What better way to escape the heatwave that hits New York this month than to an air-conditioned, soul-nourishing art show? Our selections for this month are about love and beauty, past and future, form and material. These include Pepon Osorio’s theatrical installation at the New Museum, Gego’s dynamic sculpture at the Guggenheim Museum, and Susan Chen’s hymn to Purell hand sanitizer at the Rachel Uchner Gallery. Don’t forget to stay hydrated and have fun.
unrequited love
For this glorious summer show, curators Vera Iliatova and Sarah Peters explored the notion of love in their work, specifically “a desire to grasp something in a work that is forever out of reach.” It is said that he gathered artists who are suffering from “longing”. Introduction by curator. The result is a small object that largely reflects that dedication.
An Age’s gorgeous little piece Madonna with Raised Curtains (2020) is, if you know what I mean, just one of those objects that ‘works’, and I like its composition and anticipation. I realized that I was researching and reexamining the magnetic force. Both Shari Mendelsohn and Ohad Meromi create sculptures that seem to reflect on their own act of creation in a unique way, but it’s all very exhilarating. I don’t know if the concepts are a perfect match (but I still love it), but this is a great opportunity to see a great collection of pieces interacting with each other. Other outstanding works include works by Craig Kucia, Rema Ghuloum, Dennis Kardon, John Newman and Julia Kunin. It is a show filled with a strong love for materials. —Frag Vartanian
Natalie Kaag Gallery (nathaliekarg.com)
291 Grand Street, 4th Floor, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Until July 20th
Denzil Hurley: To feel pain means to have lived feeling it
Some might roll their eyes when I say that in this day and age, exhibiting a mostly black-and-white canvas is definitely worth the time. But the work of the late Denzil Hurley would benefit Clement Greenberg, a critic famous for arguing that minimalism is deceptive and callous. Hurley, who passed away in 2021, imbued her oil paintings with emotion by arranging the linen paintings in strips, placing them on well-worn wooden elements, and subtly marking the surface. . The result is a quiet yet powerful visual vocabulary that expresses humanity and emotion. —Valentina di Licia
Canada Gallery (canada new york.com)
60 Lispenard Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
Until July 22nd
Julia Standwaal: I Am Kinky Concrete
Everyone agrees that concrete is an unlikely medium for sexual exploration. Yet Brooklyn-based Hungarian artist Julia Standvaal exploits the inherent properties of materials, such as hardness, density and brittleness, to delve into sensual depths. Partly inspired by conversations with her mother, Susanna Wede, her sex therapist, the artist combines contrasting elements such as concrete with finds, photography and delicate crystal in sculptures. At the same time, it expresses something absurd, eerie and profound like human relationships. —VD
Radiator Gallery (radiatorarts.com)
10-61 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
Until July 22nd
Stereo sights and sounds
This exhibition presents works that capture sound as a material based on a solid concept. It’s an immersive show that explores different threads.
Renée Stout’s choice of Gil Scott-Heron is perfect, and Ben Godward’s choice of Elvis Presley is unexpectedly lovely, especially with its ever-more clarity and form. Coupled with the colorful new works, it was wonderful. Our wide selection will help you see the work of JJ Pinkney, Herman Nitsch, Michael Brown, Marie Watt and more in a new way. Music and sound are often invisible partners in the creation of art, but their role is emphasized here and I hope this concept will develop into a bigger and more expansive show. . —HV
Marc Strauss (Mark Strauss.com)
299 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Until July 30th
Rachel Rossin: Scry
The small circular display screens placed throughout Rachel Rossin’s latest exhibition have a hypnotic quality. Covered with thick cast glass lenses and attached to metal clamps, they are reminiscent of undersea portholes peering into unknown abysses. It is a shape-shifting matrix of animated forms, biomorphic characters, and infrared images, born from Rossin’s brain-computer interface experiments. These objects refer to the practice of divination, which dates back to ancient Babylonia and involves recognizing signs and symbols on reflective surfaces and other mediums. Installed in the center of the ceiling, Rossin’s lenticular LED screen work “The Maw Of” (2022) looks at semi-abstract paintings in an eerie warm light. This show is a haunting meditation on the future of technology. —VD
Magenta Plains (magentaplains.com)
149 Canal Street, Chinatown, Manhattan
Until August 11th
Susan Chen: Purell Night & Day
In the spirit of Susan Chen’s playful hand sanitizer paintings, let me introduce her show with limerick poetry.
