Mulyana at Sapar Contemporary

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Indonesian artist Mulyana’s signature colorful crocheted coral reef sculptures give way in his latest solo show at Sapar Contemporary to clusters of white forms resembling bleached coral.  Fashioned in plastic instead of yarn, the new work is every bit as intricately crafted and pleasingly detailed as his previous work, but the attraction is uncomfortable.  Made from a material harmful to sea life and speaking to damage done by climate change, the work has an elegiac quality as sad as it is beautiful. (On view through Nov 20th. Curated by John Silvis).

Mulyana, Betty 27, plastic yarn, plastic net, cable wire, 63 x 80 ¾ x 11 ¾ inches, 2024.
Mulyana, Betty 27 (detail), plastic yarn, plastic net, cable wire, 63 x 80 ¾ x 11 ¾ inches, 2024.

Erin O’Keefe at Sargent’s Daughters

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Being tricked is fun when it’s New York-based artist and architect Erin O’Keefe doing the fooling.  O’Keefe’s new photographs at Sargent’s Daughters in Tribeca look like paintings made with thick strokes of a brush, but what appears to be textured paint marks are actually the edges of wooden blocks that the artist paints and arranges to read like an abstract composition.  Some pieces come partly into focus as photos of 3-D arrangements but continue to be ambiguous; others only make sense after some puzzling.  With their bright colors and clever composition, the photographs offer an optical workout that is pure pleasure.  (On view in Tribeca through Dec 21st).

Erin O’Keefe, Snake Eyes, unique archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper mounted to Dibond aluminum, 42 x 30 inches, 2024.

Alteronce Gumby at Nicola Vassell Gallery

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If we were on a planet in another solar system, would we see color differently?  In his ongoing engagement with intense color, Alteronce Gumby’s scintillating new paintings at Nicola Vassell Gallery refuse to take our experience of the visible spectrum for granted.  Inspired by NASA’s James Webb telescope, art historical forebears and travel that has allowed him to witness the vibrant Holi festival in Indian, the Northern Lights and much more, Gumby’s new ‘Moonwalker paintings’ lure viewers in with their rich color and reflective surfaces.  Each piece resembles nebula and strata of the earth, taking us both into the heavens and down through geological history.  Shaped in a way to suggest speed and defiance of gravity and incorporating semi-precious stones and gems, each piece is infused with the pleasure of transport.  (On view in Chelsea through Dec 14th).

Alteronce Gumby, Waves of Possibilities, lapis lazuli, glass and acrylic on panel, 72 x 90 inches, 2024.
Alteronce Gumby, (detail) Waves of Possibilities, lapis lazuli, glass and acrylic on panel, 72 x 90 inches, 2024.

Jordan Castle at the Hill Art Foundation

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Known for painted portraits of family, friends, her students, fellow subway riders, and people she meets on the street in New York, Jordan Casteel pictures her subjects as they choose to be presented.  In this tender portrait from a private collection in Casteel’s solo show at the Hill Art Foundation, the family pictured wanted to be in their garden, so they waited half a year to take the photo that would lead to this painting.  Planted after the parents, Deon and Kym, lost their daughter Naima due to miscarriage, they planned the garden as a gift to her and a way of honoring life. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 23rd).

Jordan Casteel, Naima’s Gift (Deon, Kym and Noah), oil on canvas, 94 x 80 inches, 2023.

Ai Wei Wei at Vito Schnabel Gallery

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Since creating portraits of political prisoners for a 2014 exhibition at the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco, iconic Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei has used LEGO or Woma bricks to make pixelated reproductions of politically charged images. Now on view at Vito Schnabel Gallery in Chelsea, a selection of toy-brick built artworks picture famous paintings and news photographs with telling alterations.  Ai’s version of Andrew Wyeth’s ‘Christina’s World’ substitutes farmhouses in the work’s background with the artist’s newly built studio in Portugal, a replica of one destroyed by the Chinese authorities. Elsewhere, he adds President Biden to a reproduction of a news photo of the US Navy collecting debris from the Chinese surveillance balloon shot down near South Carolina in 2023.  Here, he adds a dark area in the left of a version of Monet’s Water Lilies, representing the dugout where his exiled family was forced to live during the Cultural Revolution.  (On view through Feb 22nd).

Ai Wei Wei, Water Lilies #4, toy bricks mounted on aluminum, 94 ½ x 472 ½ inches, 2022.