Known for small-scale black and white photographs that focus on her own body in rooms that look uninhabited and neglected, Francesca Woodman has influenced generations of photographers attracted by the ethereal and enigmatic quality of her work and its psychological charge. In a show of the artist’s photographs from 1975 – 1980 at Gagosian Gallery’s 24th Street Chelsea location, the gallery walls are lined with intimate images, interrupted by the monumental ‘Blueprint for a Temple (II),’ featuring contemporary women as caryatids on an ancient Greek temple. Notes and additional shots of the Greek key pattern in New York rental apartment bathrooms are positioned around the edge of the partial temple, connecting an ancient sacred space with the modern bathroom, two places Woodman identified as, ‘offering a note of calm and peacefulness.’ (On view through April 27th).
Kaloki Nyamai at James Cohan Gallery
Nairobi-based artist Kaloki Nyamai’s New York solo debut at James Cohan Gallery introduces an artist who uses acrylic paint, stitching and photo transfer to create complex surfaces that suggest complicated histories. This painting’s title, ‘The one who stole my heart,’ features a figure leaning back into a man whose outward-looking eyes connect with our gaze. In contrast to the couple’s intimate, relaxed moment, partially visible figures in the background raise their arms in what could be celebration or protest. Elsewhere, photo transfers contrast happy moments of communal activity with news articles about political unrest as Nyamai juxtaposes the lives of individuals with larger social happenings. (On view through May 4th).
Zaria Forman at Winston Wachter
Zaria Forman’s monumental polar landscapes, rendered in intricate detail in pastel, have afforded her national recognition and the chance to work with NASA as an artist. In her latest solo show at Winston Wachter Gallery in Chelsea, Forman continues to capture the beauty of ice in renderings of an Icelandic glacial lagoon. Fragments of ice washed ashore and resting on black volcanic sand look like jewels, while bubbles trapped in ice form a dynamic, abstract composition. Forman’s focus is on the specifics of landscape vs the climate changes impacting it, and her work offers a moment to appreciate the sublime as it presently exists. (On view in Chelsea through March 30th in SoHo).
Vik Muniz at Sikkema Jenkins & Co
Known for constructing replica of famous artworks from unlikely materials (a well-known image of Jackson Pollock rendered in drizzled chocolate, junk from a landfill arranged to resemble a Picasso painting), Vik Muniz’s latest exhibition at Chelsea’s Sikkema Jenkins & Co includes new images of American icons constructed from shredded US currency. Sourced from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the bills are arranged to picture individuals including Harriet Tubman (whose image is scheduled to appear on the $20 bill staring in 2030) and the Lakota chief American Horse as well as images seen as representing the country, like the American eagle and this bison. Once symbolic of the vast and fertile North American landscape, informed contemporary viewers might now see bison as victims of mass slaughter by European settlers. (On view in Chelsea through April 27th).
Emilija Skarnulyte at Canal Projects
Lithuanian artist Emilija Skarnulyte pictures herself swimming between the cold, concrete-colored waters of Brazil’s Rio Solimoes and the warmer darkness of the rainforest fed Rio Negro in an absorbingly fantastical video on view at Canal Projects in SoHo/Tribeca through Saturday. Wearing a mermaid costume and navigating these two water bodies as they meet but before their distinctive colors, temperatures and chemical makeup merge into the Amazon River, Sharknulyte introduces many viewers to a phenomenon so strange (the waters go for 6km before finally mixing) as to seem unreal. As the artist swims, pink Amazon River dolphins playfully come near, an interaction which adds to the disbelief and amazement, allowing viewers to appreciate a wonderous ecosystem. In an unfortunate coda, climate change and fires in the Amazon caused this waterway to dry up after filming, killing many of the area’s famous dolphins. (On view through March 30th).