Young Israeli painter Maya Bloch is making a splash on the Lower East Side with her liquidy portraits of anonymous characters. This one’s indirect gaze, sloping face and coiffure that looks more like geology than a hairdo suggests an ageless, ghostly presence. (At Thierry Goldberg Gallery through Feb 17th).
Maya Bloch, Untitled, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2012.
Bureau Gallery’s exhibition space is so small (one of the tiniest in the city), it’s hard to find room to take a photograph of ‘Monsalvat,’ a sprawling exhibition of work by over fifty artists. Inspired by the Arthurian tale of the Fischer King, artist/curator duo Merkx & Gwynne recreate a version of the king’s castle here, complete with mystical relics (including the grail) crafted by stand-out young artists. (On the Lower East Side through Feb 17th).
Installation view of ‘Monsalvat’ at Bureau Gallery, Feb 2013.
Nari Ward’s installation of 300 abandoned baby strollers culled from Harlem streets in 1993 is a far cry from the banks of stroller parking around the city’s more family-friendly neighborhoods today. Here, surrounded and entwined by flattened fire hoses (they were first displayed in an abandoned fire house) and displayed to the sounds of Mahalia Jackson’s ‘Amazing Grace,’ they’re emblems of a gritty, made-do urban existence. (At the New Museum’s Studio 231 space next door to the museum through April 21st)
Nari Ward, ‘Amazing Grace,’ installation view at Studio 231, New Museum, approx 300 baby strollers and fire hoses, 1993.
South African photograher Zwelethu Mthethwa’s mother had a hope chest, a custom made box gifted to her when she married and left her childhood home. Likened to a time capsule, women keep the chest their entire lives. In Mthethwa’s ‘Hope Chest’ series, we don’t get a look inside the boxes, but what we do see – the lives and circumstances of everyday South Africans – are just as fascinating. (At Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery through Feb 23rd).
Zwelethu Mthethwa, Untitled (Hope Chest series), digital c-print, 2012. Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery.
A picture of a woman with a plastic bag, bubble wrap or toilet paper rolls on her head is going to get nothing but laughs, right? Not if it’s one of Dutch photographer Hendrik Kerstens’ portraits of his daughter, Paula, who manages an ethereal elegance while wearing a stack of doilies that evokes the elaborate collars worn by sitters in Old Master paintings. (At Danziger Gallery, Chelsea, through Feb 16th).
Hendrik Kerstens, ‘Doily,’ pigment print, 2011. Courtesy of Danziger Gallery.
Facility with any particular medium isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for making outstanding artwork any more, which makes Joseph Stashkevetch’s detailed nature scenes all the more enjoyable. Created by sanding away the surface of his rag paper and adding to it with conte crayon, his drawings have an engaging soft focus. Both Stashkevetch’s effort and the geological process he describes are astounding. (At Von Lintel Gallery through Feb 23rd).
‘Drawing in space’ is a familiar term used to describe abstract sculpture, but it turns literal in Wang Xieda’s new bronze sculpture at James Cohan Gallery, which brings Chinese calligraphy into three-dimensions. (In Chelsea through Feb 9th).
On the subject of ceramics (see yesterday’s post about Takuro Kuwata), Matthias Merkel Hess takes an amusing position on aesthetics vs use value in contemporary ceramics with these beautiful gas cans. (At Louis B. James, Lower East Side through Feb 22nd. )
Though Takuro Kuwata’s first US solo exhibition is titled ‘Flavor of Nature,’ the vivid reds, blues, golds and metallic glazes of his ceramics come across as anything but natural. This ‘stone explosion’ vessel was made by adding stones to his clay mix, which surface when fired. (At Salon 94 Bowery, Lower East Side, through Feb 25).
British conceptual artist Lucy Skaer once left a diamond and a scorpion together on an Amsterdam street. ‘Us to Them V,’ a photo of Skaer comparing natural materials to French Post-Impressionist Eduoard Vuillard’s 1895 painting ‘Album’ in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, isn’t quite so dangerous. But it does make a strange juxtaposition that interrupts usual ways of thinking of 19th century art. (At Simone Subal Gallery the group show ‘It’s Over There,’ Lower East Side through Feb 10th).
Ishmael Randall Weeks’ mountain range – suspended in the middle of Eleven Rivington’s Chrystie Street space – is composed of carved texts about revolution in Latin America, turning writing about imagined utopias into a depiction of a real place. (On the Lower East Side through Feb 10th).
LA video artist Doug Aitken, known for ambitious projects like his film projections on the exterior walls of MoMA and the Hirshhorn Museum, has created a smaller scale but no less intense installation piece for his latest show at 303 Gallery in Chelsea. The centerpiece is ‘Sonic Fountain,’ which allows drips to fall from the ceiling into a hole dug in the gallery floor in patterns that create a song that’s been likened to breathing. (Through March 23rd).
