wall that towers over gallery visitors, confronting us with our own reflections amid the damage. (On view in Chelsea through June 15th).

Maurizio Cattelan, (detail of) Sunday, 24-karat gold plated steel panel shot with different caliber weapons, 854 x 213.5 x 1.5 inches, 2024.

Yvonne Pacanosky Bobrowicz at Sapar Contemporary

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In her 70+ year career, Yvonne Pacanosky Bobrowicz helped pioneer fiber art as fine art, teaching for decades at Drexel University and placing her work in both corporate and public collections.  Two years after she passed away at the age of 94, Pacanosky Bobrowicz’s beautiful and complex sculptural work is on view at Sapar Contemporary in Tribeca.  Created from knotted monofilament which she mixed with fiber and gold leaf, the artist’s signature ‘cosmic energy fields,’ as she called them, express her fascination with physics and philosophy.  (On view through June 1st).

Yvonne Pacanosky Bobrowicz, Cosmic Series Amber, 16 x 14 x 4 inches, monofilament, 2015.

Diedrick Brackens at Jack Shainman Gallery

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LA artist Diedrick Brackens has called his weavings ‘a small healing tribute’ to those who came before him, depicting Black figures in moments of peace but using materials like cotton which have a heavy history in the U.S.  His latest solo show, on view at Jack Shainman Gallery’s Chelsea and Tribeca locations, includes the dramatic, ‘if you have ghosts,’ which features a silhouetted figure surrounded by a swirling wind.  Reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s perfect proportions expressed by his Vitruvian Man drawing and including Romanesque architecture, the figure appears to step forth from history to command this supernatural event.  (On view through May 24th in Tribeca and June 1st in Chelsea).

Diedrick Brackens, if you have ghosts, cotton and acrylic yarn, 105 x 105 inches (approx.), 2024.