Charles Gaines at Paula Cooper, New York

An extension of his series Numbers and Trees, Charles Gains presents eight new large-scale triptychs at Paula Cooper's Chelsea gallery space that explore mathematics, nature and systematic processes, including reverberations in perception and social order.

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Helen Marten at Greene Naftali

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Exhibition Images, Helen Marten, Eucalyptus, Let Us In, Greene Naftali, New York
Photo Credits: Cincala Art Advisory

In “Eucalyptus, Let Us In,” energetic sculptures, paintings, and wall installations by Helen Marten unite an array of materials and images, including leather, resin, concrete, fabric, and steel. Exemplified in works such as they flush fuschia, 2015, Marten begins from the premise that abstraction and figuration can co-exist and further explores how abstraction functions in daily life as another tool.  

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Tauba Auerbach at Paula Cooper

Tauba Auerbach’s most recent exhibition consisted of an array of media continuing her interest in architecture and its relationship to the picture plane. From glass sculptures shaped in the form of tools to new paintings in the Weave series, she employs a strong theoretical framework to her explorations. 

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Jonathan Lasker at Cheim & Reid

In a series of new paintings, Jonathan Lasker appropriates the vocabulary of abstract painting to dis-assemble the allure of abstract painting. Through strategic placement of forms that require the viewer to fill in visual gaps and intuitively form connections between these elements, Lasker reinvigorates the space of the canvas as an integral component constantly in flux. 

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Bridget Riley at David Zwirner

In Bridget Riley’s first solo exhibition in New York in eight years, she presents a compelling survey of paintings and works on paper spanning over thirty years that display her ongoing engagement with the entirety of her oeuvre. Riley’s enduring interest in line and spatial relationships is evident throughout these works, starting with her Egyptian-inspired rectilinear paintings from the 1980s. Riley’s vibrant works in color from the 1990s project an optimistic perspective through their playfulness and evocative titles that ground these abstract paintings in the physical world. In Lagoon 2 (1997), rectangular purples and pinks intersect with curvilinear green, blue, and orange to form a geometric puzzle. In her most recent works, Riley returns to painting exclusively in black and white, a gesture that is both a direct reference to her instantly recognizable works from the 1960s and a method to reexamine the legacy of those works more than fifty years later. 

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Sebastian Black at C-L-E-A-R-I-N-G

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Exhibition Image, Sebastian Black, Tales I Knows, C-L-E-A-R-I-N-G, New York
Photo Credit: Cincala Art Advisory

In his current exhibition at C-L-E-A-R-I-N-G, Sebastian Black merges abstraction with narrative storytelling using the devices of the “puppy painting” and the “puppy tale.” Each boldly colored work contains an evocative title that, when transcribed, conforms to the face of a dog while the amorphous composition of each painting revolves around the features of a puppy. Black approaches each painting as a constantly shifting puzzle, echoing Modernist painters from the early twentieth century. Black also includes “period pieces” in which he revives the period as a mythical protagonist in art history that traditionally indicated a clear stop. His playfulness contributes a new perspective on a now century old tradition of abstraction.

Tales I Knows is on view through January 10, 2016. 

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Jennifer Guidi at Nathalie Karg

In Jennifer Guidi’s recent exhibition of new paintings, she continues her exploration of time through the medium of painting. Guidi amasses layers of paint, beginning with black as a foundation, that she then builds on and scrapes back, revealing the evidence of her efforts. Her final layer consists of red marks that show slight variances in size and shape as proof of the human presence required to make these complex works. Both from a distance and up close, Guidi finds an engaging rhythm that resonates throughout the entire installation.

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Michael Krebber at Greene Naftali

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Exhibition Image, Michael Krebber, Greene Naftali, New York
Photo Credit: Cincala Art Advisory

In Michael Krebber’s sixth exhibition at Greene Naftali, the Cologne-based artist exhibited new paintings that employ abstract forms to evoke movement through space. Interspersed among abstract paintings, Krebber includes roughly painted images of snails in works such as MK 284 (2015).  The snails may be a metaphor for Krebber as part of his constantly evolving and shifting painting persona, a symbol he previously evoked in 2011 in the exhibition and publication Les Escargots ridiculisés. In his abstract works, Krebber’s mark-making techniques range from the abrupt in MK 305 (2015) to more pensive ones using large swathes of monochrome blue, as seen in MK 296 (2015).  Throughout the exhibition, Krebber demonstrates the breadth of his originality as he continues to expand the medium of painting.  