Turin-based artist Fabio Viale – who started working with marble when he was 16 – once rolled a 2,000 lb marble sculpture of a tire through the city streets. These pristine marble ‘tires’ haven’t seen that much action but tied together, they’re a surprising feat of technical accomplishment. See them Saturday, Feb 9th, 2-4pm on Merrily’s Lower East Side gallery tour. (At Sperone Westwater on the Lower East Side, through Feb 23rd).
‘Festone’ (festoon) feels like the perfect title for this festive, beautifully colored acrylic painting by Turin-based painter Giorgio Griffa. Hurricane Sandy damaged the delicate-appearing work in his first New York solo show since 1970 in October; now the prolific Griffa, who folds and shelves his paintings upon completion, is back with a new selection of pleasingly minimal abstractions worth celebrating. (At Chelsea’s Casey Kaplan Gallery through March 2nd).
Context is everything when it comes to Gaylen Gerber’s ‘collaborative’ artworks, including this Nigerian cowrie shell currency basket and a Makonde mask from Mozambique/Tanzania from mid-20th century, which the artist has titled ‘Support’ and covered in white oil paint. Questions of whose work is whose and whether Gerber is defacing, erasing or enhancing the ‘supports’ mingles with thoughts of Picasso, et al’s appropriation of African art, all to provocative effect. (At Chelsea’s Wallspace Gallery through Feb 9th).
How do you morph a white-cube gallery into a revitalized, post-industrial space? Try Matthew Darbyshire’s vinyl banners, based on an architect’s rendering of public space. They create a pleasingly anodyne setting, perfect to host Darren Bader’s conceptual art piece in which plants and people converse with each other (or in the moment captured here, huddle over an iPhone.) (At Lisa Cooley Gallery, Lower East Side, through Feb 3rd).
Discover Chelsea’s newest gallery and more this Saturday (11am – 1pm) on Merrily’s first group gallery tour of the year! Iconic European artist Dieter Roth merged art and life to the point of exhibiting impressive chunks of his studio floor that bear the traces of decades of art making. Email merrily to reserve your spot: merrily@newyorkarttours.com. (If you’ve toured with Merrily before, take 25% off your ticket price!)
‘Nets’ by young, Maine-based painter Sascha Braunig blurs the boundaries between her subject and his/her background, begging the question of where this individual’s boundaries lie. Is (s)he real or virtual? What effects have applied? And where might we meet such a person? (At Chelsea’s Foxy Production, through Feb 9th).
German-Swiss-Icelandic artist Dieter Roth (1930 – 1998) used natural materials like chocolate, cheese, bananas, sausages and rabbit dung to make sculptures and images that would blossom with new life as they aged. Here, assistants create chocolate casts of Roth’s famous chocolate or sugar self-portrait busts, as seen on the pallet. (At Chelsea’s Hauser & Wirth through April 13th).
Boasting ‘one of the largest column-free spaces for exhibiting art in the city,’ Hauser & Wirth’s spectacular new Chelsea location even has an impressive entrance. Work no. 1461 by British conceptual art titan Martin Creed is a permanent installation consisting of 2-inch wide adhesive tapes whose vivid colors lend visitors the energy to climb the stairs. Check back tomorrow for a peek upstairs.
In the late 60s, when the avant-garde sidelined painting for Minimalism, Performance and Conceptual art, Daniel Buren forged ahead with ‘painting’ that jettisoned aesthetic concerns. He hit on a formula that he’s used ever since, using vertical stripes 8.7cm in width in site specific installations that force reconsideration of their space. Petzel’s new 18th Street gallery space has barely had time to be considered (this is only the 2nd show there), but Buren’s work has never looked more attractive.
Meg Webster’s aesthetic is minimal but rife with references to the natural world. Her current show at Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery includes paper covered with egg of free-range chickens and a sand bed from 1982/2012, which she originally brought into her studio from the beach. Both are reflected in this cross-shaped sculpture designed to reflect outstretched arms. (Through Feb 9th).
We conceive of and show off our identities via our clothes, but how often do we really ponder the look, feel, size and meaning of our garments? Julie Allen, known for her meticulous sculptures and drawings of objects important in her personal life, created this underwear from Saran Wrap and tape as one of hundreds of drawings and sculptures made to mark her recent marriage and revel in intimacies enjoyed. (At McKenzie Fine Art on the Lower East Side through Feb 3rd).
Nothing else in Chelsea looks remotely like Brooklyn-based sculptor Robert Lazzarini’s latest sculptures at Marlborough Gallery (through Feb 16th). Partly inspired by the 1973 movie Badlands, they and evoke an American roadtrip gone badly wrong.
This fence was welded together from over two-hundred individually cast steel pieces. Lazzarini’s attention to detail goes far – he even made the barbed wire. It’s the most impressive piece in the show not only in terms of how much work went into it, but in how Lazzarini reimagines a metal fence blowing as if it were a cloth or flag gently flapping the in breeze.
