The Art Show’s 2016 edition is still living up to its mission of presenting audiences with high quality works from the 19th-century through today. This year, 72 presentations were selected from over 100 proposals from the Art Dealer’s Association of America (ADAA) member galleries, blending seamlessly some incredible work from Modern, Optical, and Contemporary Art masters.
Very few non-Western pieces are exhibited but those present do not remain unnoticed: the impressive kaleidoscopic sculptures and works on paper by Monir Farmanfarmaian’s (born Qazvin, Iran, 1924) are soloed by first-time exhibitor Haines Gallery of San Francisco who included pieces that hadn’t been revealed yet with others already featured at her critically acclaimed retrospective at the Guggenheim museum last year. Maria Elena Gonzalez (born 1957, Habana, Cuba) represented by Hirschl Adler Modern also has a multimedia installation seeking to unlock the musical possibilities of trees entitled Tree Talk, which will be accompanied by live performances.
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ADAA, very much stayed faithful to honoring the modern masters notably through Richard Gray Gallery, which is displaying a stunning self-portrait by Marc Chagall as well as a major bronze Tête de Cheval by Raymond Duchamp-Villon, in addition to other important pieces from Picasso, Dubuffet, Calder, Hoffman, and Avery. Jeffrey H. Loria displays other remarkable modern pieces but chose to focus on the three Spanish masters Picasso, Miró, and Dalí. Most are works never seen before in the United States.
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery is offering an astutely curated and engaging examination of Beauford Delaney’s work (American, 1901–1979). Considered as one of the most important African American artists of the 20th-century, Delaney found his voice in Greenwich Village’s early bohemia (1929–1953), and ultimately his signature style in lyrical abstraction during his Parisian years (1953–1979).
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Other more contemporary solo presentations include the geometric stone constellations of Mary Bauermeister showed at Pavel Zoubok Gallery, new disturbing paintings of desolate pastoral settings by Stefan Kürten presented by Alexander And Bonin Gallery, photographs by Carolee Schneemann on view from P.P.O.W, while Tilton Gallery is debuting new sculptures by Chicago-born artist Simone Leigh, whose work explores female African-American subjectivity. Michael Werner Gallery is showing a compelling painting series by Sigmar Polke’s from the 1990s, a period of intense experimentation for the German artist where he used newfound painterly materials and other uncommon processes.
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The Art Show is on view through March 6.
Courtesy Michael Werner
