ArtSeen
JACKIE SACCOCCIO Portraits
By David RhodesIn an excellent 2008 review in Gay City News, the late painter Stephen Mueller described Jackie Saccoccio as proceeding to “disrupt the picture plane either by continually contradicting space or by defining it.” In her current work, Saccoccio continues to punch holes in the picture plane, with pleasure.
YUJI AGEMATSU
By Roger Van VoorheesManhattan is as much a city borough as it is a vast administrative machine; its centrality is perhaps the reason why it’s always secreted such unique languages along the edges of its daily operations.
BARRY X BALL Matthew Barney / Barry X Ball Dual-Dual Portrait
By Anne Sherwood PundykHere the audience has an opportunity to view, as a whole, his assembly of incongruous materials, which have been transformed with meticulous devotion into objects deformed by genetics and depraved acts.
ELAINE CAMERON-WEIR Not Known To Be Used By Any Form Of Life
By Jen SchwartingIn their materiality and seriality, the cast metal slabs lining the wall of Elaine Cameron-Weir’s current solo show evoke the processes and principles of 1960s post-minimalism.
ANDY COOLQUITT Chair w/Paintings
By Stephanie BuhmannMarking the first solo exhibition at Lisa Cooley’s new space on Norfolk Street, Andy Coolquitt: chair w/paintings resembles a secret chamber filled with stashed-away treasures.
STEPHANIE DODES & MARSHALL KORSHAK We Buy Gold
By Eve PerryVisitors to Stephanie Dodes and Marshall Korshak’s exhibition We Buy Gold at Allegra LaViola Gallery can watch the artists’ videos in a gallery space embellished with (fake) fur-covered walls, an extension of the excessive luxury parodied in their video “Bling Dreams.”
JONG OH
By Robert C. MorganThe work of Jong Oh is new to me, but Korean contemporary art is not. Having spent much time wandering through the galleries in Seoul over the past 15 years, I have acquired some grasp of how it works there. In general, the trends are rampant.
GERMAN STEGMAIER
By David RhodesGerman Stegmaier makes oil paintings and graphite drawings; he sits well within tradition and displays no desire to work with new or novel materials. He often presents his work in groups, clustered and unaligned.
IRINA KORINA Demonstrative Behavior
By Gail Victoria Braddock QuagliataMoscow-based installation artist Irina Korina’s first exhibition in the United States, Demonstrative Behavior, caters to the contemporary aesthetic demand for the dissection of society’s foibles through unconventional yet wholly relevant materials.
NATALIE CZECH I Have Nothing to Say, Only to Show
By Charles SchultzThere is much to read at Natalie Czech’s solo New York debut, and most of it is American poetry; there is also plenty of opportunity to gaze, since Czech’s choice medium is photography. One will quickly find it’s a struggle, however, to perform these two activities in tandem.
Bound: HANS BELLMER and UNICA ZÜRN
By Valery OisteanuA more appropriate title for this show could be Ties That Bind—either by destiny or, to be more vulgar, by rope. Such ties are revealed in this edgy exhibition of more than 50 works dedicated to the 15 years of collaborative effort between Hans Bellmer and Unica Zürn, who, in turn, were inspired by the erotica of their surrealist artist and poet friends.
CHARLES MCGILL Trapped
By Dan TarnowskiCharles McGill’s exhibition at the Phatory is a series of golf club bags dissected by the artist and resewn to make abstract sculptures of people.
ALEJANDRA PRIETO Invisible Dust
By Greg LindquistFor her debut North American solo exhibition, in a sub-basement space at Y Gallery, Chilean artist Alejandra Prieto recasts coal as an aesthetic object. No longer dust and dirt, this combustible sedimentary rock is repurposed as a signifier of socioeconomic labor, environmental peril, and luxury commodity.
Borderless Map: Taiwanese Painting Now
By Jonathan GoodmanTaiwanese contemporary art has always suffered in comparison with the work of China—not only because the two cultures are different, but also because the West has been entranced by the imperial impulse of the mainland.
Nose Bleed
By David St.-LascauxHaving just arrived from Mars, I found myself woefully out of depth visiting Nose Bleed, a group show curated by Erik Foss at Fuse Gallery. The show, featuring over 40 works by mainly Lower East Side and Brooklyn artists.
