Tetsuya Ishida at Gagosian Gallery

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Workers are expendable in the alienated world depicted by Japanese artist Tetsuya Ishida in the late artist’s paintings at Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea.  Coming into adulthood in the Japan’s economic depression in the ‘90s, known as the country’s ‘Lost Decade,’ Ishida catalogued the dehumanizing effect of corporate culture in images that depict workers taking in food from nozzles as if in a gas station or emerging from train doors in the form of boxes with heads, ready for delivery and consumption.  Here, in ‘Exercise Equipment,’ a worried looking individual with Ishida’s features runs not for the health benefits, but to keep ahead of the workers poised to yank him from the treadmill.  (On view in Chelsea through Oct 21st).

Tetsuya Ishida, Exercise Equipment, acrylic on board, 1997.

Kathrin Linkersdorff at Yossi Milo Gallery

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German artist Kathrin Linkersdorff’s ‘Fairies,’ a series of vividly colored yet ethereal photographs of flowers now on view at Chelsea’s Yossi Milo Gallery, takes up the age-old concept of memento mori – a reminder of life’s brevity – with contemporary imagery of flowers.  While spending time working in Japan as an architect, Linkersdorff embraced her host country’s reverence for nature as well as the concept of wabi-sabi, or acceptance of imperfection and impermanence.  With both philosophies in mind, Linkersdorff dries flowers over long periods of time, extracting their pigment and reintroducing it into a liquid medium in which the flowers are suspended.  Resulting images like this one emphasize the delicacy and structure of the plants.  Pictured as if the pigments had suddenly dropped away from the petals, the artist suggests a magical deviation from expectation.  (On view through Oct 21st).

Kathrin Linkersdorff, Fairies, VI/3, archival pigment print on Hahnemuehle photo rag ultra smooth, 2021.

Sanford Biggers at Marianne Boesky Gallery

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‘Meet me on the Equinox,’ the title of Sanford Biggers’ show at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea deliberately evokes a point of convergence between different places or ideas, appropriate for new work that combines objects from a mix of cultures.  Pieces like this marble, wood and textile sculpture titled The Repatriate, continue Biggers’ interest in combining artifacts with different backgrounds, in this case a mask that is itself a collage of various African masks, a wooden platform inspired by bases of roadside shrines in Asia and beyond, and quilts that recall stories of textiles used to send messages on the Underground Railroad.  As its title suggests, Biggers explains that he was thinking of objects with identities that have been altered by context; as ownership changes, identity continues to evolve.  (On view in Chelsea through Oct 14th).

Sanford Biggers, The Repatriate, green marble and antique quilts on custom cedar plinth, 73 x 24 x 24 inches overall, unique within a series, 2023.

Liliana Porter at Bienvenu Steinberg and J

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Tiny figures perform enormous undertakings in delightfully absurd new sculpture and 2-D works by Liliana Porter at Bienvenu, Steinberg and J in Tribeca.  Miniscule men with leaf blowers raise up a storm of swirling forms while a little woman with an even smaller a basket of glitter spreads the shiny material into an expanding field of brightness.  Ruptures in scale and contrasts between the real and represented are the stock in trade of Porter’s six decades of artmaking.  Here, magical scenarios convert mundane acts by individuals into aesthetic gestures for the public. (On view through Oct 14th).

Liliana Porter, Untitled with her, gold glitter and metal figurine, dimensions variable, 2023.

Carlos Motta with Elio Miraña, ELO, Gil Farekatde Maribba, Higinio Bautista, Kiyedekago, Rosita, and Yoí nanegü at PPOW Gallery

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Beautifully shot and installed in Tribeca’s PPOW Gallery, Columbian artist Carlos Motta’s ‘Air of Life’ video installation is reached by passing by sculpture crafted by Indigenous Brazilian craftsman Higinio Bautista. This particular collaboration began with Bautista’s retelling of a legend of shamans who transformed into animals to protect the people and land.  He prompted Motta to draw the figures, which Bautista then carved.  Once past the protective deities, gallery visitors take in soaring views of the Amazon while watching Indigenous South American musicians, activists, and community leaders explain their work in a c. 42 minute presentation on a screen and two monitors.  Commissioned for an exhibition related to Indigenous representation now on view at Museo de Arte Miguel Urrutia in Bogota, the works in the show give insight into to the lives of those working to protect tradition.  (On view through Oct 7th).

Carlos Motta, installation view of ‘Air of Life’ at PPOW Gallery, Sept 2023. Sculpture in the foreground: Carlos Motta and Higinio Bautista, Shaman Anteater, carved wood, 43 ¼ x 15 ¾ 16 ½ inches.