Global contemporary art events and news observed from New York City. Suggestion? Email us.

New York – Mary Obering: “Works from 1972 – 2003” at Bortolami Through February 26th, 2022

February 2nd, 2022

Mary Obering, Works from 1972 – 2003 (Installation View), via Bortolami
Mary Obering, Works from 1972 – 2003 (Installation View), via Bortolami

This month at Bortolami Gallery, the work of artist Mary Obering takes center stage. Surveying Obering’s prolific output from 1972 to 2003, the exhibition focuses on the artist’s singular approach to Minimalism and geometric abstraction, spanning both floors of the gallery, with the Upstairs dedicated to artworks from the 1970s, a nod to the artist’s SoHo studio in which she took residency in 1971. Read More »

New York – Petra Cortright: “Ultra Angel Wing Absolute” at Foxy Production Through February 26th, 2022

February 1st, 2022

Petra Cortright, YAMAHA CDRW-4260T_vampire erotica archives TYPOGRAPHY MICROSOFT (2021), via Foxy Production
Petra Cortright, YAMAHA CDRW-4260T_vampire erotica archives TYPOGRAPHY MICROSOFT (2021), via Foxy Production

On view this month at Foxy Production, the gallery has assembled a show of new works by the artist Petra Cortright, marking her third solo exhibition with the gallery. Presenting images framed as “distillations” of the imagery that dominates our every day, this  new series of digital paintings uses Angel Wing Clematis, a white narrow-petalled climbing-vine flower—thought to symbolize knowledge and aspiration—as its central motif. Read More »

London – “The Stand-Ins: Figurative Painting from the Collection” at Zabludowicz Collection Through February 13th, 2022

January 31st, 2022

Rose Wylie, Battle in Heaven (Film Notes) (2008), via Zabludowicz Collection
Rose Wylie, Battle in Heaven (Film Notes) (2008), via Zabludowicz Collection

Currently on view this month at the Zabludowicz Collection, a selection of the institution’s holdings are presented as a look at the progression and evolution of figuration in modern practice. The Stand-Ins brings together 19 artists who deploy autobiographical elements and a cast of imagined characters in the construction of their paintings and narratives, and maps lines of influence across generations, featuring seminal figures alongside important new voices. Read More »

New York – Giorgio Griffa: “The 2000s” at Casey Kaplan Through February 26th, 2022

January 27th, 2022

Giorgio Griffa, Dittico lieve odulaato (1996), via Casey Kaplan

On view at Casey Kaplan this month in New York, the gallery has unified a series of works created by the Italian artist Giorgio Griffa, creating a near-past retrospective that explores the artist’s work over the last 20 years throguh a selection of seven paintings. This exhibition marks the fifth iteration in a series of exhibitions focusing on the artist’s practice by decade, continuing a conceptual exercise that has offered concise but attentive looks at his work over the course of his career. Read More »

Paris -Matias Faldbakken, “Beaten Ink, Upset Brick, Downcast Charcoal” at Chantal Crousel Through February 5th, 2022

January 26th, 2022

Matias Faldbakken, Beaten Ink, Upset Brick, Downcast Charcoal (Installation View), via Chantal Crousel

Marking his first solo exhibition at Galerie Chantal Crousel, artist Matias Faldbakken brings together a series of installations that unify drawings from 2017 to 2021 alongside a series of various groups of lacquered bricks, some locally sourced, others originating from Norway. The artist, who has often explored notions of antagonism and conflict, charging his works with a sort of disruptive, confrontational energy, here turns that notion towards the act of drawing itself. Read More »

New York – Chris Martin at Anton Kern Through February 26th, 2022

January 25th, 2022
Chris Martin, Gold Teeth for Lance De Los Reyes (2021), via Anton Kern

On view this month at Anton Kern Gallery in New York, artist Chris Martin presents a body of new works that continue the artist’s luminous, colorful approach towards the painted canvas, and the continued relationships of scale that flow through so many of the artist’s works. On view on the first floor of the gallery space, a series of large-scale canvases and a smaller painting made in tribute to the late Lance De Los Reyes, present night skies, washes of color and surreal moments of explosive energy in a set of explorations of energy and space.

