2017 Whitney Biennial

Samara Golden, The Meat Grinder's Iron Clothes, 2017. Photo: Susan Yung

The 2017 Whitney Biennial is the first edition to be held in the new building, which itself still feels more like news than the show itself. The museum's 2015 inaugural aspirational statement show on Gansevoort (America Is Hard to See) felt like a biennial, and probably helped to alleviate some of the pressure that builds up before each biennial. Mia Locks and Christopher Lew curated this edition, whose work was chosen prior to the 2016 election.

Biennials, by nature, are notoriously overstuffed. The most memorable works are often distinguished, for me, by scale or craft. The standouts in this show are the site-specific installations that make use of the vast window walls facing the Hudson River. Foremost among them are Samara Golden's Escheresque work, The Meat Grinder's Iron Clothes, comprising scale models of the offices or residences of several occupants of a multi-story building. Tenants include a treatment room (of an unspecified medical, dental or vanity service), a restaurant, an office, and more, all with breathtaking river views. By using mirrored panels and securing some of the units upside-down, the effect evokes that of an infinity mirror. It's both realistic and completely disorienting. (Curator Locks is publishing a book on Golden's work this spring.)

Raύl de Nieves, beginning & the end neither & the otherwise betwixt & between the end is the beginning & the end, 2016. Photo: Susan Yung

Another work that takes cunning advantage of the glass and sunlight is beginning & the end neither & the otherwise betwixt & between the end is the beginning & the end by Raύl de Nieves. Using mundane media, de Nieves has crafted an impressive faux stained glass composition on the windows, which backgrounds beaded, knobby, vaguely monstrous sculptures and costumes, some of which de Nieves wears in performances. It's not exactly water into wine, but he does create the feeling of ecclesiastical opulence with simple materials. It occupies the lounge area behind the partial wall that provides shade to the galleries, where people check their phones while resting on the tasteful leather sofas.

Casey Gollan & Victoria Sobel, Reflections, 2017

In a similar vein, in Reflections, Casey Gollan & Victoria Sobel adhered reverse cut-out vinyl text that appears in negative form on the adjacent wall. The text summons verbiage from the 1968 student strikes in Paris, which aimed to destabilize the university system.

In Root sequence. Mother tongue, Asad Raza arrayed 26 individually potted saplings in one of the galleries that leads to an outdoor exhibition space. The trees have been assigned personalities, scents, and/or traits. This indoor grove is clearly conducive to socializing, with groups of chatters standing amidst the installation as if the trees were guests at a cocktail party. 

Occupy Museums is an installation organizing the debts of 30 artists, with artifacts somewhat hokily embedded within the sheetrock walls of the galleries. Like the Occupy Wall Street movement from which it derives its name, it is meant to underscore economic disparity—in this case between debt-laden artists and the lending institutions which profit from the debt.  

Occupy Museums, Stress, Fear and Anxiety Bundle, 2015.

One of the oldest painters represented is Jo Baer (born 1929), whose unstretched, sparingly-marked canvases with a harmonious organic palette are a breath of fresh air. Other art world veterans include Lyle Ashton Harris, with an atmospheric video room installation, and Jon Kessler, who combines machinery and detritus into densely-packed sculptures. Of representational art and photography, the subject matter is predominantly, refreshingly, non-Caucasian. There are full rooms devoted to one artist's work; some puzzling, such as the grotesque, charred pastiches of KAYA; others check the pulse of painting, including Carrie Moyer Ulrike Müller, and Shara Hughes.

The fact that the work was made in a pre-Trump presidency time gives it an almost nostalgic feel, free from the overbearing story line that will most likely dominate work made in 2017 and after—the way 9/11 affected everything that came after. And there's no getting around the tension between the prominence of the disenfranchised in the subject matter and the expensive river views and surrounding glitz. Tis ever thus.

