Aug 012024
 


Jack Shainman Gallery is currently showing two bodies of work by Leslie Wayne for her exhibition This Land.  One half of the show is paintings based on photos she took of landscapes from an airplane window while traveling from New York to the Seattle. Abstract work influenced by aspects of the natural world makes up the other half.

In a recent interview with designboom, Wayne was asked how perception and memory influenced her process for this work-

Perception is just an interpretation really, of what one sees, and while the paintings in ‘This Land is Your Land’ series were made directly from the photographs I took on a flight to the Pacific Northwest, they are infused with the feelings and memories I hold dear of my childhood. I’ve lived in New York since 1982, but I grew up in California and I still have a very strong attachment to the West Coast and to the geology and geography of the West. Even the abstract work in which I am manipulating thick layers of paint, I am drawing on those sensations I remember having of being in nature where the tectonic and geologic forces are right there for one to see and feel — millions of years of layered strata, of compression and subduction, of gravity and erosion, and certainly of the shifting plates that cause earthquakes.

More on the show from the press release-

Jack Shainman Gallery is pleased to present This Land, an exhibition of two kindred bodies of work by Leslie Wayne that express the nature of the American West through perception and memory. In each piece, Wayne considers different ways in which we interpret and imagine geological space, exploring landscape both as a vertical, abstracted force and a horizontal, figurative expanse. Named in homage to Woody Guthrie’s heartland ballad “This Land is Your Land,” Wayne offers a contemporary vision of Manifest Destiny—imbuing her symbolic, and experienced, westward voyages with topographies that are sensorial, memorial, and tectonic.

In a series of dimensional abstract paintings on large, metronome-like planks, Wayne uses a dramatic and vibrant palette to mold paint so that it cascades down the wood panel in a multitude of ways. Applying the paint in heavy layers, she encourages the influence of gravity and refines her materials to their most basic form, color, and behavior. Adopting, rather than controlling the rhythm of nature, these compositions are fluid to the viewer’s myriad associations with this image of momentum—be it reminiscent of the rush of an avalanche, the swell of hot lava, or the pileup of driftwood on a seashore.

In her series entitled This Land is Your Land, she creates compact, observational paintings based on snapshots she took from her seat as she flew west over the Rocky Mountains all the way to the Cascade Range in Washington State in 2021. Creating a precise mise-en-scène by placing each painting in a frame that resembles the Boeing 737 window she peered out from, Wayne transports her viewers into a precise sensation: beholding our nation as the land settles into one continuous, harmonious expanse—stripped down to simple shapes and shades. Her portholes offer a view into a terrain of awe, reminiscence, and omniscience, a collective vision of a region fraught with, and fractured by, territories and borders.

Extending beyond the format of the airplane-window frame, Wayne has also created two unique works inspired by the same journey. The first is a twenty-two-foot-long painted scroll entitled From the Rockies to the Cascades, in addition to High Dive, a large-format painting in which she stretches her canvas onto a frame of coiled springs—materials that simulate a bird’s-eye view of the landscape as if seen by a skydiver descending towards a trampoline. The paintings from this series are accompanied by a vitrine displaying Wayne’s special limited edition This Land, a handmade accordion book that illustrates the aerial photographs from her voyage, alongside Taylor Brorby’s poem “The Ages Have Been at Work” and the lyrics to Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.”

In German, heimat is a term used to describe not only the characteristics of a place, but the complex and interdependent physical, social, and mental associations with a homeland. For Wayne, this sentiment stretches, folds, and bends from the west coast, her childhood home, to the east coast, where she has resided since 1982. Treading across this land, psychic routes unfold, and Wayne savors “That path [which] is never straight and always various, each time opening new ways of seeing and thinking about the world we occupy, the ways we inhabit nature, and the legacies we leave behind.”

This exhibition closes 8/2/24.

Jul 312024
 

For Hugh Hayden’s current exhibition Hughmans at Lisson Gallery, his sculptures remain hidden behind bathroom stall doors. The well-crafted works vary in subject, size, and material, and cover a wide range of social issues. For more information on his thought process and some of the work, Hayden recently discussed the show with Art in America.

From the press release-

Following his solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Hugh Hayden continues his exploration of the prosthetics of power in a new series of works and site-specific installations created for the Lisson Gallery New York space. In Hughmans, Hayden reengages with the concept of the bathroom stall in order to investigate experiences of revelation, intimacy, desire, and sexuality – this time through the lens of the collective experience.

Known for his poignant metaphors and examinations of human existence, Hayden’s work transcends individual experience to probe the collective consciousness. Hughmans maintains his signature use of wood as a primary medium alongside bronze, resin, and silicone, amplifying the depth and texture of his narrative. At the heart of the exhibition lies an ambitious site-specific installation, unraveling the complexities of power dynamics in contemporary society. Hayden transforms mundane elements into profound symbols, inviting viewers to confront their own perceptions and assumptions of daily life.

