ART NEWS: May 02

Susanne Johansson present “Signs of Time”, an exhibition of small works. This series of 6 x 8” paintings surveys phases of the changing seasons and their transformational mastery over Sweden’s countryside. Johansson’s portraits of existing locations carry the viewer beyond the land itself speaking her silent narrative on our existence, life and transience. The ongoing series of small paintings have become an essential part of her process. The artist often reflect on how memory and meaning are connected to specific places that she returns to over the years. In her travels from the south to the north of Sweden during the changing seasons certain moments become pivotal. From the polar night by the Kalix river where she grew up, to a sunset in late January by the gulf of Bothnia, a recurring memory of a winters day or the light breaking through the clouds after a storm. Revisiting various familiar environments through her palette and painterly approach reinforces the meaningful insight that we do need to belong somewhere. Info: Turn Gallery, 32 East 68th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 5/5-11/6/2022, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 12:00-18:00, https://turngallerynyc.com/

Albert Leo Peil’s exhibition “Scene I”  displays a selection of drawings, garments, and archival notebooks ranging from the late seventies to the two thousand tens. For the show’s duration Galerie Jan Kaps has been transformed into a darkroom, reflecting Peil’s architectural research. Almost entirely overlooked during his lifetime, Peil’s work combines issues of identity construction, queerness, and discourse on gender with sci-fi components as well as architectural elements, raising the genre of the portrait for discussion. Most of Peil’s drawings are characterized by their obsessive attention to detail. His drawings, executed mainly in ink, are generally populated by idealised figures embedded in tectonic and pointillistic landscapes. The stylized characters appearing in them often represent mythical and celestial entities and cultural icons, strikingly in Urania Dali, where the surrealist master is conflated with Urania, the Greek muse of astronomy. The holistic approach of identity construction is illustrated on both recto and verso of his works; many drawings are accompanied by painstakingly manicured notations ranging from personal comments to excerpts of poems, representing a deep and persistent exploration of queer sexuality and identity beyond the rigid gender norms of his time. Info: Galerie Jan Kaps, Lindenstrasse 20, Cologne, Germany, Duration: 14/5-4/6/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, https://jan-kaps.com/

For the last 4 years Pratchaya Phinthong has been working with the inhabitants of the village of Napia in Laos, transforming bomb debris into elements of an artistic project to support the local community which lives in permanent insecurity. Each work sold gives back a contribution to the village and to the NGO that helps with mine clearance and cultivating the land recovered. “The Organ of Destiny”, the title of Pratchaya Phinthong’s exhibition, brings together the stories of villagers from the Plains of Jars and the ghosts of the Vietnam War, from the minefields and forests of Laos to Paris. Mirror sculptures pay homage to the initiative of Stephen Sumner, an amputee cyclist who, cured of phantom limb pain thanks to mirror therapy, in turn teaches amputees in Laos. A night-vision camera makes its way through the forest, sparking a rumour about the bombs trapped in the trees. On the ground, we find several sculptures made of cut cardboard and metal, on which sheets of clay seem to grow. Info: GB Agency Gallery, 18 rue des Quatre Fils, Paris, France, Duration: 14/5-16/7/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-13:00 & 14:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-19:00, https://gbagency.fr/

Cristina Iglesias’ solo exhibition features works from the ongoing Entwined and Growth series, dense cyborg accumulations of foliage cast in aluminum and studded with cabochons of colored glass. The Entwined works of 2022 are mural reliefs spreading invasively across the gallery walls, while Growth I (2018) is a freestanding enclosure that rises from the ground, reaching skyward while leaning in on itself and the viewer standing within. Its rhizomatic forms twist and torque to constitute a densely textured, yet open structure. Aligned with the organic exuberance and grotesque theatricality of the Baroque imaginary, the effect is that of a primal sanctuary from the realm of science fiction, rendered in opulent detail. She employs a formal language that brings the abstract together with the natural and the artificial, rendered in diverse materials that include metals, stone, ceramic, and concrete. From cunningly mechanized baroque structures to labyrinthine jalousies, tidal pools, and deep wells, she poetically redefines space by conflating interior and exterior to produce unexpected new sensory sites for the viewer. Info: Gagosian Gallery, 17–19 Davies Street, London, United Kingdom, Duration: 14/5-30/6/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, https://gagosian.com/

Lauren Quin presents her solo exhibition “Pulse Train Howl”. Rendered in a variety of techniques, Lauren Quin’s throbbing reverberations of symbols steam ahead before reaching a state of fever-pitch where visual intensities correlate to guttural wailing. Suggesting a synesthesia between sight and sound, ocular shivers within vibrant layers recall sonic vibrations. Pathways multiply and quicken before culminating in a kaleidoscopic overwhelm of optical howling. Strained, noisy, and fried, formations of partial segments act as snaps of communication, frozen in their process of forging a coherent whole. Reflecting Quin’s zealously layered canvases, the exhibition’s title draws from patterns of electrical spikes in the nervous system as well as a wolfpack’s long-range communication, evoking the artist’s rhythmic—almost sonic—synchronized symbols and combinations of mark making. Disparate though related source images are adopted and repeated throughout the layers, responding differently with each iteration. As Quin describes, these forms “are not built with a plan, rather a radius of symbols I collect and return to over the years”. Info: Blum & Poe Gallery, 2727 South La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, USA, Duration: 14/5-25/6/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.blumandpoe.com/