Highlights from Disguise at the Brooklyn Museum

Gola Helmet Mask with Raffia Costume,
20th c. Gift of William C. Siegmann 

Masks are associated with ancient rituals, frequently of passage or transformation. The images conjured by the word are often carved wooden pieces of African origination. Now at the Brooklyn Museum in Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, many fine examples of these old world artifacts (or at least traditional in style, as many are from the 20th century) are on view, alongside contemporary renditions of masks, whether literal or more figurative. It's a stirring juxtaposition and a showcase for some intriguing young artists, many based in Brooklyn.   

Pieces from Liberia, Nigeria, and Cameroon exemplify the traditional type using materials organic to the geography, such as wood, straw, and leather. They can evoke animals, and are often meant to be fierce, intended to veil or erase one's identity. 

The works by current artists play on the varied themes and functions presented by masks, adapting them with an eye to contemporary issues of identity and security. Many of the artists have moved to New York from African countries.    

Nandipha Mntambo, Europa, 2008, printed 2015
Photograph sheet: 35 3/4 x 36 in. (90.8 x 91.4 cm)
Courtesy of the artist and Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town and Johannesburg 

Among the most compelling is Nandipha Mntambo, who focuses on bullfighting. She transforms herself into not only a toreador, photographed in costume, waving a red cape in a bullring, but also an intimidating bull with horns. In another fascinating work, she takes a cowhide and shapes it into a relief of a woman's backside, bridging abstraction and representation.

Walter Oltmann, Razor Brush Disguise, 2014, aluminum wire

Walter Oltmann of South Africa creates bristling body suits of razor wire and metal spokes, like modern versions of suits of armor. While obviously threatening, they manage to be endearing, in the way of a hedgehog.

Brendan Fernandes, From Hiz Hands, 2010, neon, glass.

Brendan Fernandes makes masks out of modern materials such as neon tubing and plastic, and sets them upon underlying, shadowy text, or, engrossingly (and disorientingly), on decoys of deer. He raises questions about the human need for disguise, and how it often is enacted for psychological reasons, rather than simply for the basic need to survive. In As One, he filmed ballet dancers posing in relation to African masks, juxtaposing symbols of divergent traditions.

Brendan Fernandes, Neo-Primitivism II, 2007—14, plastic masks, deer decoys, vinyl. Photo: Susan Yung

Zina Saro-Wiwa's photographs are striking because they show a woman in contemporary fashionable dress grappling with a giant mask/headdress, paralleling how descendants deal with the acts and histories of their predecessors. She also elicits questions about feminism, as traditionally predominantly men participate in rituals with large and heavy masks. 

Zina Saro-Wiwa, The Invisible Man: The Weight of Absence, 2015

Disguise: Masks and Global African Art , which originated at the Seattle Art Museum, is on view through September 18. Also in the lobby is an installation by Tom Sachs of his Boomboxes over the years, constructed of found or repurposed objects.  

Photos courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum unless noted.

Bowery Summer Art Walk

Half Bowl, from the Available Light series, 2012.

Sarah Charlesworth's (1947—2013) work gained prominence in the late 70s and early 80s as part of the awkwardly named "pictures generation," when it fit into the prevailing zeitgeist with its sleek, polished feel and deeper questions about the nature of perception and imagery. It feels greatly in opposition to many trends in the air today, for example the work of Albert Oehlen; both artists' work is on view the New Museum.

Sarah Charlesworth: Doubleworld is broken into several groupings, each one as breathtaking as the previous—the "0 + 1" white on white series, in which the most subtle shadows and shadings reveal the subjects; "Stills," a riveting, disturbing series of falling figures taken from news photographs; "Objects of Desire," icons that either refer to desirability, or which are themselves desirable things, on brilliantly hued backgrounds or in diptychs; and "Available Light," a group of aqua-hued images which play with reflection and perception. One of that series, Half Bowl, shows a handsome silver bowl with water, in which the rear wall's reflection is mirrored. Everything looks so perfect—the palette, the object, the diffuse light—and yet the imagery on the water's surface is not real. Through Sep 20.