Lazzarini called this melting liquor sign the ‘most profound piece in the show,’ saying, ‘It speaks to a damage within society that is not easily seen.’ In person, the sculpture’s text is surprisingly difficult to read, as if we had had one too many. Its towering, ghostly presence is a highlight of the show.
Vaults, blown open and empty, are such a Hollywood staple that this twisted lockbox looks strangely familiar. Finding it twisted in the corner, as if in a fun-house mirror, is not so expected. While struggling with that not-quite-clear sense of déjà vu, check out the sculpture’s most amazing feature – its perfectly skewed lock.
Charlotte Dumas’s photographs of the horses who participate in soldier burials at Arlington National Cemetery are shot ‘at home,’ in their stables after hours. Out of their work context, they’re portrayed as individuals, and the effect is striking. Originally commissioned by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, they’re now on view at Chelsea’s Julie Saul Gallery through March 9th.
Jacob Kassay’s electroplated canvases – paintings made with old photographic processes – became better known in the past year or so for their astronomical prices than their artistic merit. In Kassay’s current show at The Kitchen one of the signature silver-colored pieces sits in the gallery corner behind a beam, an unambiguous message that the artist has moved on. (At The Kitchen through Feb 16th).
Kids from PS 63 in the South Bronx discovered that coloring with crayons isn’t as easy as it seems…At least not when the crayons are over two feet long. Berlin-based South African artist Robin Rhode created wall decals and handed over the crayons, letting the children discover that being an artist can be hard work. (At Lehmann Maupin’s Lower East Side Gallery through March 16th).
Louise Despont brings together representations of the constellations Ophichus and Serpens with Persian carpet imagery in her amazingly intricate graphite and colored pencil drawing, ‘Serpens.’ Created on collected vintage accounting ledgers, this labor intensive piece wows with its detail and evocation of esoteric bodies of knowledge. (At Nichelle Beauchene Gallery’s new Lower East Side location, 327 Broome Street through Jan 20th.)
A cement truck crashes on an empty highway whose grey surface is mirrored in the air, the red color from the hood bleeds onto the roadway, forming a colorful abstraction, while a skinny kid in an astronaut’s helmet looks on. It could only be a painting by David Humphry, whose signature mix of abstraction and realism, saturated colors and colliding stories awaken possibilities for strange stories. (At Fredricks & Freiser through Jan 19th).
Former celebrity photographer David LaChapelle creates an uncomfortable memento mori for the jet set in his latest solo show at Paul Kasmin Gallery with ‘Still Life,’ a series begun after the National Wax Museum in Dublin was vandalized in 2009. Here, the Prince of Wales lies shattered in a box next to Heath Ledger & near Cameron Diaz. (Through Jan 19th).
Andy Warhol is at the top of the contemporary art market, Rosemarie Trockel has a well-received solo exhibition at the New Museum. Neither’s accomplishments seem to phase Sean Bluechel, whose glazed ceramic bananas (reminiscent of Warhol’s famed fruit) appear to rain down on a Trockel knit wool painting from 1986 in ‘Banana Pissing Bananas on Trockel.’ (At Chelsea’s Nicole Klagsbrun, through January 19th.)
From Belgium’s colonial past to The Disney Company’s practices, Luc Tuymans’s past paintings have obliquely referenced the exercise of power and control. By contrast, his latest body of work presents fragments from his own life, including this ominous image of a zoo building and a jacket, which looks like a modernist abstraction plus or minus a body. (At David Zwirner Gallery, 519 West 19th Street through Feb 9th).
There’s more amazing artwork in New York than we can feature! Join Merrily on a small group gallery tour and be inspired by all that the city’s galleries have to offer. Please visit New York Art Tours’ website for a schedule and to book your spot.
For her last Chelsea solo show in the fall, Andrea Zittel’s carpet, garments, and wall hangings asked how many ways a rectangle can be manipulated to create art & design. In MoMA’s 53rd Street windows, her quasi-minimalism object/humanoid characters sport coverings that could be dress or artwork.
Monika Sosnowska’s ‘Fir Tree,’ a 40 foot tall steel sculpture currently located at the southeast entrance to Central Park is just a step beyond the park’s trees but is more in keeping with the solid, man-made structures surrounding the park. It belongs to neither world, however, and its lack of cheer and melted, post-disaster appearance lend it an ominous intrigue. (Through Feb 17th).
The Museum of Modern Art recently rehung its contemporary art galleries, making room for an entire room of work by photography trailblazer Wolfgang Tillmans. It includes this recent experimental abstraction created by chemical processes in the darkroom and thirty iconic photos of European youth culture, displayed in a typically unconventional arrangement.
