Pattern Pulp

Tuesday’s Gallery Picks




This week’s artists examine the places in which opposing forces merge

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1. Rebecca Louise suspends 8,000 flowers from the ceiling in The Beauty of Decay at Chandra Gallery
2. Ori Gersht’s Flaunt “is about this new space created when the virtual and physical world are becoming absolutely united” at Kohn Gallery
3. David Hockney captured Yosemite National Park on his iPad at La Louver
4. Group exhibition Me and My Arrow at ZieherSmith
5. David Smith’s Form in Colour merges the concerns of two- and three-dimensional media at Hauser & Wirth
6. Radical Plastic is an opportunity to mediate on the idea of in-between-ness, and what it means to be in the middle of something as each artist proves adept at navigating fluid and liminal areas at CUE Art Foundation

July 30, 2016 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tuesday's Gallery Picks




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This week’s artists explore the intricacies of creation.

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1. At an imposing thirty feet wide, Contact III is composed of seventeen knotted sections of rich, orange manila rope and is the largest in the Contact series – one of Françoise Grossen’s earliest explorations of vertical repetitions. Hovering above the floor, the suspended mass is a paradoxical exercise that simultaneously employs and defies gravity, creating both tension in the fiber and an impression of lightness, fluidity, and grace at Blum & Poe
2. “Lucas Samaras: AutoPolaroids, 1969–71” is a solo exhibition that brings together more than 50 photographic works from the artist’s early experiments with the medium, including his first AutoPolaroid at Craig F. Starr Gallery
3. Combining image elements that he photographed in a wide range of international locations, Simen Johan’s images reveal poetic and often unexpected relationships that speak to the illusory and multifaceted nature of existence at Yossi Milo Gallery
4. Amy Sillman’s works can be categorized as abstract painting, although her abstractions repeatedly allow forms and figures to be recognized at Portikus
5. Maureen Chatfield: Patterns in Time is an invitation to contemplate the ephemeral, everyday beauty hidden in plain sight at Rosenberg & Co.
6. Sigrid Sandström’s practice actively interrogates the methods by which viewing initiates and elicits thought and cognition at Anat Ebgi

July 28, 2016 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tuesday's Gallery Picks




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This week our artists examine culture, colonialism and appropriation.

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1. Nancy Shaver and collaborators’ immersive exhibition Dress the Form at Derek Eller Gallery
2. “Edgar Flores (Saner) uses everyday life as the stage to introduce his magic beings full of energy and mischief, always concealing their identity, resisting the conservative mind. Those creatures represent the ideals and aspirations of people straggling for survival. This exhibit celebrates the spirit of our community, our culture, our love for life and the power to resist the taming of our ancient spirit.” at Museo de las Americas
3. Jorge R. Gutierrez’s Border Bang is a passionate love letter to the Tijuana and US border, documenting the bootleg artifacts sold to locals and tourists alike. Reappropriating the bombardment of pop culture images is the border’s reaction to global issues and events, telling viewers and consumers not to glorify these situations but rather to acknowledge them through their subversive presentation at Gregorio Escalante
4. Featuring a mix of visual influences of the Pacific Rim, Askew One’s latest works reflects on how colonialism has shaped New Zealand throughout the years, and tells a unique story through powerful portraits of the people, and the faces of this diverse community at Inner State Gallery
5. Disguise: Masks and Global African Art connects the work of twenty-five contemporary artists with historical African masquerade, using play and provocation to invite viewers to think critically about their world and their place within it. By putting on a mask and becoming someone else, artists reveal hidden realities about society, including those of power, class, and gender, to suggest possibilities for the future at Brooklyn Museum
6. Dylan Languell shrank hundreds of chip bags, giving new life as the “bodies” of the kachina dolls. Kachinas have a history dating to the mid 19th century or earlier. Around 1850, Hopi Indians carved wooden figures to make dolls that were used to instruct young women about deified ancestral spirits and their influence over the natural environment. During the early part of the 20th Century, kachinas became a commodification of Native American culture and were incorporated into Western artistic practices. Great Value, brings to mind new products, low prices, and issues of mass consumption at Bailey Gallery

July 20, 2016 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tuesday’s Gallery Picks




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This week’s gallery picks explore relationships, dialogue and documentation.