Untitled (2009—11)

Albert Oehlen: Home and Garden features a number of large canvases by the German artist (born 1954) showing his muddy palette and layered imagery of genres that can vary from geometric, pixellated, figurative, consumerist, and pop culture. The largest ones, from the early 2000s, are the opposite of beautiful, and often feel deliberately messy. More recent works show Oehlen breathing more space into his canvases, and using a more pleasing palette and generally lighter wispy touch, while continuing to mix in numbers and letters into his queries about the nature of painting. Through Sep 15.

Leonor Antunes installation. 

Leonor Antunes

The ground floor gallery at the New Museum, located behind the coffee bar, sometimes feels like an afterthought, but sculptor Leonor Antunes' installation, I Stand Like a Mirror Before You, is one of the more intriguing shows I've seen in that space. 

This Portuguese artist has lined the floor with geometric cork panels, giving an immediate soft feel to your step. She has created mesh curtain-like panels from gold metal links, black rubber, and leather roping. Freestanding panels are formed from wavy plexiglas. The entire installation feels burnished, textured, and strangest of all, functional. Through Sep 6.



Also worth a visit:

Detail of a watercolor by Andrew Forge.

JJ Peet, CLOWNNEWS. 

Andrew Forge at Betty Cuningham Gallery
In this show of 10 paintings and 10 works on paper, Forge's (British, 1923—2002) graceful palette and eye for detail work with his vocabulary of dots and lines to form absorbing abstractions. 15 Rivington, through Aug 4.

JJ Peet, MAGiCSTANCE at On Stellar Rays
Peet's assemblages are small in size but have great impact. Rough-hewn ceramics, found objects, photographic, and other elements are mixed in satisfying formations, with dollops of color and pattern adding thrilling flair. 1 Rivington, through July 31.

All photos: Susan Yung

Epic Faile and Lots of Kicks

Foosball table installation with posters by, uh... oh, FAILE!. Photo: Susan Yung

Besides earning a reputation as "the shoe museum"—with its current The Rise of Sneaker Culture show and recent Killer Heels exhibition—the Brooklyn Museum is also forging a path in showcasing exciting young artists such as its current show of work by the collective FAILE, as well as its recent overview of Kehinde Wiley, among others. 

But seriously, folks... Night Bender, 2015. Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas. Photo: Susan Yung

In FAILE: Savage/Sacred Young Minds (through October 4), the team takes what could be perceived as cliché emblems of youth culture—arcade games, day-glo colors, muscle cars, skateboards—and combines them deftly in room installations, sculptural environments, and satisfying paintings. The team's work became prominent when a major pastel-hued installation was installed in the Koch Theater mezzanine as part of New York City Ballet's art initiative in 2013. In an eerily similar vein as Wiley's recent saint-like portraits and stained glass windows, FAILE occupies the Brooklyn Museum's rotunda with a chapel-like, decaying edifice sheltering contemporary prayer wheels and a statuary. It's clearly an effective way to acknowledge the past on new terms.

FAILE's Temple installed in Lisbon. 
Photo: Jonathan Dorado

In case you forgot whose art you were looking 

at—FAILE. Photo: Jonathan Dorado

If for nothing else (although that's not the case here) FAILE deserves credit for the sheer volume of subject matter they've either quoted from or created to collage together as the collective of mass neon wallpaper, as well as in the paintings on view. All told, it's a restless graphic tableau of ideas, trends, patterns, and harmonic palettes.

If the day-glo arcade, with pinball machines, video games, and foosball tables, becomes too claustrophobic or teen-boy for you, move on to the next room, with its soothing classically-derived sculpture. Take a look at the wall of paintings, with their trompe l'oeuil torn away strips, and layered memories of Americana. And even if the artists obsessively brand everything with the collective's name, like an adolescent's notebook doodles, the serious ways in which it's done have impact—in wrought iron gates, mosaics, tucked away in paintings, or blaring in propaganda style, wall-to-wall posters. 