In the gallery, visitors will find an arrangement of metal bathroom stalls, each concealing an artwork within. This unconventional setup challenges notions of privacy and intimacy, urging viewers to reconsider their relationship with public spaces. Two wooden sculptures embodying the fictional character Pinocchio will be exhibited. Ebanocchio (2024) and Nocecchio (2024) serve as contrasting counterparts, one crafted from ebony and the other from walnut. In the original fairytale, Pinocchio’s name was also derived from his physical, wooden origin, ‘Pino’ being the Italian term for pine. These works employ Hayden’s recurring conceptual gesture of wood and the intersection of materiality and identity. The artist recently unveiled another sculpture, Geppetto (2023), in his comprehensive exhibition, American Vernacular, at the Laumeier Sculpture Park. Named in reference to Pincocchio’s father, the work serves as an antecedent to the pieces showcased in New York. Like much of Hayden’s ouvre, the fantastical story of the marionette is often attributed as a metaphor for the human condition.

In another stall, the artist will present Harlem (2024), a new ensemble of cast iron melting pots and copper pans – works which serve as a metaphor for the creation of America through cultural diversity. These particular sculptures will depict both facial features and functional musical instruments. This iteration of melting pots, made using sand casting, synthesizes diasporic movement and the African origins of the US. Unlike past presentations of similar works which were hung from the wall and ceiling, these works will be suspended from a New York City subway-style handrail.

This exhibition closes 8/2/24.

 

Jul 192024
 

Daydream Nation, Mary Heilmann’s exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, is filled with interesting forms, both familiar and abstract.

From the press release-

Curated by artist Gary Simmons, Heilmann’s friend and former student and colleague at New York’s School of Visual Arts, the exhibition celebrates her talent for distilling complex images and ideas into deceptively simple geometric forms and abstract gestural marks. Through rarely and never-before-seen works on paper from the 1970s to early 2000s, this presentation reveals how drawing functions as a form of daydreaming—of conjuring the sights, sounds and events of her past travels or her imagined future—in Heilmann’s creative process.

Heilmann is known for working across mediums and for installations which playfully combine disparate works. Reflecting on the artist’s approach to exhibition-making, ‘Daydream Nation’ brings together works on paper, ranging from watercolor studies for larger paintings to works that function as paintings on paper in their own right, alongside a selection of her ceramic sculptures and sculptural chairs to create an ambiently whimsical yet conceptually rigorous environment. Heilmann often works in series, revisiting and reimagining certain arrangements of form and color over time, as evidenced here in such recurring motifs as the chair, rosebud, spiral, wave and web. But in Heilmann’s oeuvre, repetition begets difference and from this multiplicity emerges important truths about the functions of memory and our process of translating it.

Drawing has always factored significantly into Heilmann’s practice, manifesting in a variety of forms in ‘Daydream Nation.’ The exhibition features a new mural-like installation that reimagines and expands an existing work into a new form of expression. Heilmann’s seventh wall drawing to date, this installation was developed in conversation with Simmons, who frequently explores the monumental scale of this medium in his own work.

The title of this exhibition is taken from Sonic Youth’s groundbreaking album ‘Daydream Nation’ (1988), beloved by both Heilmann and Simmons. Evoking Heilmann’s longstanding interest in daydreaming as a creative exercise and the importance of travel for her in this process, it also situates her oeuvre within the culture of youthful rebellion in New York City, the California-born artist’s adopted home since 1968 and a constant source of energy and inspiration for her both personally and professionally.

This exhibition closes 7/26/24.

For more about the artist and her work, check out this episode of Art21, below.

Jul 022024
 

The brightly colored mixed media paintings Rosson Crow has painted for her exhibition, Babel, at Miles McEnery Gallery are perfect for the chaotic times we are currently living in.

From the gallery-

Crow’s works, rendered in oil, acrylic, and photo transfer, are hyper saturated in both palette and her own lexicon of distinctly American iconography. Often drawing direct inspiration from gathered experiences and ephemera from cross country roadtrips, her subjects range from exploding party stores and spilling over fruit stands to populist political crusades and overrun monster truck rallies.

The exhibition centers on three arc-shaped canvases depicting the construction, peak, and destruction of the biblical Tower of Babel. Pulled into the contemporary landscape, Crow’s inspiration stems from Jonathan Haidt’s 2022 essay in The Atlantic, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.” Using the story of Babel as an allegory for the recent fragmentation of collective discourse, the paintings bring the viewer through this dissolution. Going from utopian idealism to the point of breaking and its aftermath, Crow confronts us all to address the parallels between her canvases and our fragmented reality of contention and polarization.

