NEW YORK—Between fairs and the official listings and the soft-launches in someone’s cousin’s Chinatown loft, May represents an upward swing. Skip the overload and go where the real signals are. Upstairs at Management, Anastasia Komar’s LUCA is all heat and hum: bioplastic tentacles, ambergris, and a brain-like being gestating in a glowing chamber. You might think you’re alone with it, but you’re not. Downstairs, over at Greene Naftali, Richard Hawkins...
NEW YORK—Between fairs and the official listings and the soft-launches in someone’s cousin’s Chinatown loft, May represents an upward swing. Skip the overload and go where the real signals are. Upstairs at Management, Anastasia Komar’s LUCA is all heat and hum: bioplastic tentacles, ambergris, and a brain-like being gestating in a glowing chamber. You might think you’re alone with it, but you’re not. Downstairs, over at Greene Naftali, Richard Hawkins, Mike Faist is muse and Bonnard is pretext. Luhring Augustine holds the counterweight: Salman Toor’s figures lounge and vanish in green-lit interiors, where longing plays like theater and the punchlines come with aftertaste.
If you need to come up for air: Couch Paintings at CANADA lets you sit with it (literally), and Candida Alvarez’s retrospective at El Museo deconstructs memory like it’s muscle. Uptown, Gagosian’s Tête-à-tête folds Picasso back in on himself, this time via Paloma’s hand—less lecture, more psychic inheritance. Over in East Williamsburg, On Education at Amant is all structure and subversion: metallic walls, baby monitors, vinyl lacquered dreams. You’ll need time there, and probably a second visit. And in Bed-Stuy, the Center for Art and Advocacy opens with Collective Gestures—35 artists, all justice-impacted, none interested in permission. Don’t expect polish. Do expect impact.
On the margins (where most of the good stuff lives): Blade Study is back at Beverly’s, Faye Toogood’s sculptural fever dream spans Tiwa Select and The Future Perfect (yes, it includes lamps), and over at Zwirner, Yu Nishimura goes quiet in a way that demands attention. Hiba Schahbaz’s Magical Creatures haunts the upper floors at Adler Beatty like a cut-paper vision. Plus: the Artist Plate Project, Giovanni’s Room redux, a Civil x Stilllife remix at the Ace, and the Rats Party at nublu—if you know, you know. See it all or see nothing. Either way, don’t say we didn’t tell you.
TRIBECA—British artist Louise Giovanelli is currently presenting a new body of work at Grimm 54 in New York. The exhibition, titled Still Moving, runs through... Text by Dalia Morgan. Read More
In 2022, the city of Rome hosted a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to Francesco Messina at Villa Torlonia. Titled Francesco Messina. Novecento Contemporaneo, the show brought... Text by Dannik Curran. Read More
TRIBECA—A new exhibition at the Corman Gallery brings the late designer Syd Mead to New York for the first time in a solo show. Titled... Text by Cici Thompson. Read More
Slip House, the brand new gallery opened at the base of a 19th-century, three-story former carriage house at 246 East 5th Street.
EAST VILLAGE—Every two decades is a response to the previous two. After decades of irony, the purposeful ugliness of the 80s and 90s (“Anything that’s... Text by Cici Thompson. Read More
MILAN—Italy’s long affection for bamboo can be glimpsed beyond fashion and design. Franco Maria Ricci’s Labirinto della Masone, the sprawling bamboo maze outside Parma, stands... Text by Cici Thompson. Read More