It’s easy to lose track of time while visiting galleries, but not at Chelsea’s Harris Lieberman Gallery, where Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade amplifies the sound of eight pocket watches, hung from the gallery ceiling. This spare installation entices viewers to wander through chains and wires, analog and digital components that prompt consideration of our place in time and space. (Through Jan 12th.)
Ed Ruscha’s legendary artist book ‘Twentysix Gasoline Stations’ (1963) zeroed in on banal subject matter to question its importance in American culture. In his latest solo show at Gagosian Gallery’s 24th Street location, Ruscha continues to pursue both books and paintings in works like Gilded, Marbled and Foiled, a painting that considers this book as a physical object more than a means of communication. (Through Jan 12th.)
‘Fresh, direct and very much of this moment,’ is how the New York Times described Brooklyn artist Keltie Ferris’ show of large, digital-looking handmade oil and acrylic paintings at Chelsea’s Mitchell-Innes & Nash. Blurs of sprayed paint suggest a plane’s vapor trail while carefully painted pixel-like blocks of yellow-orange color lend the painting a jumpy energy. (Through Jan 12th.)
Danish painter Tal R translates the world into more vibrant colors in paintings which give everyday places a fairground appeal, albeit a slightly foreboding one. In ‘The Minute,’ the biomorphic shapes of the clouds suggest strange happenings while a dark corner looks like the folded corner of a book page. (At Chelsea’s Cheim & Read Gallery through January 12th.)
Ever struggle to print something from the computer? Wade Guyton heroizes the process, creating his artwork by devising images on his computer, then battling to run his linen supports through large printers. The untitled piece on the left started as an x typed on his screen; the multi-panel piece on the right as the word ‘us.’ (At the Whitney Museum through 1/13.)
Elegant and sinister at the same time, Jeff Zimmerman’s hand-blown and hand-shaped glass light sculptures from 2009 are now on view as part of the Museum of Art and Design’s ‘Playing with Fire: 50 Years of Contemporary Glass.’ If you enjoy learning and sharing about contemporary art and design, consider volunteering as a MAD Docent; training begins this spring.
Ellie Murphy’s ‘Omega Female’ is a standout in ‘To Be A Lady,’ a diverse group show of work by 45 female artists at the 1285 Avenue of the Americas Art Gallery. Using acrylic yarn, cotton, and steel in one of her signature large yarn sculptures, Murphy creates a figure as totemic as it is folksy, suggesting a anthropomorphized sea creature with long tentacles as well as a prairie settler with brown braid and print-patterned, pillow-like head. (Through Jan 18th).
In a 20-year retrospective of his work at Chelsea’s Metro Pictures Gallery, Gary Simmons’ ‘Stardust, Blizzard’ from 2006 is a standout. Simmons turns two terms for cocaine into beautiful but haunting text images using his signature, hand-smearing technique. (Through Jan 19th.)
In advance of Ghanaian artist El Anatsui’s show of monumental works at the Brooklyn Museum opening early next month, Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery is currently showing elegant new, quasi-textile artworks created from the artist’s signature material – metal sourced from recycled liquor bottles. (through Jan 19th).
The party continues in the Museum of Modern Art’s atrium (which this fall has housed group dance sessions and a monumental garage sale) with British designer Philip Worthington’s interactive installation, ‘Shadow Monsters.’ When visitors stand in front of a lightbox, vision recognition software tracks their movements and adds teeth, tongues, eyes and more to their shadows in two huge projections on the atrium walls. (Through January 2nd.)
Artist Nicholas Party is aptly named considering his mixed media installation, ‘Dinner for 24 Dogs’ which he designed for a dinner party at Salon 94 this fall. Seen here afterwards at Salon94’s Freemans Alley space, 24 hand painted ceramic plates that once held artistically arranged edibles rest on a sliced, patterned table while wooden dogs wait patiently below to support the diners who complete this participatory artwork. (At the LES’s Salon 94 Freemans through Dec 22nd).
Rodney Graham is the artist behind this brightly colored lightbox titled ‘Sunday Sun, 1937,’ but who is the character hidden by the Technicolor funnies surrounded by gentile flowers on wallpaper and bedspread? Male or female, kid or adult, this character maintains his/her private world of reading pleasure with an upturned paper. (At 303 Gallery, Chelsea, through Dec 21st).
The sheer size of ‘Wandering Songs I (Canti errabondi I)’ from 1983 makes it a standout in ‘Mario Merz: Major Works from the 1980s’ at Sperone Westwater Gallery on the Lower East Side. The Arte Povera artist’s natural materials abound in an oil painting of leaves and pine cones on a 25’ long canvas, accompanied by a block of beeswax formed around a tree branch. The contrast between nature depicted (the painting), sampled (the branch) and made (wax made by bees) gives the piece its energy. (through Dec 22nd).
Here’s a look at Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream,’ a version of the iconic artwork from 1895 in pastel-on-cardboard, currently installed at the Museum of Modern Art. Recently purchased at auction for nearly $120 million, its owner has anonymously loaned it to the museum for six months. (Arrive early to avoid a new nonmembers line just to get into the fifth floor galleries.)
