Dec 222016
 

terrywintersatmatthewmarks

terrywintersyellowmatthewmarks

To keep these posts a little shorter, I have split them up into two parts. The following continues the list of Chelsea exhibitions-

Terry Winters‘ vibrant paintings at Matthew Marks Gallery are made up of layers of marks in oil, resin, and wax.

From the press release-

“These recent paintings are a series of accumulations,” Winters says. “There’s a range of paint application in terms of both material and technique. Each color is a marker, a stage of development. I’m moving across the surface, modulating the material in different ways. That inflection produces an amplification of colors, both physical and chemical. But color is basically wild and full of surprises.”

padraigtimoneyatandrewkrepsgallery

Pádraig Timoney‘s work in The Deedle Eye, at Andrew Kreps Gallery, is a diverse combination of painting, photography, and installation.

From the press release-

Despite the visually distinct results, at the work’s core is a focused inquiry into the mechanics of images. Timoney conversely works in both directions – creating new images from abstractions (the captivating results of processes achieved in the studio), or rebuilding them part-by-part from photographs or observation. In each, he acknowledges the inherent flaws of these constructions, from the faultiness of recognition, the errors of translation, and further, the subjectivity of both viewers and the artist.

These in turn become generative openings in Timoney’s work as they are distanced from their original context. The images exist within thrilling, new visual constellations, allowing for the introduction of artifice and illusion, and the question of not only what they depict, but why? Each work records an index of decisions that determine its final state, materially and cognitively, displaying a history that is intentionally left open-ended. Figuration appears to hover only a hair away from abstraction, as if the movement of a line would cause one to collapse into the other. The narrowing of this gap suggests that the works’ initial disparate appearance may lead to an alternate understanding of their connections; a net that widens only to close anew, though what’s caught within it is left for the viewer to decide.

Also make sure to go to the space next door to see Klaus Weber’s sculpture Emergency Blanket.

klausweberatandrewkreps

Ai Weiwei has four shows up in NYC right now. Two of which are in Chelsea, at Mary Boone Gallery and Lisson Gallery, one is at the Mary Boone Gallery uptown, and one is at Deitch Projects in SoHo. Mary Boone Gallery and Lisson are both showing Weiwei’s Roots and Branches work, which includes large scale sections of dead trees, sometimes like the one seen below in cast iron at Lisson, and a 25 foot sculpture made up of tree parts bolted together. The uptown gallery includes a circle made up of 40,000 spouts broken off from Chinese teapots. Deitch Projects gallery has Laundromat, in which Weiwei has arranged items of clothing left behind by Syrian refugees (after they were forced to leave camps near the border of Greece) that he collected and laundered.

aiweiweilissongallery

Dec 222016
 

Paulina Olowska

There are many excellent art shows closing this week in Chelsea. The following are a few of them:

For Paulina Olowska‘s Wisteria, Mysteria, Hysteria, her painting series at Metro Pictures, she conceived and executed the work in the Polish village Rabka-Zdrój, where she lives.

From the press release-

The paintings incorporate arcane references and nuanced details from sources that allude to the pastoral. Olowska combines portraits of women from gardening magazines with elements from Slavic mythology and folklore, as well as techniques from Les Nabis, artists who left Paris in the 1890s in favor of the countryside….

Olowska’s atmospheric paintings evoke the forgotten history of Rabka-Zdrój’s past grandeur as a 19th century spa town. In the triptych “Wisteria,” an elegant young woman in a red dress and hat leans, arms outstretched, against a wooden fence as flowers from the tree that gives the work its title fall from above. To her right in the painting stands Villa Kadenowka, a 1930s mansion that Olowska has transformed into a center for artist events. To the woman’s left is the abandoned Modernist addition to Kadenowka. In “Hysteria,” a mother, baby in arm, stands outside a dilapidated house with a spray-painted for-sale sign. In “Mysteria,” a woman wearing an elaborate cape proudly rides on horseback through the woods. Olowska establishes a narrative between these two works; in one scene a woman chooses to leave the trappings of conventional domesticity, while in the next another embodies ideas of mobility and freedom.

Carl Palazzolo

At Lennon Wineberg, Inc., are Carl Palazzolo‘s The Hours, and Maine Notes, his small (8inches x 8 inches) canvas paintings that vary in subject and composition, but encompass his central themes of memory and the passage of time.

troybrauntuchatpetzelgalleryTroy Brauntuch‘s large scale paintings at Petzel gallery become clearer the longer you look at them, and vary in content from images of sculptures, to ball gowns, to the gloves from the O.J. Simpson trial.

 

Dec 102016
 

 

todd-murphy-nov2017-stag

todd-murphy-murmuration-12016

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.
joneschris-after-they-had-left-2015

joneschris-portrait-1-14-25-x-11-5-x-1-in

jones-chris-of-vanished-alphabets-2016-05

(images via Marc Straus)

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.

carriemaeweemsjackshainmanempire1116

carriemaeweemsjackshainmanoliviaset1116

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.

Jan 232014
 

andrewmooreBano_Rojo

***************SUNDAY CALENDAR STORY FOR JANUARY 19, 2014. DO NOT USE PRIOR TO PUBLICATION.*************** 'Espera Cayo Granma Santiago'. Andrew Moore's photography exhibit "CUBA" will be on display through Feb. 15 at the Couturier Gallery. Photo Credit: Andrew Moore.

Andrew MooreShadbolt_Ranch-Cherry_Couty-NE

Photographs by Andrew Moore (Bano Rojo, 2000 and La Espera, Cayo Granma, Santiago de Cuba, 2012 and Cash Meier Barn, Shadbolt Ranch, Cherry County, Nebraska)

The images from Andrew Moore’s show at Couturier Gallery are both beautiful and sad as they show Cuba as it is now, while at the same time the evidence of what it once was is all around.

The beauty of decay is also evident in some of the images from another of Moore’s subjects, Nebraska. These images are currently on view in New York at Yancey Richardson gallery.