Art Shows – Page 59 – longlistshort

NYC Art Shows- Nan Goldin At Matthew Marks Gallery and MOMA

Art, Artists, New York Art Shows, Photographers / Photography

Dec 212016

42125_01_web3 Blue, 2016 (image via Matthew Marks Gallery)

The dead baby boy USA, Berlin, December 2015 / Shadow of baby, Berlin, December 2015 (image via Matthew Marks Gallery)

41994_01_web3-1 Motherlove: Ayla and Tjioe in a Berlin bar, New York, June 2016 (image via Matthew Marks Gallery)

Nan Goldin currently has two exhibitions in New York City. The Museum of Modern Art is showing The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, a slide show of almost 700 images Goldin took documenting her life and the lives of those around her, starting in the 1970’s and continuing through 2004. The show has taken place in various iterations throughout the years and includes a soundtrack with music from The Velvet Underground and James Brown among others. While it plays you watch the people in these images party, fight, get married, have children, and sometimes, like Goldin’s good friend Cookie Mueller, die, all in a span of about 45 minutes. It’s hard to see these photos and not be left wanting to know more as you are drawn into this intimate world. This exhibition runs until 2/12/17.

It’s interesting to see the work at MoMA and then to see Nan Goldin:blood on my hands, at Matthew Marks Gallery. It is the first public exhibition of her drawings as well as her new “grid” photos. The small drawings come from diaries Goldin has been keeping since childhood. They are often disturbing but the content adds insight into the personal life and thoughts of someone who has already shared so much. You can also see parallels in the drawings and her photo work, in terms of both content and style.

The photos in the exhibition are large pieces, each created around a specific color, and each taking up a wall in the gallery. The images that combine to make them are from different places and time periods and yet they flow as if they were always meant to be arranged with each other. The results are more contemplative then her other work and an interesting progression. This show closes 12/23/16.

NYC Art Shows- Todd Murphy and Chris Jones at Marc Straus

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Installation Art, Mixed Media, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture

Dec 102016

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Marc Straus gallery on the Lower East Side has two great sculpture shows closing this weekend (12/11/16). Todd Murphy’s mixed media sculptures are gorgeous creations which glow on the walls of the upstairs space.

On the first floor of the gallery, are Chris Jones’ intricate pieces created with images from discarded magazines and books. The details within these worlds become more and more apparent the longer one looks at them, including plants growing into other spaces and laundry tumbling out into other frames.
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jones-chris-of-vanished-alphabets-2016-05

(images via Marc Straus)

NYC Art Shows- Carrie Mae Weems at Jack Shainman Gallery

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Photographers / Photography

Dec 102016

carriemaeweemsjackshainmansbland1116

Carrie Mae Weems currently has two exhibitions in Chelsea at Jack Shainman Gallery’s spaces. Included in the work at the 24th Street space is All the Boys (2016), in which slightly blurred images of young black men wearing hooded sweatshirts are placed next to text panels that include information, some of it redacted, about the black victims of police violence. While those images are more subtle, the most affecting piece in the exhibition is the video All The Boys: Video in Three Parts. It includes some of the cell phone footage from several of the recent deaths of black men at the hands of police, including Eric Garner and Philando Castile, and is incredibly difficult to watch. This is interspersed with funeral scenes, the dreamlike image of a man running on a treadmill with a clock in the background, and Weems’ calm voice speaking over the scenes.

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In the 20th Street space are images that will be more familiar to those aware of Weems’ previous work Roaming and Museums and is an interesting contrast to the work in the other gallery. In Scenes & Take (2016), she places herself, with her back to the viewer, on the sets of various successful television shows created by and starring black people, including Empire and Scandal. She then includes commentary in text on the side of the images.

In a recent interview with the New York Times she mentions the reasoning behind this focus on Hollywood-

I decided to go and stand in spaces where I think significant transformations are taking place in television as a way of pointing, trying to understand the role of black actors. Directors like Lee Daniels and Shonda Rhimes are laying the foundation for what can be imagined within the context of American culture. Most people go for their programming to paid television, so there’s an economic shift. Network television has been left to poor people.

