Now at Denver’s Robischon Gallery, Amy Ellingson has a thought-provoking solo exhibition. Ellingson’s title, “Sweetbitter Beast” refers to ancient Greek poet Sappho's Fragment 130, translated by Willis Barnstone.
“Eros loosener of limbs once again trembles me, a sweetbitter beast irrepressibly sweeping in.”
Art News
Opening this month at Kavi Gupta in Chicago is a new exhibition of works from Mission School painter Clare Rojas. Egret includes a range of works, representative of Rojas’ diverse practice, which has encompassed printmaking, painting, murals, and sculpture. Included in this exhibition are 100 small abstract sketches in gouache, created by Rojas as part of her daily practice. There are also nine large oil paintings and several sculptural works. In the past, Rojas’ work reflected her interest in folk art and folklore.
A fixture in modern art since 1954, Alex Katz’s radically cropped portraits and bold landscapes foreshadowed Pop Art. His wide brush strokes and meticulous composition combine abstraction and representation, with a style faintly reminiscent of woodblock prints. Approaching his 90th birthday, Katz began applying to unmistakable style to landscapes, diverging from the portraiture he’s known for. The resulting exhibition, Grass and Trees, explores three motifs: grasses, roads and trees.
Chun Kwang Young’s solo show, Aggregation, opened May 3rd at Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York. Chun’s otherworldly assemblages incorporate both sculpture and painting. His freestanding sculptures and low-relief wall hangings are crafted of triangular cones of antique mulberry paper, or hanji, tinted with tea or pigment.
This month at Carpenters Workshop Gallery is an exhibit of decadent works from Italian designer Vincenzo De Cotiis. As the name suggests, “Baroquisme” is the designers reimagining of the Baroque aesthetic for the 21st century. Known for its ornate designs in rare and fine materials, Baroque may seem at odds with much of the sleek, modern design of the recent past. Handmade by skilled artisans, this collection of seating, lighting, tables, and cabinets offers the textures and luxury of Baroque, with clean modern lines.
Rhona Hoffman Gallery opens its new location at 1711 West Chicago Avenue with Judy Ledgerwood’s fifth solo gallery exhibition "Far From the Tree." Featuring bright colors and repetitive patterns inspired by quilting and other decorative arts, Ledgerwood subverts the viewer’s expectations of abstract painting with unexpected color combinations and tactile globs of paint that bleed from one section into another.
Opening this week at Pace Gallery, is the gallery’s first New York showing of the artist Yto Barrada. “How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself” is no simple gallery show, either. Spanning three floors of Pace’s 32 East 57 Street location, Barrada’s diverse practice and body of work is fully represented in this survey. Featuring collages, a diverse range of sculptures, dyed and sewn fabric compositions, prints, and films, the exhibition is far-reaching.
“I chose to use photography, with my camera as a time machine to travel back into the past.”
— Hiroshi Sugimoto
At Brian Gross Fine Art this month, two artists approaching drawing with similar interests and parameters achieve intriguingly different results. Andrea Way and Adam Fowler both craft meticulously detailed layered drawings featuring intricate repetitive patterns. A Delicate Crossing, Way’s fifth solo exhibition at Brian Gross Fine Art, consists of ten mixed media drawings of systematically layered patterns, occasionally adorned with glass beads, adding texture and radiance to her work.
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.
