HUANG RUI – ZEN SPACE

Posted on 2018-11-26

Huang Rui is widely recognized for his foundational role in the development of post-Cultural Revolution art, as a founding member of the audacious Stars Group, for his early application of Western art concepts– abstract expressionism, cubism, fauvism, to Chinese contemporary art, and as a founder and defender of Beijing’s 798 Art District.

Huang characterizes his art as “determined, deep exploration”, and “Zen Space”, his latest series, as growing from “…a continuous experimentation towards the most essential statement of art”. This body of work takes shape in part through Huang’s consideration of the Confucian order of society and the Taoist order of nature as they are reflected in the hexagrams of the I Ching (Book of Changes) and in Taoist geomancy expressed through classical architecture and the design of scholar’s gardens.

Opposite – Zen Space, 2018

Exhibition runs through to December 8th, 2018

Boers-Li Gallery
24 East 81st Street
4th Floor
10028 New York

www.boersligallery.com

  

ALICE NEEL – ALICE NEEL IN NEW JERSEY AND VERMONT

Posted on 2018-11-26

Alice Neel is considered to be one of the greatest chroniclers of 20th-century America, a story that is brought to life through the magnificent portraits she executed in Spanish Harlem and the Upper West Side of New York City. From intellectuals to next-door neighbours, and from fellow artists to single mothers,
Neel painted people from all walks of life. Active for over fifty years, her legacy is an oeuvre that is as historically illuminating and socially engaged as it is
autobiographical. Selected by Jeremy Lewison, advisor to the Estate of Alice Neel, this exhibition reveals the way in which she viewed her own intimate world. In contrast to the portraits that Neel painted in New York, most of which are set indoors, the works painted in Spring Lake and Vermont are filled with light, lush vegetation and a sense of openness. Often executed during holidays and weekends, they speak not just of a change of scenery but also of mood: the struggles and vicissitudes of city life give way to an altogether simpler and more rustic existence.

Opposite – Nancy and the Twins (5 Months), 1971

Exhibition runs through to December 15th, 2018

Xavier Hufkens
St-Jorisstraat 6 Rue Saint-George
B – 1050 Brussels
Belgium

www.xavierhufkens.com

  

IDELLE WEBER

Posted on 2018-11-19

The exhibition, titled Idelle Weber: Postures and Profiles from the 50s and 60s, will feature more than 30 works, including Lucite cube sculptures, collages, and gouache and tempera on paper works. These works address some of the themes that occupied and inspired Weber throughout her career, including the corporate world, fashion, politics, and women in society.

“Idelle Weber is one of the pioneering artists of the Pop Art movement whose work deserves to be more widely known and better understood, and this show takes strong steps in both directions,” said Hollis Taggart, the gallery’s founder. “In recent years, the understanding of and perspectives on the importance of women within major American art movements has been receiving critical and much-needed re-examination. We are excited to represent Idelle—and to present this exhibition—solidifying our connection with an artist who made important contributions to American art.”

Opposite – Bubble Gum Night, 1962


Exhibition runs through to December 15th, 2018

Hollis Taggart
521 W 26th Street, 1st Floor
NY 10001
New York

www.hollistaggart.com

  

SPENCER FINCH – THE BRAIN IS DEEPER THAN THE SEA

Posted on 2018-11-19

Spencer Finch combines a poetic sensibility and a scientific approach to gathering data to create installations, sculptures and works on paper that filter perception through the lens of nature, history, literature, and lived experience. Finch uses precise instruments such as anemometers and light meters as well as his own observation to recreate the transcendence of quiet moments—the play of light on his studio wall at night or a breeze through the window—and celebrate the sublime in the quotidien. Finch’s scientific methodology emphasizes rather than discredits the importance of subjectivity; the natural world may be measured, but our individual experiences of it will always diverge.

The title for this show is taken from “The Brain—is wider than the Sky—,” a poem written by Emily Dickinson circa 1892. Finch has long been inspired by Dickinson’s poetry, and admires what he calls her “super sensitivity” to the world around us.

Opposite – Western Mystery (She sweeps with many-colored Brooms), 2018


Exhibition runs through to December 21st, 2018

James Cohan Gallery
291 Grand Street
NY 10002
New York

www.jamescohan.com

  

NU BARRETO – AFRICA: RENVERSANTE, RENVERSEE

Posted on 2018-11-19

In 2009, Nú Barreto began a new series of paintings that would revisit the American flag with Pan-African colors. Desunited States of Africa is a series of nine works, included in this exhibition. Here, the artist adopts a new approach and questions a variety of themes, especially that of the disunion of the African people.

By borrowing the composition of the American flag, thus referencing Jasper Johns’s American Flag (1954-1955), Nú Barreto inscribes himself in the tradition of artists who use the visual power of symbols to highlight social issues. Let us also mention the artist David Hammons, who, with African-American Flag (1990), questioned public opinion on the African-American cultural identity. By appropriating the color palette of the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) flag, he suggested a hybrid reinterpretation of it. Hammons’s historic flag would inform the political dimension of Barreto’s work.

Opposite – Éventrée, 2018

Exhibition runs through to December 29th, 2018

Galerie Nathalie Obadia
3 rue du Cloître Saint-Merri
75004 Paris
France

www.nathalieobadia.com

  

SARAH MORRIS – MIDTOWN PAINTINGS: 1998–2001

Posted on 2018-11-12

The year is 1993: Sarah Morris, mid twenties, rents a studio between Times Square and Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street, a place, she says, where “urban decay and excess meet mainstream”. Drawn to explore the coded relationship she witnesses between people and architecture at this nexus of pornography and the corporate world, Morris records, surveys, absorbs fragments and particles of visual information: a flâneur’s view of the mapping of power. Embedded in New York’s real estate, redolent with the artist’s trespassing eye, the Midtown paintings and Morris’s first paradigmatic film, index the artist’s unique vision of the city and its future.

Fast forward twenty years—the Midtown paintings and the eponymous nine minute, 16mm film have become the visual distillation of Morris’s practice: precise, glamorous, de-familiarizing; portentous of dystopic futurism. Midtown is a harbinger of Morris’ series to follow, as the artist situated herself and her subject matter in the cities of Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Beijing, Rio, Abu Dhabi among others. The Midtown paintings and film are also prescient of a world on the cusp of change and equally of the artist’s role in relation to that.

Opposite – Midtown – Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, 1999

Exhibition runs through to January 5th, 2019

Petzel Gallery
456 W 18th Street
NY 10011
New York

www.petzel.com