Chelsea dominates the New York City gallery scene this week with new shows opening worth knowing. All of our exhibition selections this week center on solo shows ranging from Abstract Expressionism to digital immersive experiences. Sculpture, painting, installation, drawings and mixed media can be found in the following five selections. Need a break from Chelsea? Head uptown for a new solo show that made this week's list. If visiting on Saturday, take part in the Madison Avenue Gallery Walk, which offers events and exhibits presented at over 100 galleries located from East 57th St to East 86th St.
CHELSEA
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery: “Abstract Document: Jim Campbell”
April 27 through June 17, 2017
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 27 from 6 to 8 p.m.
“Abstract Document: Jim Campbell” is the electronic artist’s fourth exhibition with Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery. In the exhibition, Campbell uses 10 works rendered across multiple formats to depict a day at a recent political rally (the pink hats in one of the gallery’s preview images offer a clue to which rally). Campbell’s works on view are an extension of his dedication to creating immersive experiences reflective of today’s digital culture.
Jim Campbell, who hails from Chicago but is currently based in San Francisco, has been exploring the medium of light and LED technology in relation to video and sculpture for the past 20 years. His work is in the public collections of institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery is located at 505 W 24th St, New York, NY 10001. www.brycewolkowitz.com/h/.
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Artwork by Jim Campbell. Courtesy of Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery.
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David Zwirner: “Felix Gonzalez-Torres”
April 27 through June 24, 2017
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 27 from 6 to 8 p.m.
“Felix Gonzalez-Torres” marks the first solo show at David Zwirner since the gallery began co-representing the artist's estate with Andrea Rosen Gallery. The exhibition presents several bodies of work made throughout the artist’s career, partially drawn from museum and private collectors. Set on two floors, the works are presented in a series of distinct installations in nine spaces that range from intimate to expansive.
Gonzalez-Torres created work from everyday materials using a reduced formal vocabulary that delved into the personal and the political through his use of a reduced formal vocabulary in his conceptual art. The works in the show respond directly to physical architecture and the simultaneously private and public nature of the gallery while still relying on the viewer's interaction with the work to enliven. Taken as a whole, the works on view “challenge perceived notions of what constitutes an exhibition space, a public, an artwork itself,” according to the gallery.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996), a Cuban-born American artist, created politically charged work as a solo artist and with the art collective Group Material from 1987 to 1991. A survey of his work, “Feliz Gonzalez-Torres: Traveling” was presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.) and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 1994. He represented the United States posthumously at the 52nd Venice Biennale.
David Zwirner is located at 537 West 20th St, New York, NY 10011. www.davidzwirner.com.
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“Untitled” by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1995. Billboard, Dimensions vary with installation. © The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and David Zwirner, New York/London.
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Galerie Lelong: “Nancy Spero: Maypole: Take No Prisoners”
April 28 through June 17, 2017
Opening Reception: Friday, April 28 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Nancy Spero’s large-scale, three-dimensional sculpture Maypole: Take No Prisoners will be installed in the U.S. for the first time at Galerie Lelong. The sculpture, originally created for the 52nd Biennale di Venezia in 2007, was Spero’s final major work before her death in 2009. The sculpture features themes present through Spero’s 50-year career, including her interest in “victimage,” a term she coined to describe the transition from victim to protagonist. Adorned with more than 200 aluminium-cut decapitated heads, the maypole incorporated imagery from Spero’s The War Series of 1966-70, which criticized the Vietnam War. Maypole: Take No Prisoners was a critical look at the Iraq War as well as the overall way war is used as a tool of oppression.
Nancy Spero (1926-2004) was an American artist who blended visual art with sociopolitical activism. Spero’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris) and the Serpentine Galleries (London). Her work is in the public collections of museums including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) and the Tate Gallery (England).
Galerie Lelong is located at 528 W 26th St, New York, NY 10001. www.galerielelong.com.
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"Maypole: Take No Prisoners" by Nancy Spero, 2007. Handprinting on aluminum, ribbon, steel chain, and aluminum pole with steel base, Dimensions variable, approximately 30 x 30 x 35 feet. Installation view: Capilla de Santa Ana, Centro Andaluz de Arte. Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain, 2009. Courtesy of Galerie Lelong.
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Luhring Augustine: “Lygia Clark”
April 29 through June 17, 2017
Opening Reception: Friday, April 28 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Luhring Augustine gallery will exhibit the early drawings, collages and paintings of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark alongside the artist’s well-known Bichos sculpture. Clark, who was a founding member of the Brazilian Neo-Concrete movement, created work that reimagined the relationship between audience and the art object. Treating the pictorial surface of paintings as if it were three-dimensional architectural space, she experimented with abstract art and monochromatic compositions through form, color and plane. Through adjacent and overlapping planes and the use of line, Clark played with spatial field, perspectives, and positive and negative space.
Lygia Clark (1920-1988) was a Brazilian artist who studied under the Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx and the French modernist Fernand Léger. Her work has been the subject of retrospective exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Itaú Cultural (São Paulo) and the Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona). Her work is represented in various permanent collections including MoMA, the Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid), Centre Pompidou (Paris) and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Luhring Augustine is located at 531 W 24th St, New York, NY 10011. www.luhringaugustine.com.
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"Bicho" by Lygia Clark, 1960. Aluminum, 7 7/8 x 13 x 7 1/8 inches, Installation dimensions variable. © O Mundo de Lygia Clark-Associação Cultural, Rio de Janeiro. Courtesy: Luhring Augustine, New York and Alison Jacques Gallery, London.
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UPPER EAST SIDE
"Friedel Dzubas | Sketches" at Leslie Feely Gallery
April 29 through July 1, 2017
Gallery Talks: Saturday, April 29, 2017 at 11 a.m.; 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Reception: Saturday, April 29, 2016 from 6 to 8 p.m., coinciding with the Madison Avenue Gallery Walk.
"Fridel Dzubas |Sketches" presents 30 sketches Dzubas made as either studies or small paintings for his large-scale works or murals. The exhibition is unusual in the breathe and number of sketches gathered and presented for the solo show, according to gallery director Dakota Sica. The sketches on view include those made in preparation for paintings that drew fame or auction attention including Minerva, 1976 (acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 inches) and La Plata, 1975, (acrylic on canvas, 62 x 152 inches) that sold for a hammer price of $87,500 at Sotheby's. The show also includes a few large canvases. Studies or small paintings that correspond to the exhibited larger painting are also part of the exhibition, including Otero, 1975 (acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 inches).
Fridel Dzubas (1914-1994) was a noted figure in the New York School and associated with Color Field painting movement. In the 1950s, he was part of the Greenwich Village art scene and was included in the noted 1964 exhibition "Post-Painterly Abstraction" that was organized by Clement Greenberg for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His work bridges European painting with American Abstraction and his work is most known for its expressive manner. Dzubas was close with Jackson Pollock and spent time with the painter in East Hampton. Dzubas also shared a studio with Helen Frankenthaler.
Retrospectives of his art have been held at the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) as well as solo shows at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, Leo Castelli Gallery, French and Company, all in New York, as well as solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, Düsseldorf, Toronto and more. His work is held by numerous museum collections including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, all in New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.) and many others.
"Arcadian" by Friedel Dzubas, 1972. Acrylic On Canvas, 6 x 9 inches. Courtesy of Leslie Feely Gallery.
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Leslie Feely Gallery is located at 33 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065. www.lesliefeely.com.
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The "NYC Gallery Scene" column publishes weekly with exhibitions selected by Hamptons Art Hub staff. This edition was written by Genevieve Kotz with additional reporting by Pat Rogers.
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