With Art Basel Miami Beach in full swing and the holidays fast approaching, we're taking a look at what's new in New York City galleries in December in general. Exhibitions that made our list highlight contemporary charcoal drawing, immersive sound-and-video installations, paintings that delve into nature, contemporary photographers and the historic ones who inspired them along with retrospectives that consider New York art scenes of the past.
Continue reading to discover our list of new gallery shows opening in New York City through December 2017. As always, we've picked shows that are set across New York City from Downtown, Uptown, Brooklyn and Chelsea.
DOWNTOWN
The Drawing Center: “Raha Raissnia: Alluvius”
December 1, 2017 through February 4, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 30 from 6 to 8 p.m.
In her first solo museum exhibition, Raha Raissnia will present “Alluvius” at the Lab at the Drawing Center.
The exhibition features the artist’s densely composed charcoal drawings from her 2016 series “Alluvius” and her 2017 series “Canto.” Raissnia, an Iranian-American artist, grew up in Tehran during the 1978-79 revolution and accompanied her amateur photographer father in documenting the mass protests against the Shah in the city’s center. Raissnia has carried on the tradition of portraiture and photographs of everyday life, evident through her current works.
With her drawings, she references both original and found images, including photographs, iPhone videos and quick snapshots of friends, family and strangers. Raissnia laboriously re-photographs and draws her images and transfers them between paper and celluloid until the image becomes unrecognizable and unsettled. The exhibition—which contextualizes drawing as part of her broader consideration of photographic and film representation—shows how drawing can revisit, question and change images used for personal, cultural and national identity.
The Drawing Center is located at 35 Wooster St, New York, NY 10013. www.drawingcenter.org.
Click here for exhibition details.
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"Alluvius 12" by Raha Raissnia, 2016. Mixed media on paper, 12 x 19 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York.
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Grimm: “Dana Lixenberg: Imperial Courts”
December 14, 2017 through January 28, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 14 at 6 p.m.
Grimm gallery will present “Dana Lixenberg: Imperial Courts,” a video installation from the Dutch artist.
“Imperial Courts,” a 69-minute three-channel video installation, is an expansion of the artist’s extensive project, “Imperial Courts, 1993-2015,” in which Lixenberg documented the inhabitants of a housing project in Watts, Los Angeles. From 1993 until 2015—through a web documentary, video, audio recordings, and a series of 393 black-and-white photographs (published in a monograph by ROMA Publications)—Lixenberg tracked the lives of people who only receive public notice in the event of calamity.
Lixenberg, who began shooting short film sequences in 2012, captures such moments as a teenage couple getting ready for their senior prom, a modest memorial by a children’s jungle gym and the conversation of women getting their hair done drowned out by the sound of LAPD helicopters flying overhead. The exhibition, which shows the normalcy of inner city life despite media perceptions, rejects sensationalism and spectacle in favor of sensitivity.
GRIMM New York is located at 202 Bowery, New York, NY 10012. www.grimmgallery.com.
Click here for exhibition details.
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"Imperial Courts" by Dana Lixenberg, 2015. 3-channel HD Video Installation, sound
Duration: 69 min. Copyright of Dana Lixenberg. Courtesy of Dana Lixenberg and GRIMM Amsterdam / New York.
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Alden Projects™: “Club 57: The Lost Flyers 1979-83”
December 16, 2017 through January 21, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, December 16, from 5 to 7 p.m
Alden Projects™ will present “Club 57: Lost Flyers 1979-83,” an exhibition that looks back at the flyers used for the influential artists’ space.
The exhibition—looking back at the seminal artists’ space, Club 57, that was a hub of creativity from 1979 to 1983—will feature more than 100 artist-designed, xerographic flyers used to promote events. Club 57, which was founded by Stanley Strychacki in the basement of a Polish church in St. Mark’s Place, served as a spot for art exhibitions, film screenings, poetry readings, music performances and more.