The exhibition “Many Things All at Once” is a dynamic presentation of new and recent work by artist Tom Friedman. Concerned with ideas of perception, logic, and assumption, Friedman’s practice engages questions of looking and the purpose of art today. Particularly interested in how our preconceptions influence how we understand the world, Friedman’s work often employs trompe l’oeil effects that make viewers stop and look—and then look again. Known for his meticulous attention to detail and astounding craftsmanship, Friedman creates sculptures, paintings, drawings, videos, and installations that exploit the physical and conceptual nature of his materials and incorporate a dash of dry humor. Spanning sculpture, installation, work on paper, and video projection, the works feature notable elements from many of Friedman’s most recognizable pieces. In Hazmat Love, two of the artist’s signature chromed figures come together in a slow dance, while in Bee, a larger-than-lifesize handmade bumblebee rests high on a gallery wall, the latest in a series of hyper-realistic insect works that Friedman has been creating since the mid-1990s. Info: Lehmann Maupin Gallery, 213, Itaewon-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea, Duration: 12/5-25/6/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.lehmannmaupin.com/

Keat Casanova’s hyper-tactile sculptures, in her solo exhibition “Gut Feeling” evoke the paradoxical experience of being a body. One can know their own body intimately and yet the inner workings remain utterly mysterious. Organs carry out tasks beneath flesh and microbes flourish in guts without direction from the human in which they inhabit. Even though science provides brilliant explanations of how we function, to occupy a body is to be both at home and amidst an alien landscape. Utilizing a wide range of materials – including paper clay, polymer gypsum, vintage fur, fabric and acrylic paint – Casanova creates abstract sculptures that evoke a definition of a body that defies easy categorization. Biomorphic forms – like an unruly intestine or spleen – bulge and coil in defiance of gravity. Sensuous fabrics with pore-like holes are layered over protruding fur. This is a body that is in process and lacks a distinct outside and inside. This hyper-tactility is an invitation to engage the knowledge that resides in the senses and in the materiality of the body. The exhibition occupies the space between what can be sensed about one’s own body and what can only be imagined. Info: Yi Gallery, 254 36th Street, Suite B634, Brooklyn, NY, USA, Duration: 14/5-9/7/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-18:00, https://gallery-yi.com/

Berta Fischer’s exhibition includes a series of new sculptures in acrylic glass, as the artist continues to explore the rich possibilities of this industrial material. Fischer’s works create sequences of biomorphic, crystalline and fluid shapes. Hung on the wall, suspended from the ceiling or seemingly suspended in the gallery space, they seem to defy gravity. Each of these sculptures emerged through a multi-layered process involving CAD drawings, computer-controlled laser cutting and hand modeling. In this way, Fischer highlights the properties of the material, even though the striking forms of her works can make one forget this material dimension at first glance. Her sculptures are the result of a patient process of bending and folding perspex plates and resemble images of frozen movements, both moving and still, fragile and unyielding. Some of her other sculptures – reminiscent of the sinuous lines of folded Perspex plates – are interwoven with fabric threads. While her acrylic glass works achieve an impression of condensed space, the meshes in her neon sculptures evoke complex surfaces that suggest an idea of entanglement. Info: Bernier/Eliades Gallery, 11 Eptachalkou Street, Athens, Greece, Duration: 18/5-15/6/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:30-18:30, Sat 12:00-16:00, https://bernier-eliades.com/

The world of Mous Lamrabat is a place where life is at peace and people are loved, no matter where you are from or where you are going. This is the experience the artist wants to bring across in the exhibition “Blessings from Mousganistan” you step into the fascinating utopia the artist has created within the museum walls of Foam. He asks and sometimes pushes the viewer to look differently at the images in front of them; he has superimposed his photographs in large lenticular prints or vacuum-pulled portraits around a Nike logo and the McDonalds “M” the artist incorporated into his work. By changing the shapes of well-known symbols and images, Lamrabat deconstructs the notion of “normal”. What first consisted of familiar colours and forms has now been altered and redefined into a different meaning defined by the artist. In his exhibition, Lamrabat also provides a chance for a more intimate interaction to see the works up close which serves as an introduction to the final part of the exhibition where universal prayer flags grace the space. The installation is a response to the ongoing stream of refugees from all parts of the world. It is a reminder from the artist to take care of one another and more importantly, to care of everyone indiscriminately of their skin color or origins. Info: Foam, Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Duration: 28/5-16/10/2022, Days & Hours: Mon-Wed & Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu-Fri 10:00-21:00, www.foam.org/