If you’re looking for a cozy way to escape the winter blues, try visiting these shows currently on view in New York.
Oliver Jeffers
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery and The High Line
Now—February 16
Oliver Jeffers is having a New York moment. His solo show “For All We Know” is currently on view at Bryce Wolkowitz gallery, while his installation “The Moon, The Earth, and Us” just opened on the High Line between 15th and 16th streets. At Bryce Wolkowitz, you’ll find a new series of oil paintings that open the door into a dreamlike world inhabited by deep-sea divers, astronauts, sinking ships, burning matches, and floating pianos. Jeffers utilizes years of observation to create his imaginary universe where the night sky and ocean are a constant, and brief glimpses at the interconnectedness of the world leave his viewers wondering, and ready for more.
“The Moon, The Earth and Us” public work includes two large sculptures of the Moon and the Earth, allowing passersby to experience an astronaut’s point of view, seeing the entities in an accurate depiction of size and distance from one another. Aiming to highlight the wholeness of our planet as a single organism, the works also pose questions around the manmade borders that divide, rather than unite humankind.
Melvin “Grave” Guzman: Détourned
ABXY
Now—March 10
Melvin “Grave” Guzman’s second solo exhibition with ABXY, “Détourned,” includes new mixed media works accompanied by a soundtrack, projection, and short film of performance art. As Guzman uses found materials like magazine ads, ticket stubs, shopping bags, and posters to create new works, the French word détournement becomes a suitable title, apropos of his art. Including pieces like piñatas, doll-sized houses, and simulated pinball machines all plastered in luxury logos, the works investigate the state of our planet’s obsession with luxury and celebrity, implying that our desires have been artificially shaped by American media.
Dana Schutz: Imagine Me and You
Petzel Gallery
Now—February 23
Rendering a curious terrain where clouds hover in the sky like rocks, the ground is scattered with jawbones, and mountains evoke political dilemma, Dana Schutz’s“Imagine Me and You” confronts the internal struggles of her unlikely characters through a series of paintings and bronze sculptures. In her new works, paint has been built up and sculpted in vivid color to create scars, wounds, nipples, and noses that emerge from the canvas. First created in clay and later cast in bronze, Schutz’s sculptures are gestural pieces that kindle a sense of comically tragic absurdity, depicting scenes like Washing Monsters, where a man is stranded on a mountain, stuck caring for a monster that he fears.
Michael Hilsman: Pictures of M. and Other Pictures
Almine Rech Gallery
Now—February 23
Michael Hilsman’s first solo show at Almine Rech, “Pictures of M. and Other Pictures” features a suite of paintings of the recurring character, M., a balding man with a graying beard, in a series of magical-realist scenarios. Without ever revealing his face, M. gives us a vulnerable look at the human experience and the discomforts of public exposure and self-expression through scenes like M. with Laundry, where he lays outdoors under freshly hung linens, the layers of earth exposed beneath him to reveal a human bone; and Ten (Pool Picture) which depicts an empty pair of boots sitting poolside, suggesting M.’s presence is just outside the frame.
Claudia Comte: The Morphing Scallops
Gladstone Gallery
Now—February 16
Before geo-politics and wall drawings even existed, the wall—which serves as both a divider and protector, a promise of civilization, and a boundary of what is ours and what is not—first had to be built. Beginning with the simple structure, Claudia Comte’s first exhibition devoted to her painting practice, “The Morphing Scallops,” becomes a recreation Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams. But this time, its structure is plastered in the languages of mathematics and universal consciousness. Inside Gladstone Gallery, Comte has transferred her art directly onto the walls. By transforming the flat surfaces with dizzying fractal rhythms and algorithms and creating illusions, three-dimensional effects, and metamorphic patterns, she leads her viewers down a rabbit hole of sensual logic and unremembered dreams.
Erik Parker: New Soul
Mary Boone Gallery
Now‑March 2
Erik Parker’s exhibition “New Soul” highlights his new tondo series, illustrating luxurious landscapes where pools of water are surrounded by abundant vegetation, imagined in vivid and neon colors. Also included are a series of figurative paintings, depicting human forms in a collage style, where scenes of palm trees, sunsets, and cliff jumpers peek through the unsuspecting hands of their misshapen, surrealist faces.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: In Lieu Of A Louder Love
Jack Shainman Gallery
Now—February 16
The recipient of the 2018 Carnegie Prize, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a London based artist, whose oil paintings depict suggestions of people from another time and place who do not share the concerns or anxieties of those viewing them. With her latest exhibition, “In Lieu Of A Louder Love,” Yiadom-Boakye returns to Jack Shainman Gallery to present a host of new characters through her personal take on traditional painted portraiture. The works on view include 3PM Blackhealth, Blood Next to Walls, and Amber and Jasmine—an oil on linen painting of a woman kneeling on a rug with her hand to her face, as though she were contemplating a decision.
Marc Newson
Gagosian Gallery
Now—February 20
Gagosian Gallery has presented the first exhibition of limited-edition furniture by Marc Newson in over a decade. A strong believer in the idea that engineering and aesthetics are inseparable, Newson creates harmony and excellence in his work by approaching design as both a process of refinement and an exploratory technical exercise. In the show, the designer demonstrates rare decorative techniques at an unprecedented scale, seen in in pieces like a set of large cast glass chairs—a technique often only seen on smaller decorative objects. Also included are pieces like the Murrina desks, consoles, and tables created with classical glass-making, and an installation showcasing a number of aluminum surfboards, fashioned after the design Newson created for American tow-in surfer, Garret McNamara.