Evoking Roy Lichtenstein...

Photo: Susan Yung

No doubt The Rise of Sneaker Culture (also through Oct 4) will garner more attention and young visitors, but I have to confess indifference for the genre. Maybe it's because it's primarily a male pursuit whose main publicity engine is the NBA. (There are several "altars" to Nike's Air Jordan line amid the many giant-sized samples.) Or maybe it's because touring the show feels somewhat like shopping. 

However, amid the mall store style exhibition design, there are cases with examples of early women's shoes. Certain late-20th century models ring bells, such as a relative of my first Adidas sneakers (cheerleading shoes!) and the ubiquitous puffy Reeboks for aerobics. Although where were the canvas Tretorns that were the standard wear for at least a decade?

Releasing tomorrow at Jimmy Jazz 

But the majority trace the arc of men's sneakers as individual NBA players—mainly Michael Jordan—had shoes and entire lines custom-designed. Bling and decorative elements were added to others, and technology was applied, such as sole cushioning (even retro technology, like the recent rise of knits in sneakers). There is also the implication of the rise of hip-hop culture's importance in society, with sneakers as the most elemental statement. 

After seeing the BMA show, try hopping on the subway and strolling down Brooklyn's Fulton Mall to get a similar broad survey of the latest footwear. Just make sure you look at feet on the street in addition to Jimmy Jazz and the numerous other footwear purveyors to take in the full context of fashion.

One final observation on an artist whose influence was felt in both the FAILE and sneaker exhibitions: Roy Lichtenstein, whose primary colors outlined with black can be seen in a pair of Nikes, and the general style of FAILE's paintings, which quote pop culture and cartoon techniques. He might be proud to see the extended reach of his high-low work. 

The New Whitney Flings Open its Doors

Gansevoort St. Photo: Karin Jobst

Touring the new Whitney, I thought about how Hurricane Sandy has inadvertently seeped into our collective thought processes about how to live in this city on a practical level. How since we are ultimately at the mercy of nature, perhaps we are better off going with the flow, or at least learning to live within its foreseeable dictates rather than building a fortress against it. 

View to an outdoor terrace and staircase. Photo: Susan Yung

Thus the Whitney building, designed by Renzo Piano, seems at every chance to embrace the outdoors. Numerous doors lead to vast terraces with sculptures. There's an outdoor staircase, an alternative to an interior one (albeit bestowed with great river views) or a set of elevators with whimsical designs by Richard Artschwager. From nearly every point, it's possible to see daylight, and in a few steps, be outside. It's a stark contrast to the interiority of the stately Breuer building, a veritable cocoon, albeit welcoming in a different way. The new building uses reclaimed pine flooring, which goes a long way toward warming up the galleries.

A gallery, with wooden floor. Photo: Susan Yung

The fact sheet about the new building includes a substantial section on flood mitigation. And while most of the points in this section discuss enhanced waterproofing and flood gates and barriers, the main lobby could conceivably open its many glass doors and simply let the storm surge pass through without much damage to the art, while the bulk of the museum hovers safely above. 

This might well apply to the hordes that will surely descend upon the museum, funneled neatly from the popular Highline. This 1.5 mile promenade—the latest, hottest city park—has pioneered the idea of re-use and has embraced urbanity while providing a place to bask in some sunshine and fresh river-borne air. Pedestrians will pass through the Whitney just as they pass through Meatpacking and Chelsea, a flow of humanity soaking up the sights. There are fewer and fewer barriers between inside and out, in a way that is perhaps unprecedented in the city. It's quite possibly the opposite result one might expect from the apocalyptic scenario of Hurricane Sandy.

