Amanda Ross-Ho, GONE TOMORROW @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash: Ms Ross-Ho continues her exploration of the iconography of girlhood. The show derives its title from the enormous gold earring hanging at the back of the gallery, but the show is dominated by a series of Black Rag pieces, enormous black t-shirts that have been slashed, cut and gathered and each subtitled (I Hate ____ ) where the blank is a day of the week. Four Untitled Still Lifes complete the exhibit and their collaged surfaces help bring the large t-shirts into art history with photographs that seem to document performances of Yoko Ono's Cut Piece and bring some sobriety to a rather goofy grin of a show. I look forward to seeing more of the artist's work. Open until May 18th.
Tim Hawkinson and Richard Misrach @ Pace Galleries: Be advised! These are two very separate shows but once you're in for one you might as well take in the second. Mr. Hawkinson continues to explore the crossroads of nature and creation Worth seeing for the enormous foot with roller toes and heel, but dive all the way into the back for Tagalong, a charming poly-resin sculpture of a sea horse with air bubbles. Mr. Misrach has headed back to the beach for more of his large-format aerial view photographs of lone figures on the beach or in the ocean. Even though the isolated figures create the desired sense of alienation, it's the images of just water I found most fascinating. New digital technology has allowed the artist to capture fleeting moments of light and color that become engrossing abstract prints at this scale. Walk up to one and don't see if you fall in! I dare you!! Both shows up until June 29th.
Sara VanDerBeek @ Metro Pictures: I'm very glad I stopped in to see this debut solo show at Metro Pictures. Ms. VanDerBeek's photographs are large, bold and shiny; minimalist studies of the photograph as an object. She then takes that objects and has us question it more through both subject matter and format. The back gallery is turned into a luscious monument, to what exactly is hard to say. The light gray stacks the artist uses throughout the installation harked back to Greek temples, but the large photographs of an oxidized wall that are then mounted under Mirona glass creates an artist's temple to self-reflection. Some delicate smaller works close out the show with subtle elegance. I want to see more! Open until June 8th.
Jannis Kounellis @ Cheim & Reade: Worth a peek. Kounellis is associated with the Arte Povera movement and these works reflect it. I find the choices interesting since they were "sourced" locally in Brooklyn for this site specific installation; large slabs of metal welded together to created "paintings" , many of which are turned into shelving units stocked with glass pieces one might find in a second hand store. I'm not sure if it's all that acreage of old glass, the hard dullness of the sheet metal, the coal, the train tracks or the many, many old Singer sewing machines, but I couldn't help get the impression I was viewing some sort of Holocaust chic. Or is it just a large-scale rehash of work we've seen done better by others? You decide!! Open until June 22nd.
Also seen:
Philip Taaffe @ Luhring Augustine: Philip Taaffe?!? I thought he was dead!! Well, no such luck Virginia, the onion man is still at it. Layers and layers of patterns and patterns. Hats off to the artist for donating the proceeds from the sale of prints covering the rear wall to Visual AIDS! until June 15th.
Tim Hetherington @ Yossi Milo: Gorgeous silver gelatin prints documenting the artist's work with young men and women at the Milton Margai School for the Blind in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Sombre but gorgeous. until May 18th.
Untitled Hybrid @ Robert Miller Gallery: The gallery continues their desire to upscale Lee Krasner's estate by grouping her with a number of contemporary women. Check out Alisa Baremboym's Useless Tool, Communal Cup, and Friends in the front left gallery. until June 1st.
Marisa Merz @ Barbara Gladstone: More Arte Povera from a female perspective. I liked the big flower piece on the floor! Do you have to have a fountain in your work to show at this gallery? until June 8th.
