Our favorite gallery shows opening in New York City this week feature paintings inspired by philosophy and magnetic energy along with sculptures using everyday materials not commonly found in art, from fluorescent lights to styrofoam, plants and stones. Chelsea, Downtown and Brooklyn galleries will feature retrospectives and solo shows on seminal and contemporary artists. Continue reading for our selection of highlights of the NYC gallery scene through February 25, 2018.
CHELSEA
David Zwirner: “Dan Flavin: in daylight or cool white”
February 21 through April 14, 2018
Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 21, from 6 to 8 p.m.
David Zwirner will present “Dan Flavin: in daylight or cool white,” an exhibition featuring work by the late artist.
Dan Flavin (1933-1996), a minimalist sculptor, made works primarily with variations of fluorescent lights to create installations, or “situations,” of light and color. The exhibition highlights work from 1963 to the early 1970s, a highly experimental and pivotal decade for the artist in which he began creating his fluorescent works, starting with the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi). The exhibition will also include other works such as the nominal three (to William of Ockham) (1963), which established the use of elemental systems and progressions that would become a constant in his work, and untitled (1964), which was comprised of rare curved forms. Showcasing the works from this decade, the exhibition highlights Flavin’s exploration of the ready-made, his minimal and conceptual approach to art, and the ways his light constructions redefined surrounding architecture.
David Zwirner is located at 537 W 20th St, New York, NY 10001. www.davidzwirner.com.
Click here for exhibition details.
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Dan Flavin, "alternate diagonals of March 2, 1964 (to Don Judd)," 1964. Daylight and cool white fluorescent light. 12 ft. (366) long on the diagonal. Photo: Billy Jim. Courtesy Dia Art Foundation.
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Galerie Lelong & Co.: “Mildred Thompson: Radiation Explorations and Magnetic Fields”
February 22 through March 31, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 22, from 6 to 8 p. m.
Galerie Lelong & Co. will present “Mildred Thompson: Radiation Explorations and Magnetic Fields,” the late artist’s first solo exhibition in New York.
Presenting work from the artist’s “Radiation Explorations” and “Magnetic Fields” series, the exhibition will showcase the signature approach to abstraction of Mildred Thompson (1936-2003). Thompson’s thickly-textured, brightly-saturated paintings, inspired by subjects from philosophy to mathematics, feature linear and circular formations. Her “Radiation Explorations” paintings from 1964 mark a period in which the artist left for Germany due to the racism and sexism she experienced in the United States. The large scale paintings feature blue backgrounds with occasional incorporations of white. Returning to the U.S. in 1985, she settled in Atlanta, Georgia, where she would reside for the rest of her life.
Paintings in her “Magnetic Fields” series from 1990-92 represent the artist’s visualization of the forces of magnetic energy. Thompson’s work features personal interpretations of invisible worlds, such as sound and space, through vibrant colors and energetic lines, embodying what the gallery refers to as “an emotional understanding of complex concepts through expressive, rhythmic mark-making.”
Galerie Lelong & Co. is located at 528 W 26th St, New York, NY 10001. www.galerielelong.com.
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"Radiation Explorations 8" by Mildred Thompson, 1994. Oil on canvas, 87.5 x 110.1 inches overall. © The Mildred Thompson Estate. Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co., New York.
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303 Gallery: “Marina Pinsky”
February 22 through March 31, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 22, from 6 to 8 p.m.
303 Gallery will present “Marina Pinsky,” featuring new works by the artist in her first solo show with the gallery.
Born in Moscow, the Berlin and Brussels-based artist Marina Pinsky creates work that examines the ways images are read as material, spatial, and ideological models of the world. Her analog black-and-white photographs and constellation of newly developed sculptures utilize oblique symbols to invoke potent and invisible histories. The exhibition at 303 Gallery will feature Pinsky’s interpretative, sculptural model of the Wyckoff House, the oldest house in New York built in 1638. The sculpture, handmade with unglazed ceramic, is pulled together with ratchet straps so the piece only becomes whole by the force of tension.
The exhibition also includes photographs of drawings of pine trees, taken from early American colonial flags first appearing in New England during the 1600s. The small images, which were created without negatives using positive black-and-white paper, appear as mirror images of the traditional analog enlargements facing them. By using the pine tree, which was adopted as the symbol of the New York Armory Show in 1913, Pinsky’s photographs magnify the conflations of iconography and allow for more deliberate consideration of the icon and its various histories. Pinsky will also display sculptures created from delicately rendered vines and leaves of pumpkins, cucumbers and string beans, as well as pieces that make use of granite slabs formerly used in factory productions.
303 Gallery is located at 555 W 21st St, New York, NY 10011. www.303gallery.com.
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DOWNTOWN
Foley Gallery: “Simon Schubert: Beyond the Doubt of a Shadow”
February 23 through April 1, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, February 23, from 6 to 8 p.m.
In his second solo show with Foley Gallery, Cologne-based artist Simon Schubert will present “Beyond the Doubt of a Shadow.”
Simon Schubert’s new work continues to explore architectural details and empty domestic interiors. Known for intricate work in which he meticulously creases single sheets of paper into dimensional images of real or imagined interiors, the artist will show new folded paper works and graphite drawings. The fictional house Schubert creates with folded paper will be presented with accompanying illustrations showing various views of the house and focusing on how natural window light and shadows affect the interior space of paper floors and walls. Playing with similar tonalities, Schubert depicts meditative and haunting grand interiors that are realistic and illusory, according to the gallery, and reflect “notions of isolation, loneliness and loss.”
Foley Gallery is located at 59 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002. www.foleygallery.com.
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"Untitled (Intricated 15)" by Simon Schubert, 2018. 35cm x25cm. Courtesy of Foley Gallery.
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BROOKLYN
VICTORI + MO: “New Wave by Amanda Martinez”
February 23 through April 8, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, February 23, from 6 to 9 p.m.
In her first solo exhibition with Victori + Mo Gallery, Amanda Martinez will present hand-carved and resin-cast sculptural works in “New Wave.”
The works on view were inspired by the artist’s long-term fascination with electronically based, post-punk new wave music from the 1980s. Like new wave music, Martinez’s art juxtaposes high and low culture, the decorative and the functional, and examines the line between taste and class. Her works explore the concept of the remix, with a mixture of carved and cast objects, real plants that appear to be fake and vice versa. The exhibition pairs stand-alone sculptures and wall reliefs with installation elements, such as functional seating made out of hand-cut wood and black wooden wall sconces holding mint green candles.
For her sculptures, Martinez uses styrofoam pieces, an everyday material not commonly found in art, which she sands, primes and paints in a way similar to working with wood carving. Her sculptures use pattern and repetition, reminiscent of basic geometric problems and hypnotic on-screen effects. Her work embodies the dualities in her own life and work, such as freedom and structure, self and other, real and synthetic.
VICTORI + MO is located at 56 Bogart St, Brooklyn, NY 11206. www.victorimo.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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