A Jonathan Borofsky hangs above leather
couches on the river side of a gallery wall.
Photo: Susan Yung

A Rothko observes the conservation studio.
Photo: Susan Yung

The inaugural exhibition, America is Hard to See, is a well-organized, 23-section reason to view legacy artworks from the collection—many old friends—such as Hoppers and O'Keefes with work from recent generations, grouped chronologically. Around 400 artists are represented; it's essentially a roll call of luminaries from the last century or so. Of course, it's not without holes—Mary Heilman created an installation for a terrace primarily comprising dozens of brightly colored chairs, but as a friend pointed out, her glorious paintings are not included in the interior exhibition. 

Studio for photography and documentation.
Photo: Susan Yung

Adding to the air of openness, the museum allowed access to chambers normally not closed to the public, such as the conservation studio, where a Rothko stood waiting patiently, vying for attention with the demanding vista of river, and a slate-hued documentation room with its equipment poised to work. There's an education center, a theater, special project rooms, and cafés.       

A light sculpture by Felix Gonzales-Torres hangs in a lower interior stairway that leads from the ground floor up. There's a balcony on a landing from where one can observe the busy lobby, a large open space containing the shop and a restaurant. It's a human-scale iteration of the terrifying Atrium at MoMA, where looking down from the upper floors can feel like a suicidal siren call even to those of us unafraid of heights. 

The Whitney is a friendlier place that embraces the city in a fresh way that might only be possible in the wake of the floods of Sandy and the repurposed Highline. It's a seismic shift to Meatpacking that was largely solidified by Chelsea becoming the center of the art world over the past decade. Welcome to a new art paradigm for New York City.

Sculpture, Having a Chelsea Moment

James Siena, Just Read the Instructions. 2013, cherry wood. @ 48 x 69 x 60". Photo: Susan Yung

Chelsea/Meatpacking is abuzz with the impending opening of the new Whitney this week, and some warmer weather. A few shows of note:

James Siena, Pace Gallery
Siena is known for his paintings and drawings, graphic OCD works that seem to diagram the imperfect, if ultimately effective logic systems that humans can create. In this group of sculptures, his  exploratory, inquisitive thought process is somewhat revealed. A series of maquettes is built around grape stems. Siena takes this natural, functional structure and extrudes it with toothpicks, building a kind of exoskeleton. He has scaled up a few into wood and bronze, creating satisfying and delightful lattices. Another series explores the cube and its varying multiples; the works approach architectural explorations. Through April 25.

Charles Ray, Matthew Marks
In stark contrast to the organic lightness of Siena's show is that of Charles Ray, with two new sculptures. Baled Truck appears to be a densely crushed truck, such as one might see at a junkyard—a hunky rectangle of metal. In reality, Ray machine carved the sculpture from a solid block of stainless steel; the work weighs 13 tons. The second work, Girl on Pony, is a relief panel carved of aluminum, resembling the manner of a coin. Closed.

Robert Irwin, Blue Lou (detail). 2014—15. light + shadow + reflection + color. Photo: Phillipp Scholz Ritterman.

Janine Antoni, Luhring Augustine
Antoni has been taking inspiration from, and collaborating with, choreographers in recent seasons. These new works, of polyurethane resin, take human ribcages and bones and morphs them into delicate, eerie pieces, some with reassigned functions—rib baskets, intertwined spines, some physical manifestations of emotional connections. Through April 25.

Robert Irwin, Pace Gallery
Irwin has long used light as a medium, creating otherworldly atmospheres with the help of scrim fabric. His new series employs fluorescent tubes, combining them in rhythmic pattern and color juxtaposition. The media he gives tells it all: light + shadow + reflection + color. Intensely hued sections take on individual characters, helped in part by the often witty names, such as Blue Lou. Through May 9.

New Museum's 2015 Triennial; Wave and Particle at Feldman

Komar & Melamid, Super Objects: Super Comfort
for Super People, 1977

Eva Kotatkova, Not How People Move But What Moves Them, 2013
Photo: Susan Yung

The New Museum's triennial, entitled Surround Audience, culls art by more than 50 creators from 25 countries. It's far too dense to absorb in one visit, but even if that's all you do, you'll come away with a snapshot of what's happening around the world, and some strong impressions of work that concerns the global environment as well as political, social, and economic issues. Here are a few that stuck with me. 