Both these exhibitions close Saturday 12/10/16.

NYC Art Shows- Aidas Bareikis at Canada and Reed Danziger at McKenzie Fine Art

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture

Dec 032016

Aidas Bareikis “Too Much Seaweed”, 2016

This is the final weekend of two excellent exhibitions on the Lower East Side in New York. The first is Aidas Bareikis’ Barrel of Fortune at Canada gallery.

From the press release-

In Barrel of Fortune, his first solo exhibition at CANADA, Bareikis distills his enduring vision into bundled masses. He stacks and wraps cultural objects in fabric and string, building altar-like assemblages shrouded by paint and recognizable trash. The sculptures are propped up by found furniture, wood or aluminum, and exposed to forces like time, gravity, or the elements. Rendered in deep reds, acidic oranges and vintage blues, each work operates like a junkyard relic: a curious portal into another era slowly merging with the local flora. It’s here where Bareikis navigates, somewhere between scientific method and pure psychic automatism, covering his tracks in a role equal parts wandering scientist and mad poet.

And at McKenzie Fine Art, Reed Danziger’s new paintings are dense with small details and geometric patterns which combine to form a beautiful and energetic organized chaos.

reedalexanderfromdibs Detail from A Rearrangement, 2016 (image via 1st Dibs)

Los Angeles Art Shows- Mara De Luca at Edward Cella Art & Architecture

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Painting / Painters

Apr 162016

Mara De Luca, “INDIO”, 2015 (image courtesy Edward Cella Art & Architecture)

Mara De Luca, “INDUSTRY”, 2014 (image courtesy Edward Cella Art & Architecture)

Today (4/16/16) is the last day to see Mara De Luca’s solo exhibition Driving Sunset at Edward Cella Art & Architecture.

From the press release–

An MFA graduate of CalArts, De Luca explores the conceptual and expressive potential of process-driven abstract painting. Her works are informed by her study and re-appropriation of art historical conventions, her visual interpretation of literary sources, and the recurring visual tropes of contemporary high-end fashion advertising. Inspired by Los Angeles’ stark contrasts, a place where beautiful natural landscapes coexist alongside endless freeways and countless billboards, De Luca reveals a depth in the superficiality of surface, and an emotive complexity in formal concision.

The show’s title is a reference to Joan Didion’s novel Play It as It Lays, in which the main character drives around Los Angeles aimlessly while trying to clear her mind. There’s a sense of that sought after calm in these paintings, whose colors and dark cloud-like shapes bring to mind the skies and sunsets of California.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Eleanor Macnair and Michael Lange at Kopeikin Gallery

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Photographers / Photography

Apr 162016

Untitled, 1975 © William Eggleston

Nan one month after being battered 1984 Nan Goldin born 1953 Purchased 1997 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/P78045

“Nan one month after being battered”, 1984 © Nan Goldin (image courtesy tate.org.uk)

Currently at Kopeikin Gallery are Eleanor Macnair’s delightful Play-Doh recreations of famous photographs (I’ve included the original photos for comparison, they are not in the show). In the second part of the gallery is Michael Lange’s serene series Wald/Fluss (Forest/River).

WALD | Landscapes of Memory forest in Germany (image courtesy of Kopeikin Gallery)

This exhibition closes 4/16/16.

Los Angeles Art Shows- James Welling at Regen Projects

Art, Artists, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Photographers / Photography

Mar 252016

“4995” (image courtesy of Regen Projects)

“4600” (image courtesy of Regen Projects)

“0521” (image courtesy of Regen Projects)

For his current solo exhibition Choreograph at Regen Projects, James Welling combines his images of architecture and landscape (common in his previous work), with photographs of dancers to create beautiful dreamlike worlds. Welling once studied dance at the University of Pittsburgh before stopping after a year to go to CalArts, and his continued love of dance is evident in the work.