Julia Halperin writes, “Crow has always been a student of history—political history, pop-cultural history, art-and-design history. Critics have described many of her large-scale, epic compositions as contemporary history paintings. But she does not depict history as it unfolded or even as we wish it had unfolded. Instead, she shows history as we might actually receive it today: distorted, manipulated, heightened, blurred, and out of context.”

This exhibition closes 7/3/24.

Jul 022024
 

Amy Bennett’s small paintings for Shelter at Miles McEnery Gallery seem peaceful at first but become more disquieting as you progress through the gallery.

From the press release-

Small in scale but dense in narrative, the paintings in Shelter function akin to a short story. Each oil on panel encapsulates a snapshot still of a moment, prompting the viewer to draw upon one’s own lived experience to flesh out the lead up and its aftermath. Teetering between subjective realities and familiar memories, Bennett mitigates serene compositions with the unsettling: a sunbather lounges under the moon, a sleepwalker drifts through the home, a family gathers for breakfast in a flooded kitchenette.

Rather than painting from memory or photographs, Bennett begins her process by building miniature models. Vignettes of sprawling nature preserves and domestic interiors set the scene for figurines dressed in custom tinfoil garments frozen in place. Elizabeth Buhe writes, “Bennett’s works are not just technically brilliant repositories of painted form; they are texts that query the circulation and sedimentation of images, or perhaps memories, and how these come to snap us.”

This exhibition closes 7/3/24.

Jul 022024
 

Isca Greenfield-Sanders’ beautiful paintings, currently on view at Miles McEnery Gallery were created using vintage slides she found at flea markets and estate sales.

From the gallery-

In her fourth exhibition with the gallery, Greenfield-Sanders invites viewers through blooming meadows, sprawling beaches, and grassy slopes in quiet introspection. Her palette strays from the representational, rendering her landscapes in soft pinks, hazy blues, and mossy greens. The paintings exude a sense of familiar serenity suspended in time, each bathed in a mesmerizing dance of light and emotion. “Her work wheels through time, seasons, and weather, deftly summoning the transparent hues of early morning or the diffused light of an overcast day, the brightness of a summer noon so incandescent that you might think you need to blink while regarding it,” writes Lilly Wei.

Greenfield-Sanders’ idyllically nostalgic paintings find their origin in vintage 35-millimeter slides, sourced from flea markets and estate sales, often capturing family vacations. She sorts through thousands of forgotten memories and moments, selecting the ones that resonate, then co-opting elements from each to establish her compositions. The in-depth process distills initial photographs through collage, printing, drawing, pasting, and then, once perfected, painting.

“Her interest lies in the way photographic mementos shape actual experience that time distorts,” writes Linda Yablonsky, “Memories fade. They conflate. They become a history that is less a record of fact than the stuff of dream.”

This exhibition closes 7/4/24.

Jul 012024
 

Laura Letinsky’s has created several intriguing photographs for her exhibition, For, And Because Of…, at Yancey Richardson. Her unique assortments of objects- half eaten and smashed fruit, dying or dead flowers, loose papers, ceramic pieces- form works that challenge the idea of the still-life.

From the gallery’s press release-

The work in For, and because of… was made mostly during Letinsky’s 2023 residency in the South of France at La Maison Dora Maar, the former home of Maar, the French photographer, painter, and poet, who was also the romantic partner of Picasso. Inspired by the light of Provence in contrast to the dark weather of her home base in Chicago, Letinsky began a series she titled Who Loves the Sun in which she used natural light together with artificial light to provide her images with a radiant glow. Her subjects included borrowed objects such as a ceramic vase and glassware from La Maison that may have belonged to Maar. The detritus left behind from other artists-in-residence, as well as flowers and weeds growing nearby also found their way into her images. Yet, her photographs are not necessarily about what objects appear within them but rather about the medium of photography itself.

Letinsky explains, “I make pictures of very ordinary things in a way that destabilizes and questions the camera’s authority while also indulging in its sexiness, solicitating a visual pleasure that is tethered to other senses.” Letinsky complicates the singular point of view of the camera by building frames within frames and precariously positioning objects in relation to one another. In reference to her innovative picture spaces, Letinsky notes, “Cezanne’s still lifes described objects from multiple perspectives so as to refer to perception being a constantly shifting process. I try to harness this, to articulate that we’ve two eyes and are ambulant living beings.”

Through her work, Letinsky questions what is necessary to make a photograph that is considered “good.” Dissonance and interruption are components of her language in which objects’ perspectival positions are abstracted and gravity is elided. By working with objects associated with the home, she makes images that evoke tenderness and project an uneasy and fragile beauty.

