Swedish designer Mattias Sellden’s eureka moment, when he settled on his signature use of minimally processed planks of wood to create dynamic furniture items, came from a simple aversion to altering a piece of wood he admired. Calling the creations now on view at Friedman Benda his ‘little wooden friends,’ Sellden allows his audience to find use-value in the constructions or simply enjoy them as they are. (On view through August 12th).
See Greek and Roman sculpture like never before in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new show ‘Chroma,’ which presents reconstructions of ancient sculpture in vivid tones based on traces of original pigment. Using tools like multispectral photography, German professor Dr V. Brinkmann and Dr U. Koch-Brinkmann of the Liebieghaus sculpture collection in Frankfurt, Germany reveal how ancient Mediterranean cultures favored vibrant color. Join me on a Met Museum highlights tour to see these works and more. (On view through March 26th, 2023).
Can art compete with nature? Emily Mullin’s ceramics at Yossi Milo Gallery, presented on wall-mounted shelves and offset by a rectangle of background color, are crowned by show-stealing floral arrangements. Yet like the flowers, which will change as the piece is displayed, Mullin sees her hand-made ceramic pieces as unique individuals, almost characters. Together, this quirky assemblage of sculpture, support and background challenges expectations, existing, as the artist puts it, “…between the space of representation and reality.” (On view through August 12th in Chelsea).
Have you seen this eye-grabbing new installation by Barbara Kruger in the Museum of Modern Art’s atrium? Don’t miss the rest of the show at David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea, where the gallery’s three adjoining spaces on 19th Street showcase work from a recent exhibition of Kruger’s work at the Art Institute of Chicago and the LA County Museum of Art. Join me on a Chelsea gallery tour to see the show before it closes on Aug 12th.
Evoking light from heaven as well as the rising sun, Cuban artist Yoan Capote’s use of gold in a show of new seascapes at Jack Shainman Gallery’s Chelsea locations offers immediate uplift. After a 2019 visit to Italy, where Capote had access to abundant medieval and early Renaissance art, the artist adopted gold backgrounds and the circular format of this painting to create images that are optimistic yet also anxious. Connecting the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean with many Cubans’ struggle to cross the Caribbean, Capote embeds fishing hooks in recent work, picturing the sea as a barrier. (On view through Aug 5th).
