Shows opening at New York City art galleries this week delve into the personal, with work inspired by individual histories, complex cultural identities and political frustration. Chelsea, Upper East Side and Downtown galleries will showcase American realism, art for a ballet production, geometric abstraction, figurative abstraction, and film and photography dealing with identity across two cultures, giving New Yorkers a wide range of work from modern and contemporary artists to choose from.
CHELSEA:
Mitchell-Innes & Nash: “Julian Stanczak: The Life of the Surface, Paintings, 1970 – 1975”
May 18 through June 24, 2017
Mitchell-Innes & Nash will present “Julian Stanczak: The Life of the Surface, Paintings 1970-1975,” the gallery’s first solo show of the artist’s work since his recent passing in March 2017.
Stanczak, who created abstract geometric paintings and prints, made his work through the complex process of tape masks upon which colors were systematically added and unveiled in layers. Developing this intricate process for his paintings, the artist did not use any preparatory drawings, relying solely on his own vision of the finished work. Stanczak drew upon his personal experience, specifically the places where he lived, and the trompe l’oeil characteristics of his paintings evoke “a distinct visual experience from within the surface of the canvas,” according to a gallery press release.
Julian Stanczak (1928-2017) was born in Borovnica, Poland. As a child during World War II, he and his family were forced into a labor camp in Siberia and later fled to a Polish refugee camp in Uganda, where he created art inspired by the atmospheric light of Africa. Stanczak immigrated to the United States and received his MFA at Yale University, where he studied under Josef Albers. His work has been shown at group shows at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.) and at the New Museum (New York). His work is in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Albright Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo), the Hirshhorn Museum (D.C), the Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh) and the National Gallery of Art (D.C.).
Mitchell-Innes & Nash is located at 534 West 26th street, New York, NY 10002. www.miandn.com.
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"Formation" by Julian Stanczak, 1973. Acrylic on canvas, 50 by 60 inches. © The Estate of Julian Stanczak 2017. Courtesy of Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NY.
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Gladstone Gallery: “Shirin Neshat: Dreamers”
May 19 through June 17, 2017
Gladstone Gallery will present Iranian-born artist Shirin Neshat’s new film, “Roja,” along with a related series of photographs, exploring the complicated identity of living across two cultures. Neshat, whose work critiques the cultural construction of difference, fully turns her attention to American culture for the first time in this show and depicts the ambiguity of feeling for an outsider through enigmatic images, haunting encounters and mystified points of view in her film and photography.
“Roja” (2016) was drawn from the artist’s own recurring dreams, memories and desires. Using nonlinear narratives and destabilizing in-camera techniques, the film depicts an Iranian woman’s difficult attempts at connecting with American culture while simultaneously reconciling her Iranian identity, showing the double binds of an intersectional identity.
In the accompanying photo series, Neshat uses white Americans (many of whom appear in Roja) as subject matter. By blurring and obscuring the subjects, Neshat creates a metaphor for the mystifications that enforce cultural boundaries and also questions socially constructed differences.
Shirin Neshat, an Iranian-born artist and filmmaker currently based in New York, has shown her work in solo shows at museums including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.), the Serpentine Gallery (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin) and Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. She was awarded the Golden Lion Award, the First International Prize at the 48th Biennale di Venezia (1999), the Hiroshima Freedom Prize (2005) and is currently the subject of an exhibition at the Museo Correr, an official corollary event to the 57th Biennale di Venezia. She is the director of “Women Without Men,” which received the Silver Lion Award for Best Director at the 66th Venice International Film Festival and is currently finishing her second feature-length film, “Looking For Oum Kalthoum.”
Gladstone Gallery is located at 515 W 24th St, New York, NY 10011. www.gladstonegallery.com.
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"Untitled" from "Roja series" by Shirin Neshat, 2016. Silver gelatin print. 40 x 60 inches. Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy of the Artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.
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Paul Kasmin Gallery: “Mark Ryden: The Art of Whipped Cream”
May 20 through July 21, 2017
“The Art of Whipped Cream” features drawings, sketches and paintings by Mark Ryden created for the American Ballet Theatre’s production of “Whipped Cream.” Ryden created the backdrops, props and costumes for the ballet, which will have its New York premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House on May 22, 2017. “Whipped Cream” is an adaptation of a 1924 Richard Strauss ballet that tells the story of a boy whose overindulgence on treats leads to a state of delirium in which his candy confections come to life.
Ryden’s whimsical work includes characters studies in oil on panel and graphite on paper depicting the personification of pink and green tea leaves, champagne and vodka costumes and Viennese confections in candy-colored tones. His work for “Whipped Cream” also includes his older motifs and familiar creatures, including his character Snow Yak. His work blurs the boundary between ballet’s identity as a product of high culture and its place in the wider contemporary cultural imagination, according to a release from the gallery.
Gallery Met, located at the Metropolitan Opera House, will host a concurrent exhibition of Ryden’s work for the ballet from May 19 through July 8, 2017.
Mark Ryden, who is based in Portland, Oregon, received his BFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. His oil paintings encompass contemporary mythologies with fairy-tale creatures, historical figures and pop cultural icons and he was recently the subject of a retrospective at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga in Spain, which was the museum’s most widely attended exhibition to date. He has had two solo exhibitions at Paul Kasmin Gallery and a mid-career retrospective at the Frye Art Museum (Seattle). His work has been shown in museums such as the Yokohama Museum of Art (Japan) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.
Paul Kasmin Gallery is located at 515 W 27th St, New York, NY 10001. www.paulkasmingallery.com.
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DOWNTOWN:
Denny Gallery: Emily Noelle Lambert—“Bellow”
May 18 through June 25, 2017
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 18 from 6 to 8 p.m.
In her second solo exhibition with Denny Gallery, Emily Noelle Lambert presents “Bellow,” a series of new paintings created during a residency in the Brittany region of France.
Lambert’s paintings draw on her intuitive explorations of the human body through figuration and abstraction in a style that deals with some of the concerns of Cubism and Impressionism while employing a unique contemporary language and vibrant expression of color, according to a press release from the gallery. Her work explores dimensionality and space in engagement with landscape, French gardens, and medieval architecture and materials, inspired by her time in France. Lambert draws on her sculpture to inform her paintings. The exhibition title, “Bellow,” refers to the works’ multi-sensory and interdisciplinary feel, and is also “an expression of frustration with our current political climate,” according to the gallery.
Multidisciplinary artist Emily Noelle Lambert, who is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but currently based in New York City, received her MFA from Hunter College. Her work has been shown in solo shows at Art-in-Buildings (New York), Denny Gallery (New York), Lu Magnus (New York), and Priska Juschka Fine Art (New York). She was awarded fellowships for artist residencies with the MacDowell Colony, the Lower East Side Printshop, Yaddow Foundation, Vermont Studio Center and the Alfred and Trafford Klots International Artist Residency in Léhon France.
Denny Gallery is located at 261 Broome St, New York, NY 10002. www.dennygallery.com.
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"Pink Time" by Emily Noelle Lambert, 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 74 inches. Courtesy Emily Noelle Lambert and Denny Gallery, NYC.
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UPPER EAST SIDE:
Gerald Peters Gallery: “American Realism: A Survey”
May 18 through June 16, 2017
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 18 at 6 p.m.
Gerald Peters Gallery will present “American Realism: A Survey,” which features painting, drawing and sculpture to explore the pluralistic nature of the realism movement, long a staple of American art.
The exhibition will pay homage to 20th century artists such as the late Andrew Wyeth and John Koch while showcasing work from such contemporary artists as Jamie Wyeth, Eric Fischl and Harvey Dinnerstein. Other artists featured in the exhibition include Quang Ho, Michael Klein, Daniel Sprick, Chuck Close, Miriam Dougenis, and Louise Peabody, among others, and highlight the diverse ways that realism can be executed, including photorealism, hyperrealism, magic realism and painterly realism. Through these different styles, each artist interprets his or her reality and uses a direct visual language to convey individual truth.
Gerald Peters Gallery is located at 24 East 78th Street, New York, New York 10075. www.gpgallery.com.
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"A Night Out" by Kenton Nelson, 2014. Oil on canvas, 54 x 45 inches. Courtesy of Gerald Peters Gallery.
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