Antoine Catala's Distant Feel is a mesmerizing sculptural installation comprising sea creatures living on the characters "E3." The plumbing and filtration are integrated into the piece, lit by deep blue neon.

Antoine Catala, Distant Feel, 2015. 
Photo: Susan Yung

Eva Kotalkova's nostalgic room-sized installation of objects and artifacts that slide between function, torture, and whimsy. Performers demonstrate some of the pieces at work. (I was unavoidably reminded of Komar & Melamid's series of Super Objects from the 1970s.)

Shreyas Karle's installation of relic-like objects, in a separate room, felt related to Kotalkova's work. This repository of small objects made of copper, plaster, and other assorted materials keyed off of both sexual and religious fetishes.

Juliana Huxtable's inkjet print series, Universal Crop Tops for All the Self Canonized Saints of Becoming, feel like surreally accurate depictions of sci-fi fiction, with their hyperreal, idealized women amid unfamiliar environments.

Eduardo Navarro, Timeless Alex. Photo: Benoit Palley

Frank Benson's Juliana is a partner piece, by intent or proximity, that occupies front and center on the second floor. It's a lustrous, life-sized sculpture that parallels Huxtable's women; its media is listed as "painted Accura ® Xtreme Plastic rapid prototype," for what it's worth.

Onejoon Che's installation depicts a series of heroic monuments in Africa, built by a North Korean company. They could be in a number of locations where propaganda has thrived, recording some kind of universal language for terrible public art.

Eduardo Navarro's Timeless Alex combines a sense of poetry in its title as well as the concept—a costume that replicates an extinct Galapagos tortoise, which performers will don and move about in. 

Brian Knep, Healing #1. Photo: Feldman Gallery

Wave and Particle, a group show at Ronald Feldman Gallery through March 21, showcases work by artists funded by Creative Capital. It's a terrific survey of artists who may not be brand new names, as many in the Triennial are (to me, in any case), but their inclusion in such a show means they have earned a number of accolades. 

A number incorporate video or photography, such as Brian Knep's Healing #1, an interactive floor piece that you can rearrange by walking across.

A few other highlights: Shih-Chieh Huang's Nocturne-II, a joyous mixed media mechanized sculpture whose plastic sleeve arms inflate like a comical octopus; Jason Salavon's eerie Rembrandt and Velasquez sin rostro portraits; and Ken Gonzales-Day's haunting wallpaper photograph of a tree, After the Crowd. With art fair madness about to begin, this show is well worth a visit.

Kehinde Wiley—A New Republic

Shantavia Beale II, 2012. Photo: Jason Wyche

There are many levels in appreciating Kehinde Wiley's work, the subject of an overview at the Brooklyn Museum, in a show subtitled The New Republic, through May 24. On the surface, the painting is technically impressive; his palette vibrant; the compositions energized by pattern-on-pattern. He is a perfectionist, apparent from the high level of finish in his carefully constructed frames and totality of presentation. And while he calls out the old master works after which he creates his compositions, the overall balance between central figure and secondary pattern is finely tuned. He plays with foreground and background, at times weaving floral garlands around the human subjects. (In this profile, he notes that assistants handle those elements, among other things.)

On a contextual level, Wiley is sui generis. His portraits of black people, mostly in their own clothes or modern-day dress, feature them in heroic poses patterned after classical works, including sculptures. The wall labels often feature photos of the source work, which is a welcome step in a time rampant with appropriation and unacknowledged re-use (ahem, Richard Prince). 