The exhibition highlights the ephemeral quality of the one-night shows by showcasing the flyers, which were often distributed by hand or posted on walls. The show will include flyers created by Keith Haring, who curated multiple exhibitions, as well as his hand-cut cards and works that feature early renditions of his “radiant baby.” Club 57, which was frequented by artists, musicians and writers such as Jean-Paul Basquiat, Kathy Acker, David Wojnarowicz, and the B-52’s, heralded non-art and Xerox art. The decentralized publicity arm of Club 57 allowed the medium to also be the message in these flyers, allowing young artists in New York City to show experimental art.
Alden Projects™ is located at 34 Orchard St., New York, NY 10002. www.aldenprojects.com.
Click here for exhibition details.
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Club 57 Flyer by Keith Haring. Courtesy Alden Projects, New York.
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CHELSEA
Julie Saul Gallery: “New Vision/New Generation: Luigi Ghirri/Andrea Grützner, László Moholy-Nagy/Alejandra Laviada”
December 2, 2017 through February 3, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 2, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Julie Saul Gallery will present “New Vision/New Generation: Luigi Ghirri/Andrea Grützner, László Moholy-Nagy/Alejandra Laviada,” a multi-person show pairing contemporary artists with photographers who have inspired their work.
The exhibition includes the work of Luigi Ghirri with Andrea Grützner and László Moholy-Nagy with Alejandra Laviada, showing the continuing influence of the past on the present.
Andrea Grützner, an East German photographer born in 1984, takes photographs featuring urban geometry with a dose of wit. Juxtaposing old and new in architecture and materials, Grützner displays irony, humor, optimism and keen graphic sense, inspired by Luigi Ghirri (1943-1992), an Italian photographer who pioneered the use of color. The exhibition will feature vintage prints from the 1970s by Ghirri, who merged document and concept in a diverse body of work.
Alejandra Laviada, born in 1980 and based in Mexico, will present her “Geometry of Space” series, in which she uses discarded building materials in multiple exposures to form powerful abstract compositions. Her photographs create deep, dark spaces, resembling the structure and mystery of László Moholy-Nagy’s photograms. Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), who introduced experimental photography to the Bauhaus, created photograms by placing diverse materials directly on photographic paper and then exposed and fixed to create unique, mysterious and evocative compositions. The exhibition will also feature rare photographs from the 1920s in the show.
Julie Saul Gallery is located at 535 W 22nd St # 6F, New York, NY 10011. www.saulgallery.com.
Click here for exhibition details.
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"Untitled (car)" by Andrea Grützner, 2016. Pigment print, 22 3/4 x 16 3/4 inches, edition of 5. © Andrea Grützner, Courtesy Julie Saul Gallery, New York.
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Robert Mann Gallery: “Cig Harvey: You An Orchestra You A Bomb”
December 7, 2017 through January 27, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 7, from 6 to 8 p.m.
In her second solo exhibition with Robert Mann Gallery, Cig Harvey will present “You An Orchestra You A Bomb,” a new body of work.
Cig Harvey’s photographs—part memoir, part poetry and part love letter to the family—highlight the inspiring moments that are often overlooked in today’s fast-paced modern world. The new series of photographs, shot in Harvey’s whimsical and otherworldly style, deals with themes of the family while showing how fragile the present can be. The works, created after a traumatic event, show a raw heightened awareness of the transitory nature of life, while propelling the viewer to fathom the sacred in everyday moments.
Robert Mann Gallery is located at 525 West 26th Street, Floor 2, New York, NY 10001. www.robertmann.com.
Click here for exhibition details.
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"Birds of New England" by Cig Harvey, 2016. © Cig Harvey, courtesy Robert Mann Gallery.
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Nancy Hoffman Gallery: “Katerina LanFranco: Mystic Geometry”
December 14, 2017 through January 20, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 14, from 6 to 8 p.m.
Nancy Hoffman Gallery will present “Katerina Lanfranco: Mystic Geometry,” an exhibition featuring new work that explores the narrative and symbolic content of abstraction.
