Yutaka Sone

Yutaka Sone "Little Manhattan" (detail), 2007-09, via David Zwirner

Originally trained as an architect, Japanese artist Yutaka Sone has focused his inclination for obsessive detail on sculpture at his latest exhibition Island at David Zwirner.

The entire first room of the exhibit is devoted to a single white marble sculpture. With the help of photographic reproductions, helicopters, and Google Earth, Sone created “Little Manhattan.” Weighing in at two and a half tons, the scaled model includes every street, avenue, building, and bridge east to west. The jagged edges drop off and seem to melt like a curtain of wax.

In the next room, more marble sculptures mingle with banana trees made from steel framework and rattan, a natural plant fiber. He paints them a bright but true-to-life green that pops in a white room filled with white objects. In a series of more marble sculptures called “Light in between Trees,” Sone brings physicality to rays of light. He carves the rays in rounded cartoon proportions that add a pop art element to an otherwise classically informed work of realism.

In Island, Sone exposes the cultural ambiguity of such a landform by playing with the natural and architectural connotations of the word through contrasting forms of jungles and cities. Be sure to see more of his stunning pieces in this survey of selected works.

Yutaka Sone Island is on view at David Zwirner until October 29^th.

Jordan Eagles

Jordan Eagles "Bar 1 - 9" 2009 via Causey Contemporary

At Hemoglyphs, the current show at Causey Contemporary, New York City native Jordan Eagles encases salvaged slaughterhouse blood in plexiglass and UV resin. The resulting ceiling-high abstract sculptural murals are incredibly bold, both in form and intention. His method permanently preserves the blood’s color and texture. Light shines through the panels to reveal unexpected details in the layers of blood, which vary to appear every red between black and baby pink. Some coats are splashed and dripped while others are crystallized and congealed into a glowing tapestry of pauses at different stages of the preservation process.

Eagles mysteriously avoids profanity by presenting objects so unapologetically big, bright and bold as to numb any squeamish reaction. By going all in, he humbles the viewer into absorbing the visual effect rather than the gory medium. It’s ambiguous whether the source material is meant to make a political statement. But the suspension of a vital, flowing substance as abstract imagery seems rife with universally applicable interpretations.

Hemoglyphs is now on view at Causey Contemporary in Williamsburg through October 2^nd.

Samuel Rousseau

Samuel Rousseau "Untitled (The Tree and Its Shadow)" 2008-11, via Parker's Box

Having recently completed his residency at PointB studio in Williamsburg, French artist Samuel Rousseau presents a reaction to his environment in his latest solo exhibit at Parker’s Box.

In Brave Old New World Rousseau continues his tradition of adding movement to sculpture using video projections. Swaying leaves and twigs are projected through a bare tree, casting an animated shadow. He projects billowing smoke and fire onto symmetrical cutouts of apartment buildings and skyscrapers to create apocalyptic Rorschach inkblots. Gel capsules sealed in blister packs each contain a bird's eye view of a man walking its perimeter, an illusion Rousseau achieves by placing video behind the translucent pills.

In Williamsburg, a penchant for the old world has evolved into the borough’s brand. Rousseau takes this notion and expands it to address New York’s shifting position on the totem pole of global cities. New York appears increasingly rusty when compared to emerging metropolises like Abu Dhabi and Chonqing. Here, Rousseau draws an optimistic paranoia from New York’s illustrious, immortal spirit.

Brave Old New World is now on view at Parker’s Box in Williamsburg until October 30^th.

John Stoney

John Stoney "Andromeda Galaxy" 2011 via The Boiler

The high ceilings and exposed brick of a former factory boiler room somehow provide a fitting space for John Stoney’s latest work. His muted, prehistoric palette would drown in the harsh sterile light of most contemporary art galleries. At The Boiler’s current exhibition Stay close to me, it will be dark soon, Stoney ambitiously and poignantly bridges the incomprehensible gap between the individual and vast geological time.

In “The Speed of the Earth Series” Stoney creates videos of the cosmos from locations central to his life—Texas, Brooklyn, upstate New York—highlighting that each degree of latitude on the Earth’s surface travels at a different speed. “Midway Clock” is a video of Jupiter’s real-time movement across the Texan sky on the artist’s 45^th birthday.

As Stoney etches galaxies, planets, and stars into chipboard, the raised byproducts create the illusion of stardust. In his own words: “The show is about, at midlife, looking to the sky for perspective. It’s about the night and all its grandiloquences on mortality and significance, and how all it purports can’t compete with the tenor of daily life, of birds waking up, and of thoughtful decisions on the comparative qualities of kitty litter.”

Stay close to me, it will be dark soon is now on view at The Boiler in Williamsburg until October 9^th.