Does anything say ‘elegant urban funky construction worker’ like a workman’s shirt with embroidered logo, workman’s jeans, a fur coat and a chicken bone necklace? This outfit from artist collective Bernadette Corporation’s mid-90s fashion label turns the street into a runway by merging everyday fashions with haute couture. (BC’s retrospective is in SoHo at Artists Space through Dec 16th).
Artist Mark Barrow and textile designer Sarah Parke (partners in art and life) turn the weave of a canvas into a work of art itself by devising loom patterns from red, green and blue thread to make a support. Barrow then applies additional paint to the surface in tiny dot patterns creating a kind of secondary artwork on top of the woven fabric. (At Elizabeth Dee Gallery, Chelsea through Dec 15th.)
Headless animals wander in and out of a bamboo cage-like structure while a giant deity collapses into pieces in Chinese-French artist Huang Yong Ping’s latest installation at Barbara Gladstone’s 21st Street gallery. The piece feels a little too eerie and apocalyptic for its cynical title, ‘Circus.’ (through Jan 19th.)
Four parallel rows of twenty-five Western Red Cedar timbers extend out from the walls of Chelsea’s Paula Cooper Gallery in Carl Andre’s 1977 piece ‘Redoubt.’ As much as it suggests a stronghold, the piece also recalls architectural ruins on the order of Roman ruins near Hadrian’s Wall. (through Dec 15th).
This collage by Fred Tomaselli (seen here in detail), is hidden away in James Cohan Gallery’s back viewing room but has been a big attention grabber on tours lately, and no wonder. Its color, pattern and mesmerizing detail give your eyes (all 20 of them?) and brains a workout.
Titled ‘Nova: Canopy,’ this meticulously detailed painting by Isabella Kirkland (an artist and a research associate in the department of aquatic biology at the California Academy of Sciences) brings together plants and creatures found in the rainforest canopy, though not all in the same geographic location. All discovered in the past twenty years, they’re a powerful testament to earth’s profusion. (At Feature, Inc’s group show ‘Punt’ on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd.)
Step into the entrance of Turkish artist Kutlug Ataman’s latest solo at Sperone Westwater and you step into the flow of the Iguazu Falls in Argentina…or at least a projection of them in ‘Mayhem,’ a seven channel installation on screens and the floor. Ataman explains the piece as a response to the Arab Spring as it symbolizes cleansing and destroying power. (At Sperone Westwater on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd).
Not every piece of art commissioned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority ends up looking great in the subway system, but that’s not the case with this instantly enticing new installation by noted light artist Leo Villareal titled ‘Hive (Bleeker Street)’ on the uptown 6 platform at Bleeker. Created from LED tubes, aluminum and stainless steel, the honeycomb patterned lights constantly shift color, creating a welcome distraction for worker bees. (On permanent display).
Never one to shy away from controversy, Daniel Joseph Martinez’s latest body of work at Simon Preston Gallery features a hunchbacked figure in a Pope’s mitre, praying on an Afghan prayer rug, and tattooed with ‘blasphemous inscriptions in Hebrew, Arabic and Latin’ (according to the gallery handout). Is this social commentary or overkill? (Through Dec 23rd.)
Why does Kent Rogowski’s light sculpture ‘I Can’t Stop Thinking About Yesterday’ strike me as having excellent gift potential (for the right situation)? Too bold to be a declaration of love, it could be a stunningly straightforward way of starting an apology. (At Jen Bekman on Spring nr Bowery, through Dec 9th).
Lin Tianmiao ‘s installation at Chelsea’s Galerie Lelong, titled ‘Badges,’ features sixty embroidered American and Chinese slang terms for women, most of which aren’t particularly flattering. When asked for a recent Artnews article if she’d call herself feminist, Lin’s great reply was “…in China, we don’t have that tradition…but no matter how you look at it…it is better to have respect in mind and equality in mind.” (through Dec 15th).
Jules de Balincourt’s soldiers have a dazed, world-weary expression and, like Andy Warhol’s ‘Triple Elvis,’ each has at least one shadow character in near proximity. In this detail from the larger painting ‘Off Base,’ the artist turns the mens’ face paint camouflage into Fauvist masks that resonate with a reinterpreted Matisse painting nearby. (At Salon94 Bowery, on the Lower East Side, through January 13th.)
Mickalene Thomas is having her moment in New York, with gallery shows at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in Chelsea and on the Lower East Side while her retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum continues. This landscape, now on view on the Lower East Side and titled ‘Vertical View of Jardin D’Eau’ was inspired by Thomas’ residency at Monet’s residence and garden at Giverny, home of his famous water lilies. (At Lehmann Maupin Gallery through Jan 5th).