The Archangel Gabriel, 2014. 
Photo: Susan Yung

More than most contemporary artists, Wiley is acutely aware of art history and its religious, societal, and political beginnings. While juxtaposing modern black youth with the European cultural tradition so prevalent in American education, he is capturing his own time's people and customs of dress. A series of compact altar portraits depicts young men in saintly poses; the elaborate steepled frames are gilded in 24K gold leaf. A series of six stained glass panels similarly combine ancient ecclesiastical forms with contemporary young men. It raises questions: have these men done things to merit such sanctification? Were people who were similarly sanctified centuries before much different than you and I and the man up the block?

Femme piquée par un serpent, 2008. Courtesy Sean Kelly Gallery

The long central gallery contains many of Wiley's heroic, large-scale portraits. Several men sit atop horses (including Michael Jackson, in his high-late period face). A number of the paintings are from his "World Stage" series, taking classic works of art from various countries such as China, Haiti, and Turkey, subjects updated. Examples of paintings derived from sculpture include Femme piquée par un serpent (2008), based on a marble by Auguste Clésinger. The young man, underwear bared modishly, twists awkwardly, as the original female model must have, albeit even more so, nude. Wiley, however, has chosen to have the man stare directly at us. He is self-conscious, and we are self-conscious staring back. 

Colonel Platoff on His Charger, 2007.

 Photo: Susan Yung

Recent portraits of women comprise the final gallery. Until now, he has focused on young men to whom, as a gay man, he might be attracted. The depicted women, while noble and self-assured, are not asked to pose heroically, even if the source paintings are antique—as much a comment on the historical treatment of women in art as the contemporary version. 

In many of the paintings, the women simply exist amid the flora surrounding them, rather than dominate. Some wear elegant evening dresses that can be read in terms of socio-economics. Hair is sometimes done up in an elaborate beehive. A bronze sculpture, Bound (2014), features three women whose hair is braided together.

The exhibition, curated by Eugenie Tsai,  finds particular resonance at the Brooklyn Museum, where ancient culture meets broad racial diversity. Wiley's work feels like a portal in which time has collapsed, and eras are conflated. It's an exhilarating ride.  

MoMA—Forever Now, or at least until April 5

Kerstin Brätsch, Sigi's Erben (Agate Psychics) (2012) at left; Matt Connors, Variable Foot (2014), at right. Photo: Susan Yung

The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World is the kind of show you'd expect MoMA to do more frequently—a compact survey of young painters expanding the genre, curated by Laura Hoptman, like a biennial (and including a number of artists that were in the last Whitney Biennial). In press materials, the obtusely titled show is parsed into four loose categories: reanimation, reenactment, sampling, and the archetype, which provides intellectual crunchiness if you prefer to go deeper than "I know what I like."

Some highlights:

Dianna Molzan, Untitled, 2012. Photo: Susan Yung

Kerstin Brätsch—some of Brätsch's "Blocked Radiant" paintings sit outside the gallery, like either greeters or warnings; frittery shapes surround fuzzy orbs. The large installation inside, Sigi's Erbe (Agate Psychics) (2012) is composed of a metal framework off of which hang panels made of glass or aluminum with imaergy, or of agate segments arranged into compositions, all meant to be seen from both sides. 

Mark Grotjahn—his carefully arranged psychedelic compositions of layered arcs, such as Untitled (Circus No. 6 Face 44.22) (2013) could be biological snapshots, or dense jungle. They are hermetic new worlds.

Julie Mehretu—she has relaxed somewhat from her hypothetical utopias that approach architectural renderings into scribbled graphite-hued fog banks that will be unavoidably compared to Cy Twombly, such as Heavier than Air (written form) (2014).

(Here, take note of the penchant for parenthetical titles. What gives?)

Amy Sillman, Untitled (Head), 2014. Photo: Susan Yung

Dianna Molzan—what she does—playing with the traditional format of painting—may not be entirely revolutionary, but it is entertaining and beautifully done. In the example pictured here, she has painted on sheer silk, which is then stretched onto bars so that both the canvas and stretchers are visible. In others, she slices the canvas, or reduces it to a net, whose strings receive the paint.