Rotganzen

"Quelle Fête" is the latest installation by Dutch artist collective Rotganzen. Unfortunately this melting disco ball can only be seen at the Wenneker Pand in Schiedam, the Netherlands. But see more of their inviting expressions of "fear and desire, cynicism and euphoria, irony and frustration, boredom and happiness" in their online gallery here.

Mindy Shapero

Mindy Shapero, "What it looks like on the outside when you are trying not to see the insides leaving again and again", 2011 via Marianne Boesky Gallery

The title of Mindy Shapero’s exhibit Breaking Open The Head is both a reference to Daniel Pinchbeck’s book on psychedelic shamanism, and a literal description of some of her work. The show centers around three shell-like sculptures of giant hollow heads. At first glance the forms appear amorphous. The first major sculpture is a black head tipped on its side to reveal pieces of matching black paper precisely arranged into swirls. The matte sheen and seductive fur-like effect of this painstaking embellishment completely distract from the subsequently obvious head form.

On an upward facing head, she paints paper cutouts black, leaving white at the edges. The surface appears white, but as the viewer walks past the head, a black void between the sheets adds an ambiguous visual and symbolic depth to the piece.

On the third head, she paints the face with solid gold leaf while the inside reveals multi-colored concentric circles, organic and irregular like growth rings of a tree. Other sculptures continue the head motif. A series of facial profiles are drawn out of bent metal rods and arranged around a multicolor paper form that slowly reveals itself to be a continuation of the silhouette, giving the illusion of a spinning movement. In another piece, the roles are reversed. The backs of heads are drawn out of the rods while the facial silhouette is completed by a single paper form in the center, like a Rubin vase.

Shapero uses extreme absence and presence of space and color to thoughtfully defy expectations. She baits us with her stunning craftsmanship to distract from her basic forms. When the two are realized at once, her rich perspective on mental tangibility and intangibility emerges throughout her body of work.

See Breaking Open The Head at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea until October 22nd.

Nick Cave

Nick Cave "Speak Louder" 2011 via Jack Shainman Gallery

Nick Cave combines his training in textiles and dance to create body sculptures called Soundsuits. Chelsea’s Jack Shainman and Mary Boone galleries have teamed up to exhibit his latest work. At Jack Shainman, Ever After exhibits three sets of sculptures and a video installation. In “Mating Season” nine shaggy white rabbit-eared figures are arranged in a row at slightly different positions to suggest multiple frames of a single entity’s sexual gesture. “Speak Louder” displays seven figures with protruding circular heads unified by a single draped cloak embroidered to shimmering saturation with black buttons and bugle beads. The bodies resemble a band of forlorn animated trumpets.

Oddly enough, these figures are subdued in comparison to the psychedelic chaos down the street at Mary Boone. Cave’s imagination runs wild as he assembles found and organic objects into unseen combinations. For Now takes place in a high-ceiling room where a platform acts as a dance floor extravaganza of interacting figures. Globes, antique metal toys, and porcelain roses become cohesive textures through Cave’s limitless ingenuity and craftsmanship. The two shows are tied together when twigs take the place of buttons in monochrome figures with familiar disc-like heads, a cross between Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things and a subwoofer.

Cave’s exhibit titles may suggest a future mellowing of his work. The loud, pandemonic miscellany on display at Mary Boone is an ephemeral manifestation of his vision. His more emblematic series at Jack Shainman seems to indicate a shift away from spectacle to contemplation.

See For Now at Mary Boone Gallery until October 22^nd and Ever After at Jack Shainman Gallery until October 8^th

Michael Schall

Michael Schall "Eidophusikon" 2011, via Pierogi

It’s September and Brooklyn’s summer gallery hiatus has passed. This month, Michael Schall exhibits his new graphite drawings at Pierogi. Schall’s is a dreamy world of tension between structure and the ephemeral. His series of large-scale drawings each include surreal or otherwise off-kilter light sources. In “Eidophusikon” a large screen is illuminated from behind, leaving the front stage in the dark. A gap in a bridge mid-construction spills a waterfall of liquid light in “Hoover Dam.”

Many of Schall’s drawings feature cage-like structures that impossibly enclose clouds or explosions. The combination of his forceful solid lines with soft fuzzy strokes creates a balanced yet unsettling image. Unanchored by horizon line, these object studies float and cast shadows on an undefined white space. The bursting motion of permeable matter sure to escape its precarious bounds incites a tick of anxiety. Schall further warps physics and scale by pairing his explosive clouds with traditional still life subjects—a Fabergé egg, an ornately carved wooden box, a mason jar. The absence of color throughout his work maintains a cohesive sense of silence. The specificity of his tone almost masks his raw drawing skill, which is worth attention in itself.

