What better feeling is there than waking up one morning to find the skeletal trees outside your window are in full bloom again? Thank you, Spring, for your return, and thank you, New York, for your year’s supply of good art to behold. This month, our list of recommendations includes Shellyne Rodriguez’s loving portraits of her Bronx community, Susan Bee’s colorful fables, a tribute to Afro-Hispanic painter Juan de Pareja at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and more.
Apocalypses, fables and daydreams: new paintings
If they don’t slay the beasts and many-headed monsters that cross their path, the medieval heroines of Susan Bee’s paintings will at least tame them as devoted friends. What are the modern-day demons and monsters that threaten to rush us into the apocalypse? And who will save us from them? These are some of the questions Bee’s colorful and mythologically charged works seek to ask. —Hakim Bishara
AIR Gallery (airgallery.org)
155 Plymouth Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn
Until April 16
Katinka Mann: Perception of space
It is tempting to anchor the abstract works of New York artist Katinka Mannin in the sure and well-honed lines of minimalists like Frank Stella or conceptual photographers like Barbara Kasten. But his photographic paper constructions, shaped sculptures and colored light “collages”—relatively little known despite their presence in major museum collections—need no introduction into the history of art. The most intriguing works in this exhibition at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, where Mann was a member of the Studio Program from 2009, are his late 1990s pieces, light and ethereal Cibachrome paper sculptures folded to create cones and other volumes. provocatively sticking out of the wall. Her most recent works, which she composed until her death last year at the age of 97, consist of aluminum shapes painted in juicy color combinations, such as ‘Any Now’ (2014) , a bright fuchsia bean shape punctuated by a tiny blue trapezoid that seems to recede into space. —Valentina Di Liscia
The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (studios-efanyc.org)
323 West 39th Street, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
Until April 18
Third World Mixtapes: The Infrastructure of Feelings
In her excellent debut exhibition at PPOW, Bronx artist and activist Shellyne Rodriguez presents 22 portraits of her neighbors, friends, mentors and comrades. Carefully drawn with colored pencils on black paper, these portraits exude care, love and shared struggles. Also, don’t miss his “mixtape” drawings, which take their format from 1980s hip-hop flyers by artist Lemoin Thompson – aka Buddy Esquire – and a series of workshops and talks with scholars and activists, culminating in a neighborhood party on April 22. —HB
PPOW Gallery (ppowgallery.com)
392 Broadway, Tribeca, Manhattan
Until April 22
ektor garcia: esfuerzo
Works by Mexican-American artist ektor garcía in copper, leather and other unusual materials join small assemblages of found objects in this bizarre exhibition. “Cadenas perpetuas” (2023) – which means “life sentences” in Spanish and literally translates to “life chains” – is a sculpture of steel hooks and other metal pieces suspended from the ceiling. In one corner, “telaraña de cobre” (2020) – “copper web” is exactly what it sounds like – spans the gallery security camera. Is it a bit unsettling that García’s chained artworks, which seamlessly reference both craft traditions and mechanisms of oppression, are so aesthetically satisfying? Yes, and I think that’s the point. —VDL
James Fuentes Gallery (jamesfuentes.com)
55 Delancey Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Until April 23
Mandy El-Sayegh: the amateur
For her personal exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, Mandy Al-Sayegh convinced the gallery to accept an unconventional proposal: For the duration of the show, for a few hours on Saturday, the space will be lent to dancers for rehearsals. In giant works of art lining the floors and walls, you’ll spot lines of delicate Arabic calligraphy, newsprint, counterfeit banknotes, screen-printed watermarks taken from El-Sayegh’s brother’s passport and more. seemingly disparate elements that come together to tell a story of what it means to belong. The title of the show and the artist’s decision to have dancers of all levels to activate the space suggests a clever reworking of fame, recognition and legacy. —VDL
Lehman Maupin (lehmannmaupin.com)
501 West 24th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Until April 29
tenderize
Corydon Cowansage’s acrylic paintings may please the eye with their alluring hues and tender forms, but they nonetheless come with mystery and a path to the sublime. The impact on the viewer is hard to put into words, which is usually a good sign. —HB
Kaufmann Repetto (kaufmannrepetto.com)
TKTK, Tribeca, Manhattan
Until May 6
Artisanal Conceptualism: Starting Point
As dictatorial regimes raged in Argentina and Brazil in the early 1980s, Marcelo Pombo happily sketched fornicating hybrid creatures with duckbills and bulging underpants. In 1983, the artist joined the Gay Action Group (GAG) in Buenos Aires, a group of dissident activists whose motto “Let’s bring sex to government and pleasure to power” also sums up Pombo’s artistic practice. Inspired by the underground gay scene, exasperated by the scourge of homophobia during the rise of the AIDS crisis and the persecution of queer individuals, he has created a counter-narrative populated by outside figures who shatter the status quo. Although perhaps less shocking to our contemporary eyes, these works are just as exquisite today. —VDL
Rod (barro.cc)
25 Peck Slip, Seaport District, Manhattan
Until May 20
Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic painter
Juan de Pareja is perhaps best known as the subject of an exquisite portrait by Diego Velázquez, but he is now in the limelight as a talented seventeenth-century painter in his own right. The Metropolitan Museum has secured loans of two major works from Spain and other paintings to give us a look at the country’s multicultural milieu at the time and the work of an Afro-Hispanic painter once enslaved by Velázquez , released during the Jubilee in Rome in 1650, and pursued an independent artistic career. This exhibition sheds light on the artistic worlds of the Mediterranean at a time when racialization was still malleable and changing. —Hrag Vartanian
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org)
1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Until July 16
Sung Tieu: Infra-Spectrum
Artist Sung Tieu visited hydraulic fracturing sites across the United States to create “Liability Infrastructure” (2023), a new commission and one of many works featured in this solo exhibition. Its sound component mimics the vibration of the ground surrounding fracking pits, and accompanying pieces map the presence of energy pipelines in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. The third stage of work is to collect research on the composition of chemicals used in bedrock fracturing and share it through an open-source platform, rebelling against the public and private sector’s cover-up of health concerns. and environmental factors of fracturing. —VDL
Lover (lover.org)
315 Maujer Street and 932 Grand Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Until September 10
Cinema of sensations: The endless screen of Val del Omar
If you’ve had enough of Hollywood tropes or, like me, been disappointed by this year’s Oscars, the work of José Val del Omar will be your balm. The Spanish filmmaker and visual artist’s experimentations with the film medium during and after the Spanish Civil War have a distinctly subversive undercurrent. His latest work, Elementary Triptych of Spain (1955-1995), explores the elements of earth, fire and water through intimate portraits of three geographic regions. It’s one of many major films in this sprawling investigation, which also includes works by contemporary creators. —VDL
Moving Image Museum (movingimage.us)
36-01 35 Avenue, Astoria, Queens
Until October 1
More recommendations from our New York Art Guide Spring 2023:
- Alfatih: a day in the life, Swiss Institute, until April 23
- Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip-Hop Stylethe FIT Museum, until April 23
- When I’m empty, please dispose of me properlyGallery at BRIC House, until April 30
- Difficult return: 9 experiences for this momentNeuberger Museum of Art, until May 7
- Bispo do Rosario: all the existing materials on EarthAmericas Society, until May 20
