002. Bodies, bodies, bodies!
Plus, a timely memoir + show combo.
Apparently, Halloween now spans two weekends. I stopped enjoying Halloween when people stopped making crafty costumes with glue and paint and hours of apparent effort, but I still appreciate the collective joke and general garishness of the holiday. Last night in the East Village, college students and Young Young Professionals roamed the streets dressed as cowboys, mustard, mayonnaise, angel fishes, and slutty somethings in prefab costumes.
The openings reflected a bit of the Halloween spirit as well - from neo-Surrealist paintings to eerily lifelike sculpture to the anachronistic dandyism of Peter McGough, artists are embracing the weird and representing the body in unflinching detail.
With next week’s election looming large ahead, casting a shadow of moral murkiness and uncertainty over all of us, perhaps an Art Break is just what we need.
If you’re hoping to commune on Tuesday, Gladstone Gallery is hosting a reading from 3pm to 12am in conjunction with their Carrie Mae Weems show at 530 W. 21st Street. I can’t think of a better way to pass those hours.
Freshly opened shows to enjoy this month:
P.P.O.W. (SoHo - note, there is a first floor gallery on the corner that is also P.P.O.W. This show is located next door at 390 Broadway, you buzz to the 2nd floor and can take the stairs or elevator up.) - I have been a fan of Clementine Keith-Roach’s work from afar (Instagram) for some time, so I was thrilled to see she had a solo show with P.P.O.W. on the books. The artist finds antique urns and bowls in terracotta which operate as the sort of “torsos” of the new sculptures, which are formed using casts of Keith-Roach’s body, as well as her friends and family. The works are impressive and resonant, and I was reminded of times I have seen contemporary dance performances and been faced with the miracles and limits of the human body up close.
Karma (East Village, 172 East 2nd Street) - Do me a favor and devour Peter McGough’s memoir (discussed below) before seeing the show. It will all make so much sense to you. There was a moment last night when one of the lace café curtains on its brass rod was knocked loose from the window and fell loudly to the floor. McGough, in a flawless powder blue suit, looked as concerned and stricken as if someone had dropped trou and taken a shit in the middle of the gallery. Even if you don’t want to learn all about one of New York City’s most fascinating artists, you can appreciate his gorgeous cyanotypes, showing gorgeous, naked men forming each letter of the alphabet.
Anat Ebgi (Tribeca, 372 Broadway) - One space, two painters!
Jenny Morgan is in the front of the gallery, showing figurative paintings layered with textures of wood grain, phosphorescent oil slick, and patterned fur. There are suggestions of body parts spliced into the compositions, requiring the viewer to observe closely, which is always a win in my book. I think Morgan is at her best when she is more abstract, abandoning the strictures of portraiture and embracing the mystery of shadows, fragments, and evaporations.
Up the stairs in the back of the gallery is Angela Lane. The text calls the scale of these paintings “diminutive” - they are like small little icons or totems. I love tiny paintings because they feel more boxy, like little objects that can cary more personal significance, following in the tradition of miniatures. Lane’s use of color, mixing the earthy with the fluorescent, is inspired. It’s hard to capture the magic of a sunset, and her slightly fantastical panels do just that.
Tara Downs (SoHo, 424 Broadway, 3rd Floor) - Roger Winters’ paintings are solid and structured, as painstakingly ordered as the buildings they portray. But up close, the human hand is everywhere in the putty-like swirls of brushstroke.
Nino Mier (SoHo, 62 Crosby Street) - Lola Gil is another artist I’ve kept tabs on for a while and am thrilled to share her solo show with y’all. Optical-illusion style renderings of reflections in mirrors and glass have always been a hallmark of Gil’s work, and this show seems to represent a progression into even more fractured, collage-like compositions. Random, elongated paintings of horses, floating hands, and warped furniture loom in domestic scenes. This is painting for painting’s sake and it’s fun to look at!
In honor of Peter McGough’s triumphant solo show at Karma, I HIGHLY recommend his memoir, I’ve Seen the Future and I’m Not Going: The Art Scene and Downtown New York in the 1980s. It’s a book about eccentrics, New York City, the AIDS crisis, unconventional relationships, money, art, and aesthetics. You feel McGough’s hopelessness and frustration, but he bears his hardship with good humor. There are fun name drops and if you live in NYC you’ll enjoy the city lore and locations.
See some art this week, OK? And send Art Break to a friend or two :) xx