The exhibition title, For, and because of… refers to the incommensurability of things, suggesting that there is not a concrete metric by which to measure or to reckon with life events. Letinsky notes, “So the show, the work, is for, and because of the wars, because you never called me back, for the rain that watered my garden, because the train was late, for my sons, because flowers bloom…”

This exhibition closes 7/3/24.

Jul 012024
 

For Stephen Shore’s latest exhibition, Topographies, at 303 Gallery, he has created stunning landscapes using a drone. The compositions draw you in and the details keep you transfixed.

From the gallery-

Beginning in 2020, this body of photographs was shot using a drone, resulting in sharply detailed aerial views of rural and suburban landscapes. Topographies builds upon concepts Shore has examined in his large-format landscapes from the 1970’s: pictures which uncover certain qualities intrinsic to the American vista. By employing a far-reaching, elevated perspective, Shore demonstrates how, from altitude, landforms are revealed, and conversely, how the built environment interacts with the land. In viewing these photographs, it becomes apparent that every detail of Shore’s pictures– from edge to edge, whether near or far– is as carefully considered and articulated as the next.

Shore has persistently explored new possibilities within the photographic image. Since his early practice, he has incorporated new formats and technologies, utilizing innovations as a means to achieve his own ends. Shore’s pictures seem straight forward at a glance but surprise with their ability to draw out the subtlest moments, distilling quiet sublimities from unassuming subjects.

This show closes 7/3/24.

Jun 272024
 

Terry Winters‘ paintings for Point Cloud Pictures at Matthew Marks Gallery reference data collection methods and patterns from the natural world. The colorful and energetic works leave it up to the viewer to make their own associations.

From the gallery’s press release-

Winters’s work centers on abstraction as a catalyst for exploring the natural world. In his paintings, composition and color give new meaning to a wide range of technical references, which include advanced mathematical principles, musical notation, botany, and chemistry. In the artist’s own words: “I’m taking preexisting imagery and respecifying it through the painting process. Information is torqued with the objective of opening a fictive space or lyrical dimension.”

The title of the exhibition refers to the seven Point Cloud paintings on view, in which overlapping grids of ringed particles create complex, amorphous shapes. Borrowed from the field of three-dimensional modeling, a point cloud refers to a set of data points in space, often used to articulate objects or landscapes in digital models. “The forms can also suggest the collective behavior of animals, such as the murmuration of starlings and the schooling of fish,” Winters says. His paintings build an illusionistic sense of ever-expanding depth, as the varying size, shape, and angle of his painted data points lend a dynamism to his canvases. With the utmost attention to pigment, the paintings are built up in layers of oil, wax, and resin, further eliciting the energetic potential of their compositions.

Created through a parallel process, each painting on paper fills a large sheet from edge to edge. To make these works, Winters chose a paper size called a double elephant, which was first developed in 1826 to accommodate J.J. Audubon’s life-size depictions of birds. As Winters has described, “I’m interested in these givens, working within the parameters of that aspect ratio, and how that affects the building of the work.” Together, the works create a space that is both immediate and imaginary, what Winters has called a “vitalized geometry.”

This exhibition closes 6/29/24.

Jun 132024
 

For the exhibition  Ming Smith: On the Road at Nicola Vassell, a variety of work from the artist’s impressive career is on display throughout the space.

From the gallery-

Nicola Vassell is pleased to present Ming Smith: On the Road, a selection of photographs from the artist’s archive that encapsulates the arc of her exploratory impulses as she sought and probed new subject matter and formal innovation from 1970 through 1993. Encompassing never-before-seen vintage and contemporary prints of images captured during her travels around the world, On the Road embodies the spirit of adventure and curiosity that advanced Smith’s singular entry into, and scrutiny of, the provinces of urban existence, nature’s quietude, family intimacy, popular culture, military life, and jazz milieus.

In the 1970s in New York, Smith’s practice was propelled by inquiry—both through her immersion in the Kamoinge Workshop and her preoccupation with the ideas of prominent twentieth-century American and European photographers. Cultivating her own radical sensibility in early experiments, she alluded to the virtuosity of Brassaï, Roy DeCarava, Diane Arbus, and Robert Frank. These artists set a tempo upon which Smith developed her own dexterity in portraiture, landscape, and street photography—highly attuned to the textures, geometries, and thrums pulsing through every spectrum of life. She recognized the haunting allure of an oil-slicked roadside and the liquid lightning of brass instruments in musicians’ animated hands.

Smith listens through her camera, sensitive to the harmony and dissonance that enliven her subjects and surroundings. At times, it is easy to forget that she works in a static medium, since each photograph transports its viewer into the energetic nucleus of the moment she captures. Through paint application, double exposure, and low shutter speed, Smith pushes photography’s form to the point of its brim and break. Like harnessing a memory, Smith underlines the evanescent—at once vivid and obscure.

This exhibition closes 6/15/24.