6 New York Art Exhibitions Not To Miss This January
By Something CuratedLooking ahead at the rest of the month, Something Curated highlights six of the most exciting art exhibitions taking place in New York this January.
Marc Newson, at Gagosian || Marc Newson (17 Jan – 20 Feb 2019)
Marc Newson approaches design as an experimental exercise in extreme structure and advanced technologies, combined with a highly tactile and exacting exploration of materials, processes, and skills. Cloisonné, which originated in the eastern Mediterranean more than 3,000 years ago and spread to China around the 14th century, is traditionally seen on vases, plates, jewellery, and figurines. Newson has borrowed the craft for large-scale furniture pieces soon showing at Gagosian’s West 21st Street gallery.
Ileden, at Greene Naftali || Sophie von Hellermann (Until 2 Feb 2019)
For two decades, painter Sophie von Hellermann has conjured large-scale, imaginative scenes with exuberant immediacy and diaristic regularity. Depicting literature, history, idioms and scenes of pure invention, von Hellermann animates complex narratives with a coiling, energetic hand and rich palette. For her fifth solo exhibition at Greene Naftali, von Hellermann presents a suite of paintings unfolding from the strange history of the place in which she made them: Ileden.
Transform, at David Zwirner || James Welling (10 Jan – 16 Feb 2019)
Since the 1970s, Welling has become known for a relentlessly evolving body of images that considers both the history and technical specificities of photography. Emerging at a time when the medium focused on its capacity for mimesis, Welling’s work signalled a break with traditional ideas of photography by shifting attention to the construction of images themselves. While the artist produces discrete series whose subject matter ranges widely, his work is united by an examination of what might be termed “states of being” produced by photographically derived images and how such states are, in turn, read by the viewer.
Soft Bodies, at Halsey McKay Gallery || David B. Smith (Until 12 Jan 2019)
Running until the end of this weekend, David B. Smith’s new works blur the lines between textiles, photographs and paintings, highlighting the interplay between digital and handmade craft. Slow and meditative, the pieces pay tribute to craftspeople like Smith’s grandmothers, whose domestic and ceremonial craft tradition was passed down through generations and contributed to their lives and communities. Smith’s works also continue his inquiry into how our physical bodies are relating to the digital world in the midst of intense technological and social change.
House & Garden, at Marian Goodman Gallery || Richard Deacon (Until 16 Feb 2019)
House & Garden includes new photographs, ceramics and sculpture from the past year, exploring relationships between these materials and processes. The exhibition represents recent innovations in Deacon’s thinking about sculpture, considering the relationship of image to surface, object making to the pictorial, and sculpture to the plinth, all notions that have been present in his work and are at the nexus of his steadfast interest in a multiplicity of modes of production.
Holy Fools, at Rubber Factory || Ondine Viñao (Until 3 Feb 2019)
Showing at Rubber Factory, Ondine Viñao is a multi-disciplinary artist from New York City. Viñao’s work explores trauma intrinsic to female juvenescence, employing “other-worldly” elements to blur the lines between the menace and the victim. Femininity tropes are often caricatured and abstracted through tools such as animation, special effects makeup, chroma key, and post-production manipulation. These projects unravel moments of solitude – losing one’s sense of belonging or confidence – where the physical body is often portrayed as unnatural or featuring phantasmagoric characteristics.
Feature image: James Welling (via David Zwirner)