Though it looks like a mini-version of a Doug Wheeler Light & Space installation crossed with a urinal and an abstracted cleavage, this wall indentation (designed by architecture firm Diller, Scofidio & Renfro) is the receptacle for an artwork that is scent alone. It is one of twelve concoctions on display in the Museum of Art & Design’s ‘The Art of Scent’ and is called L’Eau d’Issey after designer Issay Miyake, who commissioned a scent that would suggest water. (Through Feb 24th, 2013).
For a decade, Trenton Doyle Hancock’s busy, messy and captivating collages told the tales of his invented creatures – the Mounds and the Vegans. He leaves those characters behind in his latest solo show at Chelsea’s James Cohan Gallery, but not before making this disconcerting self-portrait in which his eye and mostly removed face emerges from the open maw of a screaming, striped Mound. (through Dec 22nd)
London-based artist Alice Channer’s sculpture ‘Backbone’ makes the best use of stirrup pants ever. Cast in polyurethane resin and paired with aluminum bars, they elegantly slink across the gallery floor towards two huge vertical banners featuring elongated shampoo bottles. (At Lisa Cooley Gallery on the Lower East Side through Dec 23rd).
Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi’s window installation at Chelsea’s Lombard-Freid Gallery remains from pre-Hurricane Sandy, though his installation of politically attuned drawings made directly on newpaper front-pages had not yet opened when this photo was taken – exactly three weeks after the storm. It’s a poignant plug for critical thinking.
Installation art pioneers Edward & Nancy Kienholz’s 1985 sculpture ‘The Ozymandias Parade’ is heartfelt and bitter enough to give pause to both post U.S. presidential election gloaters and wound-lickers. Depicting a national leader and his deputy falling from horses and a top ranking general riding an elderly taxpayer’s back, it also reveals the results of a poll taken this fall prior to the installation asking, “Are you happy with your government?’ The answer was ‘no.’ (At Pace Gallery, 510 West 25th Street through Dec 22nd).
Join me on one of my final art gallery tours of 2012! On Dec 1st, 2-4pm, we’ll be seeing the best that Chelsea has to offer. The next day, Sunday Dec 2nd, 10:30am – 12pm, I’ve added an additional tour of ‘Regarding Warhol’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On December 8th, 11am – 1pm (a new time), we’ll check out the highlights of New York’s more experimental galleries on the Lower East Side. And as always, if you can’t join me on a tour, I’m glad we can see ‘an outstanding artwork a day’ together on Facebook!
Anish Kapoor’s concave sculptures, like this untitled stainless steel and lacquer disk currently at Chelsea’s Barbara Gladstone Gallery (24th Street location), are austere and elegant, a complete contrast to the lively Gangnam style video he recently released in support of artist/activist Ai Weiwei and Amnesty International. It’s worth another Gangnam parody just to see clips from dancing staff at MoMA, the Whitney, Guggenheim, and Gladstone Gallery and more.
Whale-lovers beware at Barnaby Furnas’ latest solo show at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea – riffing on Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’ and Jonah’s cetacean misadventure, Furnas’s new paintings picture whalers in total, gory triumph. Inspired by the fact that whale oil provided light for lamps, Furnas bathes a tattered Jonah in celestial light as he reaches shore, prepared to follow a new path. (Through Dec 21st).
Xavier Gravas is adrift in the contemporary, communication-saturated world. Consternation bows the perfect swoosh of his arching eyebrows. His full lips are set grimly together. He is an invented character that his creator, Aukland-based artist Peter Stichbury, calls a ‘Superfluous Man.’ Haunted by a sense of insignificance, Xavier peruses personal perfection to exquisite and troubling effect. (At Chelsea’s Tracy Williams, Ltd., through Dec 22nd).
Charles Ray’s sculptural self-portrait is stunningly perfect – his body has the unflawed, fluid shine of poured mercury – and relentlessly banal – he sports an everyman physique and needs to tie a shoelace. This first impression holds true to the man vs machine process he used to create the sculpture: a digital drawing is recreated as a clay sculpture which becomes the model for a computer controlled machine that sculpts the sculpture from a solid piece of steel. (At Matthew Marks Gallery on 22nd Street through Jan 12.)
Yinka Shonibare’s crafty revolutionary looks set for success with money, guns and communications, as embodied by his ’12 ‘Revolution Kid (fox girl),’ spotted today in the back viewing room of Chelsea’s James Cohan Gallery. Toting a blackberry and a 24 carat gold gilded gun and dressed in Shonibare’s signature Dutch-imported, ‘African’ textiles, she begs the question of who she is and who’s backing her.
From its invention, artists manipulated photographs to show what the camera couldn’t capture – from moving clouds to group portraits – and to produce a more interesting composition. This unknown British artist’s photo from the 1910s in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s ‘Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop’ exhibition shows true love, if not a true image. (Through Jan 27th).