Just when I thought, no more pandemics
and your last purel is a relic
this delusion is dirty
By the bottle Chen drew
Indifference is the most pathogenic cause of all our illnesses.
—Hakim Bishara
Rachel Afner Gallery (racheluffnergallery.com)
170 Suffolk Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
July 18th to August 13th
Greater Beauty: The Drawings of Karl Gibran
100th anniversary of Karl Gibran’s birth Prophet, the show wants to introduce viewers to the Lebanese-American poet and essayist’s lesser-known artistic practice, especially his paintings. Inevitably, it leads to reflections on beauty. Hear these wise words while you watch the show. Prophet Guide your way:
People of Olfarese, when beauty is life
Life reveals her divine face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is the eternity of looking at yourself in the mirror.
But you are eternal, you are the mirror.
—HB
Drawing Center (drawingcenter.org)
35 Wooster Street, SoHo, Manhattan
Until September 3rd
Gego: Measure Infinity
Born in Hamburg as Gertrud Goldschmidt and trained as an architect, the artist better known as Gego fled Nazi persecution in his late twenties during the rise of geometric abstraction. Permanently resided in Venezuela. Incorporating the tenets of his kinetic and ophis art, such as his interest in mobility and dynamism, Guego’s work embodies lightness, grace and airy suspended steel and It was distinguished by the use of simple materials, represented by wire structures. Dibhos Singh Papel — Literally “painting without paper”. This large-scale retrospective contextualizes Guego’s practice as radical, both formally and conceptually, and represents a departure from the state-sanctioned art forms prevalent in Latin America at the time. —VD
Guggenheim Museum (Guggenheim.org)
1071 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Until September 10th
Pepon Osorio: My Heartbeat/Mi Corazon Latiente
One of the many works by Puerto Rican artist Pepon Osorio included in this well-deserved survey, “Badges of Honor” (1995) is a piece of art that will haunt you forever. Known for his theatrical environments that recreate public and private spaces to tell lesser-known stories, Osorio travels between a prison in New Jersey and his child’s home to film an incarcerated father and his wife. I filmed my son’s dialogue. Images are projected onto the walls of his two adjacent spaces. One is the child’s bedroom, plastered with baseball cards, posters, and other memorabilia of his teenage delights. The other is a completely empty cell. Like many of Osorio’s installations, this one proves that socially engaged art can help us feel the effects of oppressive institutions such as mass incarceration in a way that no other of her works can. —VD
new museum (newmuseum.org)
235 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Until September 17th
Erica Verzutti: new moon
Erica Verzutti’s first survey show in the United States showcases more than 60 sculptures that showcase the technical craftsmanship and boundless imagination of the Brazilian artist. Recurring motifs and textures, such as the characteristic fingerprint shapes that dot perhaps her most famous wall reliefs, are visited and revisited across a wide range of materials, from waxes and ceramics to papier-mâché and oil paints. . Verzutti covers part of the surface with bronze and the other with eggshell and is not afraid of highs and lows. Citing art-historical references from the Venus of Willendorf to the paintings of Tarsila de Amaral, she is completely personal, down to the visible imprints of her hands and fingers immortalized in clay. creating a visual language. —VD
Hessel Museum (ccs.bard.edu)
33 Garden Road, Annandale on Hudson
Until October 15th
Our Other Recommendations Summer 2023 New York Art Guide:
