New gallery shows in New York City channeling the natural world through land, sky, sea--often linked with a human element--make our list of must see shows opening this week. History and horses also play roles in several shows on our noteworthy gallery shows list, opening in the New York neighborhoods of Chelsea, Brooklyn, Tribeca and the Upper East Side through April 23, 2017.
CHELSEA
Danese/Corey: “Deborah Butterfield: New Sculpture”
April 21 through June 23, 2017
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 20 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Deborah Butterfield maintains her focus on horse as subject matter in her solo show of new larger-than-life sculpture at Danese/Corey. In these works, Butterfield continues to binds the equine spirit with the human one in her new series by incorporating debris from tragic occurrences into her practice of drawing with driftwood and debris to make sculpture infused with emotional substance. In some of the works featured in the exhibition, Butterfield uses debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami and burnt wood elements from massive forest fires near her Montana ranch and weaves poignancy with a sense of loss in the work.
Deborah Butterfield has been creating horse-inspired sculptures since the 1970s, experimenting with materials ranging from clay and sticks to metal and steel. Born and raised in San Diego, CA, Butterfield received her BA and MFA from the University of California at Davis. Butterfield's work is held by numerous museum collections including those of Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art and The Brooklyn Museum in New York along with Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and others.
Danese/Corey is located at 511 W 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011. www.danesecorey.com.
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"Blackleaf" by Deborah Butterfield, 2017. Unique cast bronze with patina, 87 x 106.5 x 41.5 inches. Photo: Tara Graves/ Walla Walla Foundry. Courtesy: The artist and Danese/Corey, New York.
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Hollis Taggart Galleries: “Audrey Flack: Master Drawings from Crivelli to Pollock”
April 20 through May 26, 2017
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 20 from 6 to 8 p.m. RSVP acceptances only 212-628-4000 or [email protected].
“Audrey Flack: Master Drawings from Crivelli to Pollock” presents a new body of work made up of paintings, drawings, prints and collage juxtaposing Baroque and Old Masters with Modern and Pop Art plus contemporary iconography. The show marks a return to working in two dimensions for the artist, who has worked almost exclusively in sculpture for nearly three decades.
The works carry a dominant theme of figures; especially women with complicated histories who have been maligned by history, such as Marilyn Monroe and St. Theresa in Ecstasy. Presenting each as an icon, the portraits are layered with collage elements and text to reinterpret their hardships as the basis for a celebration of strength and triumph. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue that include an essay and a conversation with the artist.
Audrey Flack, who has been a part of the art world since she was a student at Cooper Union in the late 1940s, became known as a pioneering Photorealist. Throughout her career, she has experimented with figural sculpture, printmaking and mixed media.
Hollis Taggart Galleries is located at 521 West 26th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10001. www.hollistaggart.com.
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"Queen of Sheba" by Audrey Flack, 2016. Mixed media on paper, 39 1/4 x 27 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Hollis Taggart Galleries,
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TRIBECA
Cheryl Hazan: “Thomas Sayre: Cynefin”
April 20 through May 20, 2017
Artist Reception: Thursday, April 20 from 6 to 8 p.m.
For his debut solo show with Cheryl Hazan gallery, "Thomas Sayre: Cynefin" presents paintings from his “Barn,” “Thicket” and “Earthcasting” series, evoking an intense relationship between human-made objects and the land. The exhibition title "Cynefin" (pronounced ku-nev-in) is the Welsh word for habitat and also “...references a primal, fierce attachment to a part of the land," according to the gallery. Sayre adopts this idea as both an observer of landscapes in the South (and beyond) as well as one who interacts with the land as both an individual and through his art practice.
In "Cynefin," the “Barn” series depict various stages of aging rural structures, intended to act as mediators between people and nature. In the “Thicket” series, Sayre conjures the ambiguous beauty of cotton fields through acrylic stalks and constellations of cotton buds. Created out of roofing tar, varnish and enamel on masonite panel, the works pay homage to the fraught history of human labor and the land.
Sayre created the “Earthcastings” works by digging molds into the earth with his hands, then filling the molds with reinforced concrete to create castings. His process, which shares control of the outcome with the earth, illustrates the tension and balance between man and his surrounding landscape.
Raised in Washington, D.C., Thomas Sayre is renowned for his large-scale public works installed both nationally and internationally. Educated at St. Albans School, University of North Carolina, University of Michigan and Cranbrook Academy of Art, his commissioned work is held in collections in Boston, San Francisco, Hong Kong and Istanbul. His work has been exhibited in private galleries, such as the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. Most recently, his art was exhibited in the site specific installation White Gold at CAM (Contemporary Art Museum) in Raleigh, N.C.
Cheryl Hazan is located at 35 N Moore Street # 1, New York, NY 10013. www.cherylhazan.com.
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UPPER EAST SIDE
Acquavella Galleries & Pace Gallery: “Calder | Miró Constellations”
Acquavella Galleries: April 20 through May 26, 2017
Pace Gallery: April 20 through June 30, 2017
Joint Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 19 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at both Acquavella Gallery and Pace Gallery
Acquavella Galleries and Pace Gallery are collaborating to present “Calder / Miró: Constellations” to show affinities between the two artists, who were both working on constellation-like works during World War II while separated by the Atlantic Ocean. Miró and Calder became close friends after meeting in Paris in 1928. Although neither of them called the works on view at the two galleries “Constellations,” they created these corresponding series independently, without being able to communicate with one another in the early 1940s during World War II, when Calder was in the U.S. and Miró was in Spain.
“Calder: Constellations,” on view at Pace Gallery from April 20 through June 30, 2017, features work by Alexander Calder made mainly in 1943, when the scarcity of sheet metal during the war made him return to the medium of wood.
Small in scale, these carved biomorphic forms were a significant departure from Calder’s other hanging mobiles. Hung higher on the wall than paintings, the sculptures defy gravity and dictate their own height and perspective by projecting shadow shapes at varying angles on the wall.
“Miró: Constellations,” on view from April 20 through May 26, 2017 at Acquavella Galleries, features the 23 gouache on paper paintings of Joan Miró’s so-called “Constellation” series, made between January 1940 and September 1941, at the start of the war. The paintings feature a textured, hazy backdrop with meticulously detailed motifs, such as stars, eyes and crescent moons, to depict a private universe far from the terror of the war.
Alexander Calder (1898-1976) was an American sculptor who conceived a unique form of wire sculpture, known as “drawings in space,” as well as his signature “mobiles,” which incorporated suspended abstract elements to create a kinetic sculpture.
Joan Miró (1893-1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist whose work drew on memory, fantasy and the irrational. There are two museums dedicated to his work: Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona) and Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró (Palma de Mallorca).
Acquavella Galleries is located at 18 East 79th St, New York, NY 10075. www.acquavellagalleries.com.
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Pace Gallery is located at 32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022. www.pacegallery.com.
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BROOKLYN
Open Source Gallery: “Francesco Simeti: Swell”
April 22 through May 27, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 22 from 7 to 9 p.m.
“Francesco Simeti: Swell” is a theatrical installation that explores the human impact on Brooklyn waterways through appropriated images. The motorized, sculptural installation features imagery from waterways like Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal, whose toxic sludge has led to new species of microbes that live off the pollution. Inspired by puppet theaters and Baroque mechanical automata, the installation serves as a place for inquiry, self-reflection and a chance to learn about the community as well as explore the piece's subtext of political critique.
Francesco Simeti, born in Italy, received his BA from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Italy and has exhibited at the RISD Museum (Providence, R.I.), Columbia University (New York) the Shanghai Biennial in China, the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art and the Palermo Gallery of Modern Art in Italy. His public art has been installed in the NYC subway stations at 4th Avenue-9th Street Gowanus and at 18th Avenue Bensonhurst Gardens.
Open Source Gallery is located at 306 17th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215. www.open-source-gallery.org.
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"Swell (detail)" by Francesco Simeti, 2017. Courtesy of Open Source Gallery.
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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.
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