Things seem a bit like they are moving in slow motion, and it's hard to tell whether it's the financial crisis, the bitter New York mid-winter chill, or people are just recovering very slowly from their holiday revels. There is the argument that the less money in the art market, the more creativity you begin to see--it's either the art dealers scrambling to find something new to sell, or sticking with classics that they think they know will sell. Jeffrey Deitch is exhibiting the life work of a stripper: paintings, posters, framed newspaper clippings and books by Liz Renay, and an epic painting cycle by Keith Haring--talk about diversifying. As the giants totter, and operating budgets both in galleries and museum deflate, the organizations that never had a dime are holding fast and more of their ilk are popping up.
David Hevel
Tales of Wonder and Woe: Fable and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Art
Through February 22
The Castle Gallery
Fairy tales really are sometimes very creepy. The nice thing about this exhibition, deftly curated by Sue Canning, is that not all of them are--they serve various purposes in our psyches, some more normal that others. The artists represented in this show run the gamut from truly horrifying nightmarish confabulations of all out worst fears as in the sculptures of David Hevel, to a lyrical watercolor beautification of reality, as in Bettina Sellmann's series based on Snow White. It is an even-handed and illuminating survey of a very recognizable, but rarely noticed genre in contemporary art. Featuring work by Kiki Smith, Judith Linhares, Marnie Weber and Andre Ethier.
From The Archives: 40 Years 40 Projects
Through February 28
White Columns
Take a moment to reflect on the New York art scene over the last 40 years through the eyes of an institution to whom just about everyone has sent their slides (and I suppose jpegs). The decision has been made to pick one project from each year, which makes for a snappy concept, but leaves a lot unsaid. Still it would be impossible to display everything that has appeared within the walls of White Columns over the last four decades, and that would in itself detract from the sort of infinite range of possibilities that the place represents. Artists featured in the show include: Alice Aycock, Felix Gozalez-Torres, Fred Wilson, Martha Wilson, William Wegman and Gordon Matta-Clark, among others.
Fred Sandback
Fred Sandback
Through February 14
David Zwirner
If I didn't know the end of the story, I would have assumed it was a happy one-the work of Fred Sandback is so poetic and both literally and figuratively light. The motivations behind the installations can be read in so many ways--at one point they appear to be little more than extruded constellations, at other times, especially the installation for the Heiner Friedrich Gallery from 1969, perhaps an indictment of the art world itself--grand planes leaning against the walls of the gallery, empty and transparent--nothing more than rectangular place-holders. Sandback manages to question the whole concept of the interior and architecture with what simply seems like a roll of twine. And it isn't simply a one-trick-pony--with his two-color installions, he begins not only to generate pure forms, but begins to work with fabricated shadows as well.
Jesse Chapman
Jesse Chapman
Through February 14
Marianne Boesky Gallery
There is an almost renaissance obsession with paint and surface in Chapman's very modestly sized canvasses, very Piero Della Francesca. Colors are delicated hued and shaded in sometimes very subtle, but surprising combinations. There is some strange tangled story taking place from painting to painting that requires the viewer to actually pay careful attention--at the end you have no idea what happened, but you caught a glimpse of the process--like watching a movie when you're sleepy and then having it end up in bits and pieces in your succeeding dreams.
Mark Price
Mark Price
Through February 1st
Glowlab
All hail the White Box with the gallery owner/art dealer sitting in what appears to be the closet. Glowlab is one of the wee storefront galleries that I suspect will start making a comeback as a lot of storefronts become more available and there is less pressure to "sell" or "deal" art. Case in point: the most impressive work in Mark Price's very inky show of colored drawings and prints is painted on the wall. The work itself has a comic book feel, a very graphic combo of Philip Guston and Lebbeus Woods.
Paul Miller
Paul Miller: North/South
Through February 7
Robert Miller Gallery
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who first reached the south pole, beating out the Englishman Robert F. Scott (who died a miserable horrible death after coming in second). Apparently someone else out there also cares about this stuff, and that someone is D.J Spooky, aka Paul Miller. See how cool I am? This disparate show of flags, posters, paintings, video, and music is about cultural branding and taking metaphysical possesion of the last untouched wilderness? I definitely had to read the press release for this show, but with all the various stimuli coming at you from every corner of the spacious galleries, you did begin to develop a gut-sense of the ridiculousness of jingoistic nationalism, whose time, hopefully (with January 20th) has passed.
Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison
Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison: Global Warming
Through February 7
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
While the point of this exhibition is not that you should start investing in beachfront property in Glasgow, you probably should, and soon! Is art about science really art? That's a tough one...but if we take for granted that all those pre-literate art forms, ie. stained glass, were more about teaching--and everybody thinks stained glass is art--we'll give this show a pass as it's aesthetically pulled off. Ronald Feldman Gallery doesn't shy away from making you think. The fact is, it is the rather disturbing visuals that make this a moving and memorable show. The monotonous English voices and charts can't really compete with the time lapse computer graphics and prints showing an increasingly skeletal Europe drowning in our own fetid crepulence.
Joel Sternfeld
Reality Check
Through March 22
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ever wandered through some photographer's show and thought to yourself that their conceit was "clever?" Well the curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art have rounded them all up, and added a few conceptual artists and made a show about it. There are blown up photographs of very small things that look big, big things that look small, dead things that look alive, and stage sets that look real and real things that look like stage sets. To be honest, I really dislike clever art, but when it's all put together in a well-crafted show, the roll-your-eyes feeling of "I can't believe this guy spends all his time doing this one gimmicky thing" is substantially diminshed. Featuring work by David Levinthal, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Joel Sternfeld, Stephen Shore.
Mary Heilmann
Mary Heilmann: Two Lane Blacktop
Through February 21
303 Gallery
Weirdly enough, there is a very strong sense of narrative in this seemingly abstract show of the work of Mary Heilmann (who also has a show at the New Museum, and has curated an exhibition at the other branch of this gallery). The paintings are direct and simple--they deal with pattern and perspective, and the deconstruction of said patterns and perspectives. Or so they seem to, there is a movement and directionality that has you suddenly looking though the windshield late at night and visiting the bleak interiors of a David Lynch film. Heilmann is able to imbue what initially start out as simple assemblages of color and shape with a deeper more forboding psychological reading.
The Full Figure and Portraiture
Through March 15
The Noguchi Museum
I often wonder how people can spend any time in galleries and museums at all--artists spend so much time working and staring at one damn piece, and then the public sort of files by and spends less than a minute looking at the thing--most of that spent reading the label. For Shame! So here is one of those fantastic exhibits focusing on 1 (one) work of art. It's an incredibly sexy statue of the water nymph Undine, carved and cast by an equally good-looking young Noguchi (he must have been quite the hit in 20's Paris). Surrounding it are busts from the museum's collection, but they serve primarily as visual references. It is a far cry from his classic, austere and abstract style, but the fluidity of forms and the incomparable ability with materials is already in evidence.
Will Corwin is an artist and curator from New York City, recently based in Beijing doing a residency with the Red Gate Gallery. He has curated visual art exhibitions for the AugustArt art festival in New York and the Flushing Town Hall in Queens, a Smithsonian Affiliate. He has shown at the LaMama Gallery in NYC, Gallery Aferro in Newark, and has done site-specific projects with chashama and the Theater for the New City in New York, The Taipei Artists Village, Taipei, and Red Gate Gallery and the Pickled Art Center in Beijing. He is also involved with Smartspace NYC. He currently teaches with the Meet the Met program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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