Kevin Zucker’s new paintings of resort hotels in the rain might make us feel bad for the terrible weather on his travels…if he’d actually travelled. Drawn together from various digital photos, imaginary scenes like ‘Rain (Paradise Cove Towers)’ resonate with recent work by other artists who have created ‘street photography’ from Google Street View. However, as paintings, they seem to have more gravitas, regardless of how his dot technique emphasizes digital origins. (At Eleven Rivington on the Lower East Side through Dec 22nd).
Martha Rosler’s ‘Meta-Monumental Garage Sale’ officially opens tomorrow at MoMA, allowing visitors to browse and buy second-hand clothes, furniture, home décor and more collected by the artist. Though MoMA’s major art acquisitions make headlines, buying and selling is strictly behind the scenes; here, Rosler puts consumption – the kind involving money AND aesthetics – center stage. (Though Nov 30th, opens at 12pm).
Constructed of layers of cardboard, plywood, foam and felt, Phyllida Barlow’s untitled column sculptures at Hauser & Wirth are monumental without being macho. Bright, enticing colors and soft materials humanize these minimalist stacks. (At Hauser & Wirth, 32 East 69th Street through 12/22).
Eberhard Havekost’s painting ‘Ocean’ is once again on display as Chelsea’s Anton Kern Gallery reopened today, post-Sandy. It’s a standout in a show about Havekost as artist and consumer, who transforms an enviable body (sourced from a German ad) into a mottled obstacle to the paradisiacal scene behind. (Through Dec 15th).
Chelsea is slowly coming back to life, post-Sandy. Yancey Richardson Gallery just reopened a show of panorama photos by Hellen van Meene including this portrait of an exquisite girl in a dilapidated interior, taken in Heiloo, Netherlands in ’08. (Though Nov 24th.)
Faded posters of ‘fade’ hairdos headline Barb Choit’s latest solo show, ‘Fade Diary.’ Featuring non-professional models, they recall yearbook photos, anthropological studies and mug shots while documenting faded fashions. In another photo, a model sporting a red glove echoes past styles while reflecting the present day NYC street in an image that has resonance with Lee Friedlander’s store-front photos currently uptown at Pace Gallery. (At Rachel Uffner Gallery, Lower East Side through Dec 23rd.)
Painter Pieter Schoolwerth rewrites art history with a new series of paintings that remake 17th century French painter Simon Vouet’s 1635 ‘Aeneas and His Family Fleeing Troy.’ Here, Aeneas, his invalid father and his small son crowd into one dynamic figure (created from digital printout, drawn lines and thick areas of painting) in an urgent escape. (At Miguel Abreu Gallery, Lower East Side, through Dec 22nd).
Technique rather than subject matter (he’s painted portraits for over thirty years) drives interest in Chuck Close’s recent artwork. For this remake of his iconic ‘Mark’ (’78-’79), Close layered gesso on the paper and screenprinted a grid. Using a dowel with felt on the end, each square is hand stamped three times with different colors. Factor in a week’s drying time for each layer and it’s no wonder that edition of 40 is still being printed. (At Pace Prints, 57th Street through Nov 21st.)
Conceptual artist John Baldessari pairs song lyrics with images abstracted from canonical paintings in his latest series of paintings. The odd angle of this deer’s head gives its source away as an 1867 hunting scene by Gustave Courbet. The hunt looks more comical than gruesome in Baldessari’s version, though on reflection maybe both deer and fly should be spared. (At Marian Goodman Gallery, 57th Street, through Nov 21).
John Szarkowski, MoMA’s photography director for nearly 30 years, called Lee Friedlander’s nude photos, “… the most unblinkingly, unreservedly candid descriptions of other people’s bodies that serious photography has produced.” Pace Gallery proves his point with a show of photos from the late 70s to the early 90s that practically interrogate female bodies in their intensity. (On 57th Street through Dec 22nd).
Photographer Lee Friedlander returns to his roots by shooting reflective store windows with a 35mm camera in his latest series, titled ‘Mannequin.’ Here, a building’s façade tries to impose its grid on a Dolly-Parton-haired good-time girl while a curtain and rod at the top complicates ideas of public and private space. (At Pace/MacGill Gallery, 57th Street through Dec 22nd).
Andy Warhol’s Cow Wallpaper and Silver Clouds, originally created for a solo show at Leo Castelli Gallery in 1966, reunite in the final room of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s ‘Regarding Warhol’ exhibition for a jolt of interactive fun. Join Merrily on Sunday, Nov 18th (10am – 11:30am) for a small group tour of this blockbuster show. (Space is limited to six participants. $40pp. To make a reservation, please email merrily@newyorkarttours.com.)
Though not many of Olafur Eliasson’s projects are going to measure up to the impact of his past large-scale artworks (creating waterfalls on New York City’s East River or a sun in the Tate’s Turbine Hall), his latest solo show at Chelsea’s Tanya Bonakdar Gallery features this simple but mesmerizing display of three fountains, lit by strobes, which turn moving water into seemingly static sculptures. (through Dec 22nd).
