What to See During Frieze Week 2017

The museum and gallery shows you’ve got to see in New York.

ANSELM KIEFER “TRANSITION FROM COOL TO WARM”
May 5–July 14, Gagosian
Anselm Kiefer’s “Transition from Cool to Warm” opens May 5 at Gagosian’s 522 West 21st Street location. The exhibition includes a new series of watercolors by the artist, a group of unique artist’s books, and a series of landscape paintings. Kiefer has not made watercolors in over 30 years, so this is an exciting moment for the artist. Some landscape works depict lakeside scenes of the artist’s studio in the distance, while others’ surfaces are covered in molten lead, peeled back from the painting’s surface by the artist to expose the subject beneath.

WHITNEY BIENNIAL
March 17–June 11, The Whitney Museum
The 78th installment of the longest-running survey of American art is curated by Mia Locks and Christopher Y. Lew. The 2017 biennial features the work of 63 artists and collectives including Pope.L, Samara Golden, Jordan Wolfson, Raúl de Nieves, Larry Bell, Jon Kessler, Carrie Moyer, Cauleen Smith, Aliza Nisenbaum, Anicka Yi, Shara Hughes, and Kamasi Washington.

ROXY PAINE
May 2–June 30, Paul Kasmin Gallery
This is the artist’s first major New York solo show of new sculpture in three years. Taking place over two venues, it will include large-scale dioramas like Experiment (2015) and Meeting (2016). Roxy Paine first started his diorama series in 2013, and since then, the scenes have become more ambiguous. Also on view will be a group of new “Dendroids.”

ROBERT STADLER “SOLID DOUBTS”
April 25–September 3, The Noguchi Museum
“Solid Doubts” is curated by The Noguchi Museum senior curator Dakin Hart with the Paris-based Austrian designer Robert Stadler. It includes four installations that show the work of Stadler and Noguchi, ranging from the functional to the sculptural. It is the first time the museum will feature a contemporary designer in dialogue with Noguchi’s work.

LOUISE LAWLER “WHY PICTURES NOW”
April 30– July 30, MoMA
“Louise Lawler: WHY PICTURES NOW” is the first major museum survey of Louise Lawler. Spanning her 40-year career, it is a comprehensive look at the output of one of the most important artists of the Pictures Generation. Lawler is known for her work in the seventies and eighties that captured other artists’ work in private collections, museums, or auction houses. Witty and defiant, the show will include her sound work Birdcalls (1972–81) in the museum’s outdoor sculpture garden, too.

ANNE TRUITT
Dia:Beacon
Early this year, Dia Art Foundation acquired six works by Anne Truitt, which will go on display at Dia:Beacon this spring. The five sculptures and one painting expand the institution’s collection of Minimal and Post-Minimal art. The group demonstrates the scope of Truitt’s career, which began with a solo show in 1963 at André Emmerich Gallery in New York.

TERESITA FERNÁNDEZ “FIRE (AMERICA)”
March 17–May 20, Lehmann Maupin
“Fire (America)” will showcase new works by Fernández, and debut a new 16-foot glazed ceramic wall panel of a landscape in flames at night. A new series of drawings burned on paper will be on view alongside an immersive 100-foot charcoal drawing on the gallery’s walls. The motif of fire references both contemporary violence and the historic land-cultivation technique of slash-and-burn in the Americas.

ERWIN WURM “ONE MINUTE SCULPTURES”
March 30–May 20, Lehmann Maupin
“Ethics demonstrated in geometrical order” will showcase new works from the artist Erwin Wurm’s series “One Minute Sculptures,” which he’s been making for 20 years. The series asks viewers to enact a pose with everyday items for just one minute—this time around he’s using midcentury modern furniture. These audience-activated sculptures will also be on view at this year’s Venice Biennale where Wurm will represent Austria.

LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE
May 3–September 3, The New Museum
On view this spring and summer at the New Museum in New York is an exhibition of work by the British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. The artist’s paintings play with ideas of traditional portraiture, creating fictional characters that exist both on canvas and in her short stories. She spells out little narrative for viewers, allowing for a variety of perceptions, interpretations, and projections. Yiadom-Boakye sees her imagined subjects as both political and autobiographical.