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Terry Haggerty at Sikkema Jenkins

In Terry Haggerty’s most recent exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins consists of a series of shaped paintings on wood panels as well as reliefs on aluminum. His dynamic technique evokes both the immediate flatness of his material while at the same time drawing attention to the three-dimensionality of the spatial plane. Torque (2015) exemplifies the range of Haggerty’s ability to carve out space with fluidly constructed lines that twist and bend in a ribbon-like construction. Employing varnish as one method to achieve this dualistic effect, Haggerty energizes the space both in and around each work, with his exacting attention to detail extending to corners, edges, and gaps.

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Josh Smith at Luhring Augustine

In his new exhibition “Sculpture”, Josh Smith continues his ongoing experimentation with the formal possibilities of abstraction. Departing from his boldly colored paintings, this exhibition offers more meditative paintings in a series of untitled panels in the exhibition in which he injects splashes of color in wavering gestures, creating an engaging tension with the muted background. These works are quietly elegant variations on linearity and spatial composition, made more complex by the range of materials Smith incorporates into them such as rabbit skin, glue, grease pencil, and calcium carbonate. Viewed in its entirety, this exhibition presents an artist deeply engaged with the evolution of his own work. The exhibition is on view through October 31st. 

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Justin Adian “Fort Worth” at Skarstedt

Justin Adian’s organic foam forms fill the exhibition with a sense of wit and pleasure in his first solo exhibition at Skarstedt in New York. Adian’s works reshape the space in which they exist. Placing his wall reliefs in corners, at edges, and constructing them in a wide range of anthropomorphized shapes, he engages in a serious playfulness, a quality that is first evident from each work only to be reflected in the titles, such as Fortune Teller (2015) a diamond shaped installation consisting of four parts that mimics a popular elementary school game, and Slow Goodbye (2015), in which a blue form is nestled into a pink corner as if puzzle pieces matched together. Adian’s unrelenting imagination results in an exhibition filled with new discoveries and surprises. “Fort Worth” is on view through October 24th. 

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Niele Toroni at the Swiss Institute

Niele Toroni’s recent exhibition at the Swiss Institute puts seriality on full display in works on waxed fabric, canvas, paper, and site specific installations. Consistently imprinting canvases of the same size by applying paint using a number 50 paintbrush at 30 centimeter intervals over the course of almost fifty years. As a practitioner of “Travail-Peinture”, he confronts established modes of representation and the essence of painting through his mark-making. By rigorously applying paint in a mechanical method, Toroni locates the infinite possibilities that arise from limited means. 

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Christopher Wool at Luhring Augustine

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Exhibition Image, Christopher Wool, Luhring Augustine, Bushwick
Photo Credit: Cincala Art Advisory

Christopher Wool’s recent exhibition of seven new, untitled paintings in the gallery's Bushwick space continues his decades-long investigation into the form of abstraction and picks up from his recent retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. Wool’s ability to activate abstract forms within massive canvases is evident throughout this exhibition. Linear works employing enamel and silkscreen evoke his movement in dragging silkscreens across the canvas, creating a dynamic energy. Another densely layered work evokes the familiar Rorschach test with its amorphous shapes. The uneven application of ink and shifting tones of black paint reinforce the mechanical origins of the work, reflecting Wool’s continuing interest in modes of reproduction.

Jacqueline Humphries at Greene Naftali

Jacqueline Humphries continues to demonstrate her ability to blur the multi-dimensional realities of the physical and digital worlds that she inhabits. Exhibiting ten large-scale paintings, she constructs a lexicon that is constantly shifting. In “:-/” emoticons seem to form a layer above the electric green canvas, formed from oil paint, a material with a rich and storied legacy. In “Xx” and “: )” Humphries humorously reconciles the disparate characteristics of both her form and content, with the permanence of the painted surface on the one hand and the constantly changing signs that characterize the digital age on the other, creating a perpetual balancing act.

