I’ve seen a good deal of exciting art since the opening of the new year, both intriguing, new-looking work by names unknown to me as well as some new bodies of work by more mature artists. A couple of really interesting two-artist or group shows are up right now that pose interesting pairings and juxtapositions and which led me to see familiar work in new ways. A return to traditional methods seems to be the order of the day with painting, drawing, printmaking and even tapestry being produced. All of the shows listed below continue into February.
Betty Cuningham Gallery – www.bettycuninghamgallery.com – has paired Philip Pearlstein and Al Held. Both gallery artists and both born within four years of each other in the mid-1920’s, the two painters came to the New York art world in the ’40s and each initially tried his hand at Abstract Expressionism. Ultimately adopting and developing radically different styles, Pearlstein with his exhaustive study of the nude and Held moving into his architectonic brand of geometric abstraction, the show examines the abstract in Pearlstein and the representational in Held.
Cheim and Read – www.cheimandread.com – have co-installed photographers Diane Arbus and William Eggleston, to equally interesting effect. While the two bodies of work are hung in separate galleries and stand alone as self-contained exhibitions, the drawing of comparisons is inevitable and rewarding. In the Arbus selections, all void of human presence, we see the haunting power of her obsessive gaze even in the absence of the otherworldly characters she usually chose to scrutinize. Similarly, the choices in the Eggleston gallery, all color to Arbus’s black and white, composition and geometry to her ethereal moodiness, offer an opportunity for a tight focus on this later, post 2000 work of an equally legendary artist whose work we might have thought we knew thoroughly.
George Adams – www.georgeadamsgallery.com – has a jewel of a drawing show up through February 13th when a new body of work by sculptor Leslie Dill will be installed. Forty works by thirty three artists including greats like Arshile Gorky, Max Beckman, Joseph Stella, Lee Krasner and Milton Avery fill the two gallery spaces. More contemporary works by Saul Steinberg, Red Grooms, Enrique Chagoya and David Wojnorowicz show the irresistible need of most artists to draw, no matter how different their broader visual aesthetic. Lesser known names are well mixed in, almost every selection holding its own amongst the pantheon.
Philip Taaffe has a huge new output of works on paper on show at Gagosian – www.gagosian.com – up through February 20th. The difficulty of filling the huge Gagosian spaces, particularly with more intimately sized works like these, perhaps lead to some duplication and certainly a daunting feeling of too much to take in on entering the gallery. A slow progression around the works was generally rewarding, however, particulalry if approached in terms of the artist experimenting with and developing a set of processes. Relief printing and monotype, collage, rubbing and marbling are all explored here. Taaffe’s Westernized treatments of the natural life form still hold more appeal for me than the mystical, spiritual and tantric explorations he has tried out recently.
In terms of established artists pushing themselves in new and unfamiliar directions, “Demons, Yarns and Tales: Tapestries by Contemporary Artists” at James Cohan Gallery – www.jamescohan.com – is visually stunning and utterly original. The thirteen artists in the show include Fred Tomaselli, Kara Walker, Shazia Sikander, Paul Noble and Grayson Perry who, despite the wide variations in their customary use of medium, were all persuaded here to try their hand at tapestry making. Three years in the making in co-operation with the London-based Banners of Persuasion, this is a show not to be missed. The New York Times gave it nice coverage on Sunday, January 24th.
Moving on to young artists who are beyond solo debuts but are still developing their oeuvre in interesting ways, Christian Hellmich has his second show up at Lehmann Maupin – www.lehmannmaupin.com. His first body of work exhibited back in 2006 had shown much promise in terms of his control of paint in the service of both shape-shifting, surreal riffs on architectural space but also the simple massing of abstract color, apparently for colors sake. In this exhibition his growing confidence shows while he experiments with both form and scale. The last show enjoyed encouraging critical review and I imagine that this one will also claim attention.
Josh Dorman, who I first saw as he was emerging at Pierogi over in Williamsburg, also continues to grow and has a very accomplished body of work up at Mary Ryan Gallery – www.maryryangallery.com – through February 2nd. Continuing to make fantastical creations out of his drawing, painting and collaging onto antique prints and vintage maps, Dorman’s landscapes are both mythological and futuristic.
At Luhring Augustine – www.luhringaugustine.com – a painter new to me and showing for the first time with this gallery. William Daniels’ small, exquisitley rendered studies of what look like crinkled colored paper or scrunched-up aluminum foil take on heroic sculptural proportions in these galvanizing little works. A British painter in his 30s, Daniels has shown both in London and in Los Angeles where I imagine his light-filled shimmer greatly appeals.