rafa esparza at Artists Space

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Titled ‘Camino’ or ‘Road,’ LA based performance and exhibition artist rafa esparza’s exhibition at Artists Space creates a pathway through the gallery space using blocks of adobe that connect earthen panels painted with portraits of Black and brown working people.  Interspersed are paintings of the 110 Freeway in Los Angeles, listed in the US National Register of Historic Places as the first freeway in the western United States.  Though esparza’s barefoot subjects literally connect to the land itself, the show considers how individuals and community connections to land have been disrupted by the highways that followed 110 and how customized vehicles (including the bike seen here) have provided a workaround and sense of identity.  (On view in Tribeca through Aug 18th).

rafa esparza, Jaime, acrylic on adobe and powder coated steel, painting: 85.5 x 50 x 3 inches, overall: 89 x 50 x 60 inches, 2023.

Angela Dufresne in ‘Strike Fast, Dance Lightly: Artists on Boxing’ at FLAG Art Foundation

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‘Strike Fast, Dance Lightly:  Artists on Boxing’ at FLAG Art Foundation opens with artworks that avoid actual engagement in the sport – ‘I told you nobody ought never to fight him,’ reads a text painting by Ed Ruscha while Paul Pfeiffer’s video ‘Caryatid (Pacquiao)’ digitally removes one of the fighters in a bout.  Soon enough though, the match is on in a blaze of color in Rosalyn Drexler’s pastel of a lime-green colored athlete against a pink background, Katherine Bradford’s fighters locked in an exhausted or amorous embrace, and Angela Dufresne’s small expressionist oil painting of two circling fighters surrounded by a spray of blue and red paint that conveys the violence and energy of the match.  Engaging with the sport on many levels, FLAG’s show requires no specialty knowledge to appreciate the enjoyably eclectic inclusions, from an ancient Roman oil lamp featuring a boxer to Eadweard Muybridge’s late 19th century photographic studies and much more.  (On view through August 11th).

Angela Dufresne, Fight Scene, oil on canvas, 10 x 14 inches, 2009.

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger in ‘Distribuidx’ at Lisson Gallery

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Inspired by Helio Oiticica’s practice, Lisson Gallery’s lively summer group show ‘Distribuidx’ includes art that sees bodies and spaces as changeable; further, the show’s theme posits that people can be represented by the things around us.  For Mexico-City based artist Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, cars represent the experience of navigating being queer and in this sculptural painting, the contradictions of our relationship to consumption and the planet.  In ‘Hope the Air Conditioning is On While Facing Global Warming (part I),’ a BMW i8 opens its wing-doors to reflect both the flowers blossoming on nearby trees and an inferno of burning buildings beyond the open doors. (On view through Aug 11th).

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Hope the Air Conditioning is On While Facing Global Warming (part I), oil on canvas, overall: 88 x 176 inches, 2017.

Song Dong at Pace Gallery

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Well-known in New York for his 2009 installation ‘Waste Not’ at MoMA, in which he displayed all his mother’s 10,000+ accumulated belongings, Chinese avant-garde artist Song Dong morphs discarded objects into intriguing sculpture in his latest work at Pace Gallery.  Using circular forms important in traditional Chinese philosophy, Song created this light sculpture from a discarded object meant to be displayed behind a statue of the Buddha Guanyin; accordingly, the surface is marked a representation of the deity’s one-thousand arms which take on new meaning when viewed from above.  (On view in Chelsea through Aug 18th).

Song Dong, Thousand Hands, glass, crystal, lamp, 15 3/4” x 63”, 2022-23.

Ashley Teamer in ‘We Buy Gold’ at Nicola Vassell Gallery

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In a statement accompanying work from her Yale MFA studies (grad ’22), New-Orleans-based artist Ashley Teamer cites the batture – the constantly shifting land between low tide and the levee along the Mississippi River – as inspiration.  Her dynamic image collage ‘4912 St Bernard Ave’ in the group show ‘We Buy Gold’ at Nicola Vassell Gallery is a highlight of an exhibition described by its curator as being about change, slippage and breakthrough.  A figure in pink shoes and dress (like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz) appears to plunge down into a tangle of branches both photographed and drawn while above, among the clouds and in another realm, is another figure with their back to us.  Teamer tempts viewers to ask what will transpire next in this evocative story.  (Curated by Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels. The exhibition is also at Jack Shainman Gallery’s Chelsea space through Aug 11th.)

Ashley Teamer, 4912 St Bernard Ave, inkjet print, twine, oil pastel, graphite, 83 x 89 ½ inches, 2021.