Currently at Carl Hammer Gallery, Vivarium is Mary Lou Zelazny’s immersive exploration of surreal plantlife. Zelazny combines painting and collage in striking, dreamlike images of technicolor trees and zebra-striped bouquets. At first glance, what seems to be merely exuberant plein air studies and still-lives, are revealed upon closer examination to be surreal and mysterious reconfigurations. Zelazny reimagines flora, creating new and unusual botanical studies collaged from monoprints.
Art Galleries & Museums
In Chris Schanck’s solo exhibition at Friedman Benda, furniture seems capable of taking on a life of its own. The show's title, ‘Unhomely’, warns us not to get too comfortable. The play on 'home' and 'homely' advises us to look beyond the beautiful exteriors of the objects that inhabit our homes. While Schanck’s sculptural furniture could be reassuring objects of convenience, its otherworldly forms suggest it might have its own plans once we turn our backs.
Now at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Eyewitness Views; Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe uses 40 dramatically staged masterworks to present time-capsules of historical experience. Including work by 18th Century Italian Masters Panini, Canaletto and Guardi, Eyewitness Views is the first exhibition to concentrate on view paintings—faithful depictions of a given locale— as snapshots of historic reality.
Currently at the Art Institute of Chicago, Mirroring China’s Past: Emperors and Their Bronzes, presents exquisitely ornamented Chinese bronzes from the second and first millennia BC. Unlike similar Greek and Roman bronze sculptures, these Chinese Bronze Age objects (about 2000–221 BC) were created primarily for ritual use. Starting with the Song Dynasty (960–1279), Emperors collected these bronzes as symbols of their right to rule.
The Freer Gallery of Art’s reopening in mid-October 2017 following 18-months’ refurbishment, called attention to the Smithsonian’s first art museum, opened in 1923. Together with its sister museum, the adjacent Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, which joined the Freer in 1987, their ancient and modern Asian treasures have made connections between Asia, America and the rest of the world. Among the Freer’s primarily Asian collections is a noted one by American artist James McNeill Whistler, covered below, in #2.
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Now at Kavi Gupta’s Chicago venue, Beverly Fishman’s Chemical Sublime uses vibrant colors and iconic pharmaceutical shapes to explore how technology alters our perception and reality. Using cast resin, mirrored Plexiglass, powder-coated metal and phosphorescent pigments, Fishman has created visually stunning work. Her polychrome reliefs and paintings mimic commonly prescribed medications as well as medical imaging technologies such as EEG and EKG machines.
Iconic conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp wanted art to challenge expectations and make people think. A pioneer of Dada and the father of Conceptual Art, Duchamp was a French-American painter, sculptor, chess player and writer. On view publically for the first time, Marcel Duchamp: Boîte-en-valise runs through May 6, 2018, at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
This month, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presents What Remains to Be Seen, the first major traveling museum survey of Howardena Pindell. Covering five decades of Pindell’s paintings, collages, writings, drawings, and videos, the exhibition also documents her activist projects and includes work from the last two years. Her groundbreaking, multidisciplinary art explores texture, color, and structure. Pindell uses bright colors and unconventional materials such as string, glitter, colored paper and sequins in her work.
Opening at Sean Kelly, New York this month, ‘Marina Abramović Early Works’ displays a historical record of the early, groundbreaking performances by the “Grandmother of Performance Art.” The 12 photos represent performances from the 1970's, including her Rhythm series, Lips of Thomas (star on stomach), Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful, and others.
According to the introductory exhibition text, sculptor Bob Trotman’s Business as Usual aims to examine “the confluence of power, privilege, greed, and pretense that often characterizes the world of corporate capitalism.” The show emphasizes the dehumanizing nature of corporate America. But because they respond to the visitor’s approach via motion activation, there is a surprisingly intimate and playful relation between these objects and the spectator.