GAVIN KENYON
April 19–May 27, Blum & Poe
Blum & Poe will present a show of new work by Gavin Kenyon. The New York–based artist creates 3-D and wall works that reference and challenge Minimalist sculpture. Fabric is manipulated into folds and envelopes an empty interior volume. Hinting at something lost, the works are cast in iron and bronze, rendering soft materials more harsh and permanent.

IVÁN ARGOTE “LA VENGANZA DEL AMOR”
April 27– June 4, Galerie Perrotin
Perrotin’s brand-new space on Orchard Street in New York will be inaugurated with a show of work by the Colombian-born artist Iván Argote. The 25,000-square-foot gallery will become a new touchstone for the dynamic arts neighborhood of the Lower East Side. Argote has produced a film for the exhibition, As Far as We Could Get, which follows two young basketball teams in Neiva, Colombia, and Palembang, Indonesia, to be shown alongside new sculptures.

RAYMOND PETTIBON “TH’ EXPLOSIYV SHOYRT T”
April 29—June 24, David Zwirner
This is Raymond Pettibon’’s tenth solo show at David Zwirner, following his major exhibition at the New Museum in New York. On view at the gallery’s 19th Street location, the show includes something relatively new for the artist, drawings and collages, addressing contemporary American life by pairing images and text in a circular fashion. Its title—with some creative spelling—comes from the 1963 book by legendary American football coach Homer Rice.

THE HUGO BOSS PRIZE 2016 “ANICKA YI, LIFE IS CHEAP”
April 21–July 5, The Guggenheim
This show of new work by the 2016 winner of The Hugo Boss Prize, Anicka Yi, explores the daily effects of social, political, and technological systems. Yi continues her study of the intersection of biology and society, investigating the emotionally triggering sense of smell, cultural identities, and gender politics through installation and sculpture.

“DNA10”
May 4–June 10, Friedman Benda Gallery
Marking Friedman Benda’s 10th anniversary, “dna10” intends to look ahead by taking stock of the past ten years of projects and exhibitions. Annual expansion of the gallery’s program has led to the growth of a diverse and international roster of designers spanning five continents and multiple generations whose practices actively produced work and concepts throughout every decade from the 1940s to present day.

TESS JARAY “THE LIGHT SURROUNDED”
April 20–May 25, Albertz Benda Gallery
“Tess Jaray: The Light Surrounded” is the artist’s first solo show in New York. On view will be paintings made from 2001 to 2012. Jaray captures intangible spaces with an exquisite attention to color, line, and pattern. Through a deep understanding of geometry, she plays with depth, perspective, and form to create what she describes as “no space between the image and myself.”

“CALDER / MIRÓ: CONSTELLATIONS”
Pace Gallery: April 20–June 30, Acquavella Galleries: April 20–May 26
Pace Gallery and Acquavella Galleries join forces to present a monumental show, “Calder/Miró: Constellations.” The exhibition sheds light on the connection between the two artists separated by an ocean during World War II, after becoming friends in the late twenties. On view will be approximately 60 sculptures, paintings, and works on paper of historic significance and resonance.

“REI KAWAKUBO/COMME DES GARÇONS: ART OF THE IN-BETWEEN”
May 4–September 4, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met’s Costume Institute spring exhibition “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between” highlights the designer’s boundary-bending approach to clothing. Kawakubo challenges traditional notions of beauty, taste, and fashion. This is the first monographic show on a living designer at the museum since its Yves Saint Laurent show in 1983.

AMY FELDMAN
April 27–June 4, James Cohan
James Cohan will exhibit Amy Feldman’s large-scale acrylic paintings this May. The abstract works are rooted in process, with an emphasis on form and composition. Perhaps austere in color, in shape they are not so severe with lines appearing hand drawn. The Brooklyn-based artist is careful to keep her work slightly under-polished, letting the paint drip or dry as it may.

For more, check out Whitewaller New York‘s spring 2017 edition.