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1. Han Bing’s painting practice is informed by the daily experience of walking through cityscapes, construction sites and architectural exteriors. Often reconstructed from the arbitrary and unpredictable forms that develop in industrial residues, the shapes and textures in her paintings are accumulated in layers between transparent and opaque marks, and then sealed with pronounced, defined edges. In this process, building facades and surface treatments become flat, foundation at Night Gallery
2. Giving form and color to the complexities of intimate relationships and personal moments of great change, Kristine Moran’s paintings draw on her observations of the social dynamics at play within a childhood clique at Daniel Faria Gallery
3. WACKing the Piñata strikes up a dialogue about how Feminism and The Feminine is evolving, non definable and uncontainable at ltd los angeles
4. Influenced by nature and popular culture, Von’s artwork is both detailed and abstract, flawlessly walking the line between surrealism and documentary portraiture capturing a mood in what appears to be a fleeting moment in time at Stolen Space
5. Each artist featured in Contexture shares a commitment to a deeper exploration of texture and surface through a variety of source material and media. Paper, textiles, beads, paint, and found objects are intricately and painstakingly worked into compelling narratives and manifestations of broader commentaries on contemporary culture, identity, and modern life at Jane Lombard Gallery
6. Robert Hardgrave’s Blues Blues, Slower than my Heart Beat at Gallery 16

July 9, 2016 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tuesday's Gallery Picks




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This week’s artists explore home and identity.

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1. In her work, Sherman proposes powerful questions about identity, representation, and the role of images in contemporary culture. From screen siren and pin-up to socialite and businesswoman, the roles Sherman depicts through her monumental body of work provocatively engage with contemporary life’s mediated personas and stereotypes, drawing not only from art history but also from the histories of advertising, cinema, and media at The Broad
2. Divided into two sections installed in separate galleries, the exhibition is organized around the two outposts that Peter Beard calls home – Africa and the East End of Long Island at Guild Hall
3. Wild West explores artistic responses to the natural and cultivated landscapes of the western United States from the frontier era to the present at Legion of Honor
4. Brian Jungen’s new sculptural objects, wall reliefs, and hanging curtain are made of cut, spliced and reformatted Air Jordan trainers transformed into abstracted compositions that generate broader interpretationsat Casey Kaplan Gallery
5. Hilary Pecis’ El Verano displays honest depictions of the everyday objects and the living spaces that sustain the artist and her family; husband Andrew Schoultz and son Apollo at Guerrero Gallery
6. Imagined Futures features works by Chesley Bonestell, Fred Freeman, John Berkey, Jim Burns, Don Dixon, Bob Eggleton, Chris Foss, Fred Gambino, Ron Miller, Ludek Pesek, Richard Powers, Alex Schomburg, and Tim White, alongside, for the first time, works from other artists inspired by the visualization of the unknown; Ansel Adams, Max Ernst, Robert Longo, René Magritte, Simon Norfolk, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth at Pivot

July 5, 2016 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tuesday's Gallery Picks




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This week’s gallery picks showcase abstractions and cultural roots.

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1. Emily Mason’s rhapsodies in oil, composed from luscious color orchestrations and graceful brushwork that together mark the confident hand of a masterful artist. Color is the primary means by which Mason’s paintings are structured. Its forms and shapes, veils and layers, darts and furls ripple across her canvases and comprise singular argots of painterly sensibility and sensation at LewAllen Galleries
2. The exhibition Empirical Intuitive Absorption explores the roots of abstraction Andrea Rosen Gallery
3. An exhibition dedicated to the re-evaluation and rediscovery of three fascinating personalities from art history who instigated a material language that continues to inform contemporary art today. Comprising over 100 key works from American and European museums as well as international private collections, the show offers new perspectives on Kurt Schwitters, Joan Miró and Hans Arp, as well as a deeper insight into Dada and Surrealism at Hauser & Wirth Zürich
4. With Secret File, Lance Letscher’s complex collages turn into coded messages and patterns at TAI Modern
5. Combining modern African Diaspora, the aesthetics of science fiction, urban vernacular, and the idioms of abstraction, David Huffman’s paintings interrogate the politics of race through the increasingly subtle yet potent iconography of the basketball at Roberts & Tilton
6. William Swanson investigates manipulations of terrain and architecture. His latest work moves further into abstraction as he allows the pools and puddles of paint and dried cracked surfaces to create the movement and texture at Eleanor Harwood Gallery

June 28, 2016 | By: Shayna Kulik

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