(Un)Common Threads, Part 1

Several current and recent exhibitions have as a common thread the, well, common thread--deconstructed, reconstructed, repurposed and carefully structured.

At the Anton Kern Gallery, Lara Schnitger (through June 20), showed an installation of knee-high hose stretched and knotted into a curtain that both divided and defined the gallery space. Looking at the gallery site, I see that the artist is no stranger to the use and reuse of commonplace materials.

Lara Schnitger at Anton Kern: White Cube Hosiery, 2009, nylon & wood, variable dimensions

At Yvon Lambert, Shinique Smith (Ten Times Myself through July 31), mines what the press release describes as "an autobiographical narrative"." In baling, compressing and amassing fabric as she does, Smith imbues these materials with palpable energy. I don't know her. I don’t know her story, but, man, I feel the a life force emanating from that work.

Above and below: Works by Shinique Smith at Yvon Lambert. No information on gallery website

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At Pavel Zoubok, Donna Sharrett (Reverb, through May 23) most certainly mines personal history. Her work is about memory, specifically the memory of her musician brother who died several years ago, but also the nature of memory itself. Exquisitely hand stitched, knotted and pieced, the work incorporates material elements given to her by friends and thus becomes a web of interwoven recollections that extends beyond the artist herself.

(While Reverb is over, Sharret's work is included in Daughters of the Revolution: Women & Collage, which runs through August 14 at the gallery.)

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Donna Sharrett at Pavel Zoubok, installation view

Donna Sharrett: The Long Black Veil, 2003-2008, rose petals, handmade rose beads, synthetic hair, guitar-string ball ends, pennies, blue jeans, cotton fabric, rings, bone beads and buttons, synthetic pearls, thread; 36 x 26 inches

Detail below

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In the Contemporary Art galleries the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Liza Lou is represented by Continuous Mile, a mile-long coiled rope of white beads that is laid in the form a cylinder. Lou employed a team of beaders from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, to do the work. I first saw the sculpture at L&M Arts a few months ago, but since I couldn't photograph the work there, I didn’t write about it. I'm glad for the opportunity to revisit it here. You'll note it's placed near the museum's Damien Hirst sculpture but I must say this work, so simple yet so complex, blows that shark out of the water.

Liza Lou at the Met: Continuous Mile, 2007-2008, glass beads, cotton; loan from the artist, on continuous exhibition at the museum for two years

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At the Painting Center, Edward Shalala (Documentary Photographs, through June 20) takes the most minimal of materials, the thread itself, and makes the most fleeting of works, a temporary painting that consists of a continuous length of unraveled-canvas thread which is arranged in an airy coil on the ground. What remains as evidence is a black and white photograph. The work recalls both the manifestly material, Smithson's Spiral Jetty, and the evanescent, Ana Mendiata's spirals gouged into the earth.

Edward Shalala at The Painting Center: untitled, documentary photograph of
raw linen canvas thread painting on basketball court at Sarah Roosevelt Park, New York City; c-print 11 x 14 inches, 2009

We follow the thread from Shalala's solo at the Painting Center to his inclusion in the current group show at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery (By a Thread, through July 24) . That's where's we'll go in the next installment later this week.

Note: Summer hours for many galleries are Mon-Fri. Please check before you go.

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On the Geometric Trail in Chelsea

There was a wealth of geometric expression in Manhattan last month. I photographed some of it. Then I went to Miami for the fairs and spent the subsequent two weeks blogging about them. I was prepared to let this New York report go--one has only so much time, after all--but in reviewing the images, I realized the work was too interesting to ignore. I made time. If you don’t go to New York regularly, I suppose it doesn’t make all that much difference when you see these shows en blog; and if you did see the shows, well think of this post as a bit of 2007 déjà vu all over again.

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Bridget Riley: Recent Paintings and Gouaches
at Pace Wildenstein

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Of course you know Riley’s work. She shot to fame in the 60s with eye-blazingly, undulatingly graphic paintings that practically created the genre of Op Art. She’s mellowed. The colors are Monet-esque and the geometry is larger, more sinuous than searing. As you would expect at this gallery, the work was big--but it was an invitation to see, not a challenge. A catalog is available. Click gallery website for more info.

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Above: The central gallery at Pace Wildenstein. The work on the right is painted directly onto the wall. The painting visible through the doorway to the far gallery orients you to the installation below

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Gail Gregg: Recent Paintings
at Luise Ross

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Gregg has taken the lowly packing carton and turned it into geometric abstraction. Her symmetric shapes, reminiscent of totemic images, are from flayed carboard boxes, carton dividers, cup holders—the stuff of our throwaway culture—all coated with wax. Some works hang as relief sculptures; others are laid onto a wax ground. Technically these latter are more assemblage than painting, but painting embraces everything these days, and Gregg is a painter with a great sense of compostion and color.

You can see more at the gallery's website and at www.gailgregg.com

Installation view of Gail Gregg's show at Luise Ross

Below, a work from the show

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Polished and Pressed: Bill Thompson and Peter Weber
at Thatcher Projects

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First I liked the title, with its suggestion of neatness and order. Then I liked the work: relief sculptures that played shiny against matte, rounded edges against sharp, crease against smooth. Thompson has the polished work: geometric wall sculptures carved from urethane, many of which glisten with layers of, I’m guessing, automotive-type paint. Weber has the pressed work: felt objects that have been folded and formed into geometric order, like weave patterns under a microscope. See more at the gallery's website.

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Polished and Pressed at Thatcher Projects: Bill Thompson, above, and Peter Weber, below

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The Geometry of Seeing: Elaine Lustig Cohen
at Pavel Zoubok Gallery

Although I knew of Cohen’s work, I hadn’t realized the breadth of it. Thanks to the show at Pavel Zoubok and the impressive catalog with it, I saw a range of Cohen's work in this 40-year retrospective. Painter, collagist, sculptor and graphic designer, she has worked within a hard-edge idiom that has traversed fluidly within her various modes of expression. See more on the gallery's website.

A second part of this exhibition was held at the Julie Saul Gallery. I didn't get there, but you can visit the website to see more work.

The Geometry of Seeing: Elaine Lustic Cohen at Pavel Zoubok Gallery. This view looks into the gallery from the entry

Below, a view behind the desk

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Alberto Burri at Mitchell-Innes and Nash through January 19

When you hear arte povera, you think Merz or Kounellis. Burri? Who knew? The exhibition is a 40-year-plus survey of the artist, who died in 1996. The work is varied but the constants are the materials--commonplace stuff like plastic, Celotex wallboard, burlap, clay--and a geometric sensibility that threads its way through the material and the years. Not surprisingly, Rauschenberg cited Burri as an influence. Read more and see additional images at the gallery website.

Above: Alberto Burri installation view

Below: Oil and gold leaf on Celotex--a little ricca with the povera

Next post: The geometric trail continues below Houston