Chris Martin, Seven Pointed Star (2018-2020), via Anton Kern

Images and depictions of the cosmos are a uniting thread among all of the paintings: inky night skies, planets, constellations, stars, and moons, continung a relationship between deep space and the landscapes in the near field. The artist, who has long drawn inspiration from time spent in the Catskills, where he would follow patterns and movements in the land and its wildlife, here takes those same iconographies and applies them towards unique expressions of space.

Chris Martin, Untitled (2019-2021), via Anton Kern

The influence is clear in all of these new works, a number of which were painted in his Catskills studio. The five paintings in the gallery’s back atrium are all atmospheric skyscapes—some seeming to directly depict the constellations and night sky of the open woods and fields. It is not only nature found in these works, but the influence of Brooklyn, music, and pop culture are also evident—in Telescope Sphinx in Outer Space, for example, Martin’s painted galaxy is populated by collaged images of Greta Garbo as the Sphinx, sailors, mushrooms, frogs, birds, musicians, and pot leaves—among others—creating humor and play in the cosmic heavens.

Chris Martin, Telescope Sphinx in Outer Space (2019-2021), via Anton Kern

Martin’s work has long negotiated this peculiar space between the spiritual, the natural, and the pop cultural ether that seems to hold and envelope so much of his approach towards the image. Rather than place these notions in opposition, his pieces here present a fusion of all inputs, a harmony of inspiration that seems to place the distant vistas of outer space, the internal reveries of solitude, and everything between, on equal footing.

The show closes February 26th.

– D. Creahan

Read more:
Chris Martin at Anton Kern [Exhibition Site]

London – “What Do You See, You People, Gazing at Me” at Sadie Coles Through January 29th, 2022

January 19th, 2022


Georgia Gardner Gray, Gustav (Tired) (2021), via Sadie Coles

On view this month at Sadie Coles’ Kingly Street location, the gallery has compiled a range of works in both two and three dimensions that deal with the body and space, politics and class, race and identity, all through a range of approaches and executions. Drawing together work by Natalie Ball, Kevin Beasley, Georgia Gardner Gray, Tau Lewis, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Simphiwe Ndzube, Agata SÅ‚owak and Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, the show brings together a range of perspectives that make for an engaging, enervating project.

Read More »

Paris – Yves Laloy: “VISION” at Galerie Perrotin Through March 12th, 2022

January 18th, 2022

Yves Laloy, Untitled (1956), via Perrotin

On view this month at two of Galerie Perrotin’s Paris exhibition spaces, artist Yves Laloy’s work gets an expansive and exploratory review, marking the first major exhibition since a 2004 retrospective at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes. Unifying a series of private loans for the show, the exhibition marks an unprecendented look at the architect-turned-painter and his kinetic, colorful painterly constructions. Read More »

New York – Robert Gober: “Shut up.” “No. You shut up.” at Matthew Marks Through January 29th, 2022

January 17th, 2022

Robert Gober, Waterfall (2105-2016), via Matthew Marks

This month in New York, Robert Gober makes his return to Matthew Marks Gallery, bringing forth new drawings and sculptures made from a wide variety of materials including wood, resin, acrylic paint, cotton fabric and running water, all the works in the exhibition were made in Gober’s New York studio over the past five years. A continuation of Gober’s expressive and illusory body of work exploring politics of the body, memory and time, his most recent show presents a series of new constructions running along similar conceptual avenues.

Robert Gober, Waterfall (detail) (2105-2016), via Matthew Marks Read More »

New York – Chris Daze Ellis: “Give It All You Got” at P•P•O•W Through February 12th, 2022

January 14th, 2022


Chris Daze Ellis, Is This Seat Taken? (2020), via PPOW

On view this month in New York, P·P·O·W has compiled a body of new works by Christopher “Daze” Ellis, the longtime graffiti writer and painter who came up among a new generation of taggers who began their work during the late 1970’s, and who would be among those who earned early recognition by the New York gallery scene during the 1980’s. Combining a selection of significant works from the 1980s and early 1990s with a series of new paintings and sculptures, Give It All You Got chronicles a lifelong dedication to portraying the lifeforce of New York City and commemorating those who were a part of what it once was. Read More »