Karl Holmqvist at Gavin Brown

“Here’s Good Looking @U, Kid,” Karl Holmqvist’s enthralling exhibition of quotes, musings, and data scrawled on the wall accompany tech-inspired canvases, reflects the diversity of experiences in New York. From real estate to celebrity to gay culture, Holmqvist explores fundamental elements that shape New York with a raw energy. As a city that relies on walking and human interaction, Holmqvist contemplates how services such as AirBnB and increasing foreign investment will reshape daily encounters.
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Lutz Bacher at Greene Naftali

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Exhibition Images, Lutz Bacher, For the People of New York City, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York
Photo Credit: Cincala Art Advisory

In her current multimedia exhibition “For the People of New York City,” Lutz Bacher constructs a poetic installation of transient objects such as marbles and domestic figures. She references several artists integral to the history of New York, first taking the title of the exhibition from Blinky Palermo. In Empire, 2014, Bacher repurposes Andy Warhol’s breakthrough film as a series of color projections of the Empire State Building as lit in red, white, and blue, suggesting a modern day manifest destiny reinforced by the multiplicity of this image on a range of surfaces. In How Will I Find You, 2014, Bacher’s elegiac sculptural composition summons her talents to evoke emotion from the least likely sources.
The exhibition is on view through May 9th.
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Gunther Förg at Greene Naftali

In this two-part exhibition of paintings and photographs, Förg’s vast practice is presented in greater depth. On view for the first time in the United States, a series of untitled monochromatic paintings from 1991 demonstrate Förg’s contributions to painting.  In each work, the color, chosen for its association with an utopian project by the architect Le Corbusier, is imbued with a dense physicality. His interest in the manifestation of utopian ideals is further reinforced by a suite of architectural photographs. Each building was chosen because it incorporates the political ideals and sociological concerns that informed it into the architecture itself.

This exhibition closes March 28th.

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Margo Wolowiec at Lisa Cooley

In her textiles, Margo Wolowiec has devised an elaborate, painstaking process from the starting point of her source image to the final work in which she renders digital images tangible. Corrections and Exposures references the reproduction of the image and the information that gets lost from the original to the final product during the transfer process, mimicking how a photographer would work in a darkroom. The weaving process transforms into a paradoxical endeavor; as Wolowiec assembles each textile, with each gesture the underlying images of California landmarks Big Sur and Joshua Tree become even more out of focus. The result is a hybrid work that seamlessly blends the ease of photography with the laborious nature of textile production.

The exhibition is on view through March 29th.

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Engimas at Andrea Rosen

Enigmas, curated by Alison Gingeras, brings together four artists – Martin Barré, David Ostrowski, Julian Schnabel, and Reena Spaulings – who each engage with uniquely identifiable gestures in their work. Barré’s powerfully minimal paintings from the 1960s, marked by dense stripes of black, provide the foundation for this exhibition. Barré’s influence is mirrored in the deliberate gestures present in Ostrowski’s expansive canvases. Ranging from the boldly colored monumental spray works of Julian Schnabel to Reena Spaulings’s repurposed tablecloths from which the exhibition takes its title, Enigmas captures one of the essential elements of forging an artistic identity.

The exhibition is on view through April 25th.

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Kelley Walker at Paula Cooper

In his fifth solo exhibition with Paula Cooper, Kelley Walker presents twelve new brick paintings from 2013-2014, each signifying a month from 2012. Begun in 2005, these newest works offer a new complexity to Walker’s ongoing series of brick paintings, as he develops dialogues through collaged elements from issues of Domus (a monthly architectural magazine), silkscreened images, and bursts of vibrant color. Each of the twelve paintings vacillate between trompe l’oeil technique and the inherent flatness of the canvas, an effect heightened by Walker’s diverse use of materials. The exhibition is on view through April 18th.

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