Amy Sillman—among the more traditional-seeming painters, which is perhaps the most ambitious. Her still lives and portraits resonate for their reductive shapes and gorgeous palettes.

Oscar Murillo—his extensive representation within the show is enough to make a statement. He pieces together canvases, using primarily dark hues with looping scrawls and dense occlusions.


The exhibition, through April 5, is on the sixth floor, next to the Matisse Cut-Outs. Catching both might give you a sense of the ongoing continuity within art.

Takashi Murakami at Gagosian; Albert York at Matthew Marks

Bakuramon. Photo: Susan Yung

Takashi Murakami is known for his Superflat style—anime and cartoon-like imagery composed using oval or circular forms, giving them a cuddly affect. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade boasts a float of his design, and Louis Vuitton has embellished handbags with LV logos in his rainbow palette. In his new show, In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, at Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea through January 17, he  draws on sources from Japanese history, but taps into a dark figurative array. It also reveals the breadth of his thematic and technical ambition concerning subjects no less than life, death, the depiction of religion, and creativity.

The behemoth of the exhibition is Bakuramon, a life-sized installation after the gate Rashomon, in Japan, modeled after a Chinese Tang Dynasty piece. Murakami packs a lot into this symbol: cultural appropriation and loss of original meaning, a mistaken religious icon, and a gateway between in/out, life/death, and the act of artistic interpretation. Funny thing though: the gate building itself comes across not as a work of art, but a stage set. 

Detail: A Picture of the Blessed Lion Who Nestles with the Secrets of Death and the Universe. Photo: Susan Yung

Some of his paintings appear to be battlegrounds for a standoff between a staid icon (a temple) and a platoon of horrifying, zombie-like dudes with multiple eyes and snaggly teeth. (His notes on the painting refer to a WWII-era painter, Arnold Bocklin, who became suddenly popular and thereafter painted the same subject again and again.) In another series, he has graffitied DEATH HATE I (to be read in reverse) and HOLLOW over a field of small cartoon figures. These read as public exhumations of internal conflict about the nature and purpose of art, an odd kind of self-loathing and intentional sabotage of otherwise happy paintings.

A series of round paintings are minimalist compositions of pretty elements. Another series, the Arhat paintings, are no less than what Murakami thinks "a contemporary Japanese belief system might look like." Perhaps not coincidentally, these essentially abstract works, each focused around a mesmerizing multi-layered circle, seem to tap into strands of modern art movements. His "Lion" paintings are at once irresistibly opulent and plasticky—gold and platinum leaf over relief painting form backgrounds—with motifs of lions on bridges of skulls and lion cubs (death and rebirth).

Albert York, Pink and White Flowers in a Glass
Container, 1965. Photo: Susan Yung

Albert York, Landscape with Trees and Snake, 1980
Photo: Susan Yung

A giant mural, from which the exhibition takes its name, is so long, it's best to read it as you walk from end to end (it's 25,000 mm long, whatever that is. Long.). Skulls, ships, elephants, fish, and a million other elements populate this composition, similar in form to multi-paneled ancient screens. He also includes several sculptures that range from your basic manga-like demons to The Birth Cry of a Universe, a garishly opulent gold-leafed totem that represents a ferocious natural force, but not a physical imitation of one.

It's hard not to be impressed by the sheer ambition and scale of this exhibition, but then go and see Matthew Marks' quiet, beautiful show of paintings by Albert York, also on 24th St., through December 20. This show of 37 paintings done between 1963 and 1992 are primarily of the landscape and still-life mode, mostly around 12" square or a bit smaller. A cheery floral bouquet is dimmed slightly by some murk in his palette. A snake slithers across the bottom of a field of grass, and a gator inexplicably hovers at the side of another. He worked primarily from his home in East Hampton, but for all the touches of goth, he could've been in the tangled swamps of the South. Without illustrating life vs. death, he implicates the everyday world in just that battle.