Doug Wheeler

Doug Wheeler’s “SA MI 75 DZ NY 12” installation view via David Zwirner Gallery

The serendipitous grids of New York City where there is at least one of every thing and every one, are imbued with the spirit of infinity. With his first solo gallery show, 72 year-old American artist Doug Wheeler has bestowed the city with a more traditional, yet whimsical portal to infinity called “SA MI 75 DZ NY 12.”

The lobby of David Zwirner Gallery becomes a waiting room as it caps viewers to seven at a time. Patrons shift around a semi circle until called up to remove their shoes and replace them with white medical booties. They form a line against a wall in front of a glowing empty white room and receive a standard set of “do not touch” instructions. Upon entering the room and walking toward the wall, a silent now what? hangs in the air. Hands reaching out to the wall don’t stop, as there is none. The fourth wall is an illusion created by white light that perfectly matches the room. This is the greatest moment of the experience, like Wonderland’s Alice stepping through her mirror. Bewildered, viewers continue to walk, unsure of where the void ends. A vague heat surrounds the area but it’s unclear whether it’s coming from the powerful light or adrenaline. Eyes cease to function, as there is nothing to focus on. It is the same somewhat frightening sensation we can experience in a completely dark space, where there is no difference between opened and closed eyes. But never do we get a chance to experience this with pure white light instead of blackness.

Several feet ahead, there’s a rounded incline, the only indication that the space doesn’t continue on forever. Instinctively, everyone looks back and sees an intricate rig of lights. Though impractical, solitary time for each visitor would make the experience much more powerful.

Doug Wheeler’s “SA MI 75 DZ NY 12” is now on view at David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea until February 25^th.

Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst, "Cupric Nitrate," 2007 via Gagosian Gallery

Gagosian Gallery is holding a worldwide exhibition of Damien Hirst’s spot paintings across all eleven locations in London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Athens, Geneva, Hong Kong, and New York. The single exhibition The Complete Spot Paintings: 1986-2011 includes 331 paintings amassed by 150 private individuals and public institutions in 20 countries. The collective effort feels appropriate for the nature of the visuals it assembled.

Each painting depicts an evenly spaced grid, or ring, of perfect circles. Because of Hirst’s variations in number, color, and scale, this simple idea is actually quite versatile as it transforms from precious to colossal. One painting contains 25,781 1-millimeter wide spots of unrepeated colors. One contains only four, each 5 feet wide. Most canvasses are rectangular, and contain a grid of evenly spaced spots. Circular canvasses that comprise the same arrangement take on the illusion of three dimensions. Some pack the spots into rings of concentric circles so tightly, they cross the eyes like a color blindness test.

Hirst describes this collection simply as “a way of pinning down the joy of color,” but it seems there’s more at play. His repeated composition acts as a control for a visual experiment. Such a multitude of paintings that alter only number, color, and scale offers a sort of lesson in the principles of abstraction. It’s not long before some canvasses stand out among the rest, some fade. And it’s not as clear as picking out the extremes in any one category.

The commercial palatability of Hirst’s worldwide extravaganza invites cynicism, which certainly resonates at times. The gift shop of spotted merchandise, from cuff links to iron-on patches, adds to the feeling. Regardless of intention or effect, the sheer magnitude of this exhibition makes it an event worth seeing.

“The Complete Spot Paintings: 1986-2011” is on view at Gagosian Galleries in Chelsea and the Upper East Side through February 18^th.

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds installation view via Mary Boone Gallery

Chinese artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds installation is now in view at Mary Boone gallery in Chelsea. It is an abbreviated version of the popular installation that debuted in October 2010 at the Turbine Hall in London’s Tate Modern. Five tons, or 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds, hand-painted by artisans in the porcelain-producing city of Jingdezhen, China turned the space into a vast gray sea. Unfortunately it was discovered that walking and playing in the seeds, as was originally allowed and intended, churned up a toxic ceramic and lead dust. Visitors were confined to viewing from a distance, as is now the case at Mary Boone, where 3% of those seeds are on display. Indeed it is a tall task to resist touching the seeds so perfectly arranged into a rectangular rug-like surface, delicately stacked a few inches thick, covering almost the entire floor of the bright wood-beamed gallery.

Weiwei was a young man during the Cultural Revolution in China, when government propaganda depicted Chairman Mao as the sun and his minions as sunflowers leaning lovingly toward him. During this time of poverty and uncertainty, sunflower seeds were a key food source and sharing them was a common gesture of kindness and compassion. Sunflower Seeds is an excellent introduction to the political, poetic, grand yet delicate work of Ai Weiwei.

2011 has been Weiwei’s year, for better or worse. For 81 days in the spring he was detained by Chinese government officials in Beijing amid a broad government crackdown against the Arab Spring-inspired pro-democracy movement, of which Weiwei has emerged the unspoken leader. His detention sparked outrage and action around the world among the human rights and art communities alike. This summer his highly anticipated exhibit Zodiac Heads opened in Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza. At year’s end, Time named him one of four runners-up for "Person of the Year." Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is the recently completed documentary debuting at the Sundance Film Festival next week.

Sunflower Seeds is now at Mary Boone Gallery in Chelsea through February 4th.

Katsuhiro Saiki

"Place #3" (2002) via hpgrp Gallery

An enthused crowd filled hpgrp Gallery in Chelsea last Thursday at the opening of Resolution, Katsuhiro Saiki's show of both older and never before seen works. Digital and analog photographs taken in New York, Tokyo, and Berlin are the raw materials for his brand of photo/sculpture hybrids. The centerpiece of the exhibition "Place #3" (2002) is a photograph Saiki took in Berlin of the underbelly of a distant plane flying through a cotton candy clouded sky. The photo is dramatically presented in the middle of the gallery floor, mounted on a large tile. To see an upward view when looking down is truly dizzying.

For Saiki's "Frames" series he photographs glass and steel skyscraper facades, then cuts and arranges them onto white background to create abstract 3D polygonal structures. He effectively captures a 3D object into a 2D photograph form, then crafts it into the illusion of 3D again. This series among many of his other works seems to be informed by Sol Lewitt's 2D cube drawings.

Resolution is now on at hpgrp Gallery in Chelsea through January 28th.

Paula Hayes

"Aquarium" 2011, via Lever House Photography: Jesse David Harris

Paula Hayes has turned the lobby of Lever House at Park Avenue and 53rd Street into an aquatic jungle with her new installation Land Mind. The centerpiece is a large womb-like saltwater aquarium atop a wooden platform that houses clownfish, starfish, shrimp, snails, and corals, among others. A water filtration tube snakes out of the orb like an umbilical cord into the surrounding island of tropical perennial plants, all bordered by a metallic silver braid. Complete with full-spectrum lighting, it is an entire balanced ecosystem. A glowing wall-mounted cocoon stretches 15 feet and holds water-retaining succulent plants, rocks, and sea glass. Tropical trees in custom dumpling-shaped rubber planters are scattered about the space. "The rigor of