The process for the creation of these layered images is explained in the press release–

To create these works Welling photographed over a dozen dance companies in New York, Philadelphia, Ottawa, and Los Angeles. The dance photographs were then merged with photographs of architecture (buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, and Paul Rudolph) and landscape imagery (western Connecticut, southern Florida, and Switzerland) in Photoshop’s fundamental red, green, and blue color channels, which are basic to all color photographs. The resulting electronic files were altered by the artist using Photoshop’s Hue and Saturation layers to create complicated, multi-hued photographs, which were then printed on rag paper using a 10 color Epson Stylus Pro 9900 inkjet printer.

For more information on how he achieved the look of the photos in Photoshop, there is a booklet at the front desk that contains a breakdown of the color channels and a list of each color adjustment layer.

This show closes 3/26/16.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Amy Yao at VSF Gallery

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Sculptors / Sculpture

Mar 182016

Doppelgangers (in foreground)

Detail of Doppelgangers

Home is Where You Are Happy, No.1

At Amy Yao’s solo exhibition, Bay of Smokes, at Various Small Fires, the fear of a polluted and harmfully modified environment plays a central role. An industrial manufactured scent fills the gallery, lead blankets are on towel racks, and a mountain of rice reveals on closer inspection that it has bits of plastic and pearls (real and fake) mixed in.

In this time of GMO’s, toxic water in Flint, and the gas leak at Porter Ranch, it’s hard not to be paranoid about what is really happening to our natural surroundings and how poisonous our daily lives really are, especially in ways we cannot discern. Yao’s exhibition is a creative and at times playful examination of these issues- but the darkness of the theme, like the scent, remains a constant presence.

This exhibition closes 3/18/16.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Aaron Fowler at Diane Rosenstein Gallery

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Installation Art, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture

Mar 122016

Mom Knows

Black Flag

Detail from Black Flag

The mixed media assemblage paintings in Aaron Fowler‘s current solo exhibition, Blessings on Blessings, at Diane Rosenstein gallery, are large, highly detailed, and dense with imagery.

From the press release-

Aaron Fowler, who was born in St. Louis and currently lives and works in Harlem, creates mixed-media assemblage-paintings that depict his experiences and the lives of his family and friends in both a personal narrative and an epic journey through contemporary America. The title of this exhibition, which includes twelve portraits, tableaux, and medallions created in the past year, refers to lyrics from “Blessings”, a 2015 song by American rapper Big Sean.

In these sculptural tableaux, Fowler depicts himself as a “mirror character” called The Pilgrim. He employs oils, acrylics and collage – often pixilated ‘photo print-outs’ based on 18^th C. American historical painting – alongside objects like Adidas sneakers, CDs, T-shirts, and plastic bags. The dynamic, large-scale compositions are enacted on discarded domestic materials including shutters, mirrored doors, windows, and card tables.

This show closes 3/12/16.

Los Angeles Art Shows- Chris Ballantyne at Zevitas Marcus

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Los Angeles Art Shows, Los Angeles Art Shows, Painting / Painters

Mar 052016

chrisballantynezevitamarcustheirphoto

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There is an incredible quiet beauty to Chris Ballantyne‘s exhibition Transcendental Divide/Transitory Space at Zevitas Marcus in Culver City. The paintings, all on wood panels, contrast the tininess of the man made structures with the vastness of the natural landscapes.

From the press release-

Transcendental Divide/Transitory Space continues Chris Ballantyne’s exploration of the tensions that exist between nature and man’s ever-expanding imprint on the planet. Employing a dry sense of humor and architecturally precise draftsmanship, Ballantyne delicately renders familiar images of everyday life – a neglected swimming pool, an empty parking lot, a vacant home – and juxtaposes them with often vast expanses of nature. The overall effect is such that signs of civilization start to seem both absurd and obsolete. In this exhibition, a highway interchange becomes an infinity loop; a suburban ranch house is inexplicably perched on the edge of a massive canyon; and a ship, dwarfed in scale to the canvas on which it is rendered, floats into a serene white void.

Ballantyne says of his work, “I want to suggest that empty space or nothingness has real meaning, as do the everyday and overlooked.”

This show closes 3/5/16.

(images courtesy of Zevitas Marcus)

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