If you’re in New York this month or next, be sure to visit these exhibitions at the city’s top museums and galleries like the MoMA, Perrotin, and Hauser & Wirth.
Vivian Suter
Gladstone Gallery
Now—June 8
Though each of Vivan Suter’s works are composed as separate entities, when displayed together, the pieces each play a part in creating a jungle of characters who exchange lively dialogue. Inspired by her home of over thirty years, the Guatemalan rainforest, and other natural surroundings, Sutor’s practice is best known for its environmental references, which move beyond trees and animals to include natural elements like eroded dirt, rain water, and plant matter.
Piero Manzoni, Lorna Simpson, and Soto
Hauser & Wirth
Now–July 26
At the gallery’s 22nd Street location, Hauser & Wirth is exhibiting two concurrent exhibitions—one by Piero Manzoni and one by Lorna Simpson. Manzoni’s “Materials of His Time” features the artist’s “Achrome” works and presents a survey of his approach to art using unconventional materials, while “Lines” includes nearly 40 exploratory works of the artist’s, such as those from his “Linee” series. At the space, as well, is Lorna Simpson’s first solo show with the gallery entitled “Darkening.” Her exhibition includes a selection of large-scale abstracted paintings, which follow Simpson’s examination of themes like representation, gender, identity, race, and history.
And on 69th Street, the gallery is presenting “Soto: Vibrations 1950–1960.” Curated by Jean-Paul Ameline, the exhibition offers a look into the first ten years of Soto’s life in Paris after leaving Venezuela. The show includes pieces from his “Compositions dynamiques” series, which he created in his first year in Paris, up until works from 1959 like El juego de la luz.
Joan Mitchell Now—June 22
Josh Smith Now—June 15
David Zwirner
The first exhibition focusing solely on Joan Mitchell’s multipaneled paintings, “I carry my landscapes around with me” is on view at David Zwirner’s West 20th Street gallery. Composed of a selection of works spanning forty years of the artist’s career, the show includes paintings from both private and public collections. The featured pieces demonstrate how Mitchell developed her techniques for abstraction over her career, seen in works like La Seine and a quadriptych entitled Minnesota.
At its West 19th Street location, Josh Smith’s “Emo Jungle” is an exhibition of new works featuring the artist’s signature motifs, as well as a selection of entirely new visuals. Smith, who typically employs forms like skeletons, leaves, fish, and palm trees in his works, continues with this exhibition to create an oeuvre of work with an ongoing and interrelated narrative. The exhibition features works like an a new addition to his “Reaper” series, and new motifs like devilish figures and turtles.
“Changing and Unchanging Things”
Noguchi Museum
Now—July 14
A major traveling exhibition, “Changing and Unchanging Things: Noguchi and Hasegawa in Postwar Japan” follows the brief yet impactful friendship between Isamu Noguchi and Saburo Hasegawa. Meeting in Japan after the end of WWII, the pair discovered shared interests in the balance between tradition and modernity and the development of postwar art and culture in both the country and their own work—something that helped Noguchi embrace his bicultural heritage in a post-war world. The exhibition features around 90 works by the two artists—including loans from The Noguchi Museum and Hasegawa’s family—revealing the parallels and complementary nature of their practices.
“John Henderson: Model”
Perrotin New York
Now–June 8
Typically created through a process of progression and addition, which continues until reaching an end product, John Henderson assumes an alternative logic for creating paintings: that which is built can always be unbuilt. For his exhibition “Model,” Henderson began by layering gestural marks on his canvas before gently removing them, revealing the colors and textures beneath. The works created are finished products that turn inward in search of its own conclusion.
Heidi Bucher: The Site of Memory
Lehmann Maupin
Now–June 15
On West 22 Street, Lehmann Maupin is showing “The Site of Memory,” an exhibition of works by Swiss artist Heidi Bucher—best known for her innovative use of latex to cast large-scale architectural structures. In addition to some of her most significant sculptures (like her first latex-cast work, Borg), the show features a number of pieces created between the mid 1970s to the 1980s, including a selection of works never before exhibited in the U.S., like Untitled (Door to the Herrenzimmer) and Elfenbornhaut.
“Warhol Women”
Lévy Gorvy
Now–June 15
Comprised of Andy Warhol’s iconic portraits, archival images, and ephemera, Lévy Gorvy’s “Warhol Women” is an exhibition surrounding the artist’s engagement with his subjects and ability to encapsulate the complexities of beauty. Fueled by a fascination with the ways gender and power intersected expressions of beauty, Warhol employed his knack for capturing true icons in a way that depicted the many dimensions of femininity while still aware of the image’s ability to exploit and sanctify its subject. The show features work from his 1960s series “Death and Disaster,” “Ladies and Gentlemen” from 1975, “Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century” from 1980, and includes figures like Ethel Scull, Gertrude Stein, and the Mona Lisa.
“Irma Blank: Painting Between the Lines”
Luxwembourg & Dayan New York
Now–July 3
Irma Blank’s first solo exhibition in the United States since 1979, entitled “Painting Between the Lines,” features highlights from key bodies of work spanning the conceptual artist’s career, beginning in the late 1960s until today. Filling the space between language and gesture, Blank’s practice draws from writing, art, and life for inspiration, seen in her series of works that examine the way a simple mark can represent a feeling, idea, or experience of time.
“Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern”
MoMA
Now–June 15
The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “Lincoln Kirstein’s Modern” serves as an overview of Lincoln Kerstein’s expansive contributions to the cultural life of Americans in the 1930s and ‘40s. Best known for cofounding the New York City Ballet and School of American Ballet, Kirstein was a curator, editor, impresario, polymathic writer, tastemaker, and patron, who held a key role in MoMA’s early history and helped create an alternative view of modern art. The exhibition, curated by Jody Hauptman and Samantha Friedman, begins with Kirstein’s graduation from Harvard in the 1920s, moving through his relationships to dance, photography, realism and classicism, Latin American art, and more.