Judy Pfaff’s new sculptures, on view at Chelsea’s Ameringer McEnery Yohe Gallery, channel Lynda Benglis’s neon colors and puffy forms, Louise Bourgeois’ or Yayoi Kusama’s profusion of phallic protrusions, and the commanding presence of a more recent wall-mounted Frank Stella. Yet the profusion of optical seduction is typical Pfaff, as seen in pieces like ‘The Path to the Center was Clearly Marked’ (2012), an over 7ft wide tour de force created from honeycomb cardboard, pigmented expanded form, melted plastics, fluorescent and incandescent light. (Through November 10th.)
Today, Joel Meyerowitz chatted with visitors to Howard Greenberg Gallery on the occasion of a show of his street photographs from the 60s and 70s, which include iconic shots like his couple in camel colored coats walking through NYC steam, the odd spectacle of a fallen man on a Paris sidewalk, and this eccentric human/cat threesome from New York’s 1964 Easter Parade. (On 57th Street through December 1st).
Glenn Ligon’s ‘Double America’ occupies its own room at a show of the artist’s text-based neon artworks made since ’05, enhancing the impact of a high-wattage piece that brings to the fore division and binary oppositions in this country. (At Chelsea’s Luhring Augustine Gallery through December 8th).
Known for vacuum forming objects (masks, a bomber jacket) in polystyrene, Seth Price explores new sealing options with giant fabric envelopes in his latest solo show – the inaugural exhibition in Petzel Gallery’s beautiful (pre-flood anyway) new 18th Street location. Printed with patterns derived from financial businesses like Capital One and Paychex logos, the envelopes suggest an unclear but persistent connection between art and commerce. (Through Dec 22nd.)
PPOW Gallery in Chelsea has some pretty pompous door greeters in the form of Judy Fox’s charmingly absurd, anthropomorphized ‘Large Octopus’ sculptures, subtitled ‘Dowager’ and ‘Elder.’ At around 2.5 and 3.5 feet high the duo are impressively large to be crafted in Fox’s signature terracotta & casein materials but small enough to present more of an amusement than a threat. (Through Dec 15th).
The Brooklyn Museum will open its doors tomorrow, a day after Sandy hit the city. In a cheeky, colorful display there, Moroccan-born, Paris-based artist Mounir Fatmi presents fifty skateboards covered in Islamic prayer rugs. Titled ‘Maximum Sensation,’ the installation begs the question of where we find heightened consciousness – in faith, sport or both? (On long-term installation in the Contemporary Art Galleries).
Nina Chanel Abney says she’s ‘living in an age of information overload,’ and her new paintings prove the point by piling up disguised references to mass media content, from politics to advertising. This detail – from an over 20-foot long mural titled ‘I Dread to Think’ – surprisingly jumbles race, religion and gender in two female deities. (At Kravets/Wehby Gallery and Anna Kustera Gallery on 21st Street in Chelsea through Nov 24th).
Mark Bradford is back with more of the mixed media collage/decollage canvases that have made his reputation as a leading contemporary abstract artist, like this mixed media on canvas piece, ‘We May Be Running Out of a Past.’ His latest solo show at Chelsea’s Sikkema Jenkins & Co opened this evening, showcasing eight huge, vibrantly colored pieces that don’t evidence a new direction for the artist but do explain his popularity. (Through Dec 15th .)
In the 90s, Zhan Wang caused a stir in China by intervening in the landscaping around new, modern buildings by replacing natural rock formations with his large, chrome-covered stainless steel scholars rocks. In the atrium of 590 Madison Ave, the ‘stones’ are in keeping with the glass wall and bamboo plantings, but they still have a ghostly, shape-shifting presence.
Strapped for cash to buy art supplies after a trip to Africa in the early 80s, Al Taylor started fashioning sculptures from material found on the street, transferring his usual work on paper and canvas to three dimensions. Cans & Hoops – fashioned from plastic hula hoops, tin cans & wire – allows his 2-D drawings to come alive in real space. (At David Zwirner Gallery, through Oct 27th).
With over 200 solo shows to his credit, Chuck Close is one of America’s best known artists, and he’s still pushing the boundaries of his craft. His latest solo show at Pace Gallery’s 534 W. 25th Street space features oil paintings, watercolors made with a printer and other works, including this portrait of artist Kara Walker made with oil and a felt hand stamp. (Through Dec 22nd.)
Mickalene Thomas’s ‘Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe: Les trois femmes noires,’ rethinks Manet’s 1863 original by substituting three black women for Manet’s two men and a nude woman. Manet’s version was rejected by the Salon, while Thomas’s rhinestone bedecked beauties headline her current show at the Brooklyn Museum (Through Jan 20th.)
