Walk into the new show “Bibelots” of ceramics master Nicolas Guagnini and you will find the floor littered with leaflets of an admiring review of the artist’s work by curator and critic Jenny Jaskey. The text “I love Nic” recounts how the curator and the artist met, how Guagnini insisted on the review being printed and distributed on to the gallery floor as a protest to the know-towing of artists to the White Cube, and delves into affectionately humorous details of the artist’s cerebral practice. This time Guagnini’s works are on the wall. His Bibelots are “ceramic paintings” that straddle the boundary between sculpture and painting and represent a new form of experimentation with glazes that riff on techniques used around the inception of the industrialist/capitalist era. Combine that with the leaflets and you have a popper anarchistic revolution on your hands – right in the middle of the most capitalist art centre in the world. At Bortolami through March 25.
Elliot Green paints stunning abstract landscapes of jagged rocks and mountain formations set amid washes of pale blues, sea foam greens and vibrant reds. The paintings perceive as three-dimensional collages of forces of nature battling between serene tranquillity and crushing violence. Their strata-like horizontality reminds of rock schisms and geological excavations that proffer important questions of the evolution of time and the elusiveness of memory. At Pierogi through March 26.
Recalling the cosmos and our metaphysical relationship to space and time, Jack Whitten’s Portals series are visual reminders of the slippery threshold between science and metaphorical perception. Whitten began the series in 2015. They culminate in the large, shimmering, square “Quantum Man” works that introduce, for the first time, new materials such as lead, oak and various precious woods. The works are stunning yet humbling to behold. They remind the viewer of the insignificance of the human existence in relation to the metagalagtic space and the seductive power of things unknown. At Hauser and Wirth through April 8.
In an interview with OCULA magazine from October 2014, Heinz Mack, recalls how in the 1950s he sought out the studio of Brâncusi in Paris: “When I got there, the door wasn’t really closed, and for me, it felt like discovering Tutankhamun’s tomb, standing absolutely alone in this huge studio as Brâncuşi had left it before he died. It was dusty and dirty, but everything was in its complete original state. I was so impressed. This is when I started making the move towards being more of a sculptor than a painter.” Although Mack never completely abandoned painting, the experience propelled the artist on a life-long path toward experimentation with color and light as it relates to space and movement. Within the context of the ZERO group, which Mack co-founded with Otto Piene, Mack became a sponge for new ideas. He soaked up kinetic theory from artists like Jean Tinguely and Lucio Fontana and evolved the concept of the immateriality of color pioneered by Yves Klein. A fine, museum-like show of Mack’s work from 1955 until today at Sperone Westwater shows the extraordinary range and complexity of his practice. Through March 25.
In 1951, American artist William Nelson Copely, threw his lot in with the rowdy artist bunch who liked to hang around the Impasse Ronsin and Longpont-Sur-Orge in Paris. He became intoxicated by the Surrealists and assorted Dadaists which influenced his unique blend of American Pop mixed in with a healthy dose of European Surrealism; all weighted by the color and pattern legacy of Matisse. A recurrent subject was the nude, painted innocently at first in pastel colors but morphing quickly into bawdy scenes of women and faceless men and culminating in the softporn “X-Rated series” during the 1970s. A fine selection of Copley’s fleshy nudes are currently on view at Paul Kasmin gallery. Tamed by time, Copley’s nudes have long lost their shock effect but still exude a nostalgic eroticism and are important for their superb background compositions, surefooted handling of the line to demarcate movement and stasis, and a deft understanding of color as an emotional circuit. Through March 25.
In a bittersweet farewell performance, Martha Friedman is closing the doors of the venerable Andrea Rosen Gallery. Going forward, the revered dealer will focus on dealing dead artists’ work instead. “Dancing around Things” feels like old-fashioned switchboard operators gone mad. Wearing paint splattered studio aprons, two artists on either side of a metal sheet in turn either ram dangerously sharp objects into perforated holes or force pre-greased rubber tubes into the cavities. The result is an erotic, violent but skilful demonstration of female force and impels a contemplation of the violations of the female body. At Andrea Rosen through March 11.
Tara Donovan has managed to corral her three-dimensional works within the confines of a frame. Famous for her obsessive analysis of a single object into the effects of accumulation and stratification, Donovan – in a mesmerizing new show at Pace gallery – glued stacked legions of styrene cards onto flat, wall-mounted surfaces. The result is a series of hypnotizing three-dimensional works that disorient holographically and faintly suggest crop circles, camouflage, or radio frequency signals. Donovan’s work owes a debt to the minimalism of a Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt but her scientific analysis of simple, mass produced materials elevates her beyond them into a league all by herself. Through March 18.
Dispatch from the ADAA art fair. Clockwise from top left. Richard Tuttle at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Thomas Demand at Matthew Marks Gallery, Sarah Crowner at Casey Kaplan and Zlia Sanchez at Galerie Lelong.
Dispatch from the Independent Art Fair 2017. Clockwise from top left. Charlene von Heyl at Nagel Draxler, Tatiana Trouve at Galerie Perrotin, Peter Hujar at Maureen Paley, David Shrigley at Anton Kern.
Dispatch from the Armory Show 2017. Clockwise from upper left. Hans Op DeBeek at Krinzinger Gallery, Paul Mpagisepuya at Nancy Richardson, Caroline Achaintre at Arcade Gallery.