The exhibition will feature seven large-scale paintings by Katerina Lanfranco alongside smaller paintings, cutouts, mixed media sculptures, ceramic pendants and mandalas on stones. The works weave together nature, science and mythology to evoke balance, symmetry and growth.
Lanfranco appropriates the cool vocabulary of analytic abstraction and blends it with techniques relegated to the “female” world of craft. She interweaves allegorical narratives, associative color and spiritual iconography, such as Tarot icons and Viking Runes, working with oil paint, beads, glitter and other embellishments. The work explores themes through a futuristic lens, while extending its roots to the primordial past.
Nancy Hoffman Gallery is located at 520 W 27th St, New York, NY 10001. www.nancyhoffmangallery.com.
Click here for exhibition details.
BROOKLYN
Pioneer Works: “Kathleen White: Spirits of Manhattan” and “Nan Goldin: Kathleen”
December 1, 2017 through February 11, 2018
Pioneer Works will present “Kathleen White: Spirits of Manhattan” and “Nan Goldin: Kathleen,” two separate yet interconnected exhibitions revolving around the two artists.
The two artists were part of the artistic community during a time when the AIDS crisis was rapidly unfolding in the 1980s and ’90s. Both Nan Goldin and Kathleen White made art that reflects something of that time period. Nan Goldin’s photographs of Kathleen, unposed, show the haunting loss affecting their personal lives, when many of their friends were dying of AIDS. The photographs, taken throughout the 1990s, celebrate the joys of being alive during a time when life seemed so fleeting. Kathleen White (1960-2014) created poignant multimedia works that dealt with loss, using wigs left on the streets of drag performers who had passed from AIDS. The reconfigured wigs, hair slicks and bobs will be showcased alongside New York City phone book pages that were altered with markings, watercolor, burn marks and more hair.
Pioneer Works is located at 159 Pioneer St, Brooklyn, NY 11231. www.pioneerworks.org.
Click here and here for exhibition details.
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"Kathleen in her studio, NYC 1995" by Nan Goldin. Courtesy of Pioneer Works.
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Transmitter: “Run For Your Life”
December 1 through December 17, 2017
Transmitter Gallery will present “Run For Your Life,” an exhibition featuring work by Guy Nelson.
Guy Nelson will present paintings that draw upon the natural world for inspiration, made familiar from his childhood in the Midwest. Nelson's paintings channel qualities of the Rorschach Test with viewers able to find their own images among his art the longer the art is stared at. Nelson’s paintings are created from a world of blurred imaginary demons and shadowy creatures, derived from myths that are both unsentimental and mysterious, with grim undertones in his motifs.
Transmitter is located at 1329 Willoughby Avenue, 2A, Brooklyn, NY 11237. www.transmitter.nyc.
Click here for exhibition details.
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"Lone Wolf Till Dawn" by Guy Nelson, 2017. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Transmitter NYC.
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John Doe: “May We Share Our Minds?”
December 2 through December 17, 2017
John Doe Gallery will present “May We Share Our Minds?,” a collaboration between curator Grace Noh, artist Simona Prives and composer Shiuan Chang.
The immersive exhibition features a video by Simona Prives accompanied by a musical piece by Shiuan Chang. The Prives video mimics human memories—the digital collages go through the process of decomposition and reconstruction, appearing and disappearing in no logical order. Chang’s music is composed using both instruments and everyday objects, allowing the media to spread organically and connect with the viewer. The exhibition is curated by Noh, who is fascinated by the idea of creating a space of distorted reality. The distortions allow viewers to be part of an alien world in the exhibition that creates an immersive experience for visitors.
John Doe is located at 112 Waterbury St, Brooklyn, NY 11206, Brooklyn, NY 11206. www.johndoe-ny.com.
Click here for exhibition details.
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NYC Gallery Scene - Highlights publishes weekly with exhibitions selected by Hamptons Art Hub staff. This edition was written by Genevieve Kotz. Click here to visit our Gallery Guide to find more exhibitions on view.
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Copyright 2017 Hamptons Art Hub LLC. All rights reserved.