Wall Cloud is on view at Pierogi in Williamsburg until October 9^th

Paul Henry Ramirez

Paul Henry Ramirez's "Playconics 4" 2011 via Galerie Richard

During its 21-year history Paris’ Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard has been a platform for emerging and mid-career artists to blossom. Last Thursday the gallery opened its New York branch. With a shortened name, Galerie Richard's inaugural event was a well-attended opening for Paul Henry Ramirez’s first solo exhibition in four years, PLAYCONICS.

The artist describes his paintings as “biogeomorphic abstractions.” The cartoonish, geometric paintings look like a multi-colored lava lamp of sexual anatomy. They have an animated quality as the abstract innuendos morph and flow towards and away from each other. The clear and perfect lines give the impression that Ramirez is illustrating the physics of some alternate world.

Be sure to ask for gloves in order to participate in the interactive TIPSY paintings, a selection of works that are rigged up so the viewer may spin the canvasses to view different compositions of the abstractions.

PLAYCONICS is on view at Galerie Richard in Chelsea until October 15^th.

Jaume Plensa

Jaume Plensa Echo, photograph by James Ewing via Madison Square Park Conservancy

The Madison Square Park Conservancy has extended the duration of its current commissioned work from Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa, who has bestowed upon the park its largest monolithic work in its seven-year history as a public art space. In the center of the Oval Lawn, the forty-foot tall bust called Echo depicts a young girl from the artist’s Barcelona neighborhood in a pensive dream state. Plensa also references a Greek myth in which Zeus’ wife Hera punishes the garrulous nymph Echo to repeat only the words of others.

The sculpture's peaceful quality is slightly disturbed by a vertical stretch of its proportions. Made of polyester resin, fiberglass and marble dust, Echo is a monochromatic non-reflective chalky white. The distortion coupled with the color make the sculpture look like a 3D hologram when lit up at night. For such a large-scale object, a 360 degree viewing is essential to take in the varying backdrops and details, like a nearly hidden braid molded to her neck.

See more of Plensa’s works here and see Echo on view until September 11^th in Madison Square Park.

Maureen Shields

Maureen Shields "HBAC2009" via Maureen Shields

About Glamour is a multifunctional platform for creative expression in fashion, music, design, and art in both a shop and exhibition space. Through the store filled with one of a kind new and vintage clothing, accessories, and livingware, AG Gallery currently welcomes San Francisco’s Maureen Shields. At first glance, her collages on wood panels and vintage porcelain plates depict cheerful technicolor worlds. But up close, her pieces whirl a carnival-like blend of humor, delight, and terror. She layers the animal kingdom with early civilization, the modern manmade world, and abstraction to create a visual timeline that describes a place by compressing thousands of years of its existence into a single image that unnerves as it amuses.

Shields “seeks to reintroduce the strangeness and complexity associated with childhood.” Indeed her eye for assembling familiar imagery into the unexpected does conjure a childlike bewilderment that we wish to absorb and resolve. But her use of faded paper collage and neon acrylics appears to be an expression specific to a Gen Xer reconciling the experience of growing up in a rapidly changing world that in remembrance feels like time travel.

Maureen Shields: Collages is on view at AG Gallery in Williamsburg through October 30th

GeekDown

Matt Richard, The "Impressionists" via GeekDown

Technological themes are ubiquitous in contemporary art. Artworks often force the viewer to mourn the casualties of the digital age—attention spans, connectedness, sense of time, space, and memory. They challenge us to reconcile the absurdity of our practices and expectations, and how quickly they recalibrate themselves as technology progresses (see Arcangel). Such sentiments have inspired art for centuries, and reasonably, now more than ever it seems.

GeekDown is an antidote to the dystopic vision we’ve come to expect from art that highlights technology as medium and/or subject. The exhibition at 92YTribeca presents a showcase of young minds from NYU and RISD that hark back to the kids section of the science museum, where we were excited to learn through interaction, delighted and inspired all at once.

One standout is Nick Yulman’s "Song Cabinet," an interactive mechanical musical installation. Atop an old wooden cabinet a card reads “please open drawers.” Each drawer is rigged up to play sound with various knick knacks, sea shells, a xylophone. More complex beats emerge the farther the drawer is pulled out of the cabinet.

Another favorite is Jack Kalish and Yonatan Ben Simhon’s "Illumination." From afar, the installation seems to be a writing desk with an overhead lamp shining on a clipboard. Up close the lampshade houses a light projector and downward facing camera. The viewer is invited to place any printed text on the clipboard. The camera takes a photo, which is downloaded to an OCR (optical character recognition) script that scans the page. The words are processed by an algorithm that contains a model of grammatical structures taken from thousands of existing works of literature and poetry. After scanning for these patterns, the projector lights up single words on the page to reveal a poem.

Refreshingly unfocused on the Internet, nor on nostalgia of analog technologies, the exhibit instead contains stimulating work that combines artful concepts with technical ambition and prowess.

See GeekDown at 92Y Tribeca before it ends on September 9^th