Unlike classic Dutch still life, Daniel Gordon’s ‘Philodendron with Sardines and Lobster’ at Kasmin Gallery lacks the typical superabundance of a table piled high with fruit, meats and other delicacies, allowing for a more focused appreciation of the artist’s detailed, hands-on production of each item on display. After finding or taking a photograph of each object he intends to depict, Gordon prints images of the object, cutting and gluing them over forms that are placed into an arrangement of similarly crafted objects and then photographed to produce the final image. Because they’ve originated in photographic images, lobster, fish, plant and vase on the one hand look believable as a flat image and yet are obviously 3-D renderings. The space of the image is temporarily unclear, the medium blurred, creating pleasurable moments of uncertainty. (On view through June 3rd).
Inka Essenhigh at Miles McEnery Gallery
Chic-looking hybrid people/flowers greet visitors to Inka Essenhigh’s show at Miles McEnery Gallery, part of a painting featuring an outdoor rave attended by fabulous flora. In other works, leaves cluster together to become figures and tree trunks turn into bell-bottom wearing legs, a charming anthropomorphizing of the natural world. Associated with Disney as much as Dali, Essenhigh’s fantastical vision taps into a desire to connect with nature while also exploring possible surreal outcomes of that wish. (On view through June 3rd).
Liu Xiaodong at Lisson Gallery
As a student, Beijing-based painter Liu Xiaodong traveled in the historically important region of Shaanbei, China; three decades later, his new body of work at Lisson Gallery considers changes not only in the area but in Chinese culture. Several large canvases feature youth in their free time, playing in the river, drinking beer or making as if to fight while their friends look on in amusement. Wearing counterfeit designs and clutching their phones, the youth are more connected to the bustling city behind them than nature or the monuments dotting the surrounding hills. Prominently pictured behind the youth, the ancient Yan’an Pagoda (associated with the Communist Party for its time headquartered in the area) has been supplanted in prominence by the city’s new towers. (On view in Chelsea through June 10th).
Josefina Concha at Praxis Gallery
Chilean artist Josefina Concha’s textile-based sculptures, now on view at Chelsea’s Praxis Gallery, are immediately intriguing for their color, form and technique as well as their playful engagement with art history. Situated front and center in the gallery is a table covered with undulating fabric, an update on Judy Chicago’s famous Dinner Party installation with a new guest list that includes Concha’s expressive, sewn paintings of Alice Neel, Velasquez and Francis Bacon installed over the table. Elsewhere, a vibrantly colored, minimal panel pays homage to Agnes Martin while these two clustered organic forms recall the open blooms of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. (On view through June 2nd).
Mark Bradford at Hauser & Wirth
The monumental mixed media artwork ‘Manifest Destiny’ dominates the first room of Mark Bradford’s exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, its tattered surfaces giving it the feeling of a barely surviving relic, its huge scale making it unavoidable. Emblazoned with a phrase, ‘Johnny Buys Houses,’ that brings to mind road-side signage for fly-by-night real estate operatives and titled after a term that describes relentless European expansion across the North American continent, the piece signals dubious practices with regard to land, property and ownership. (On view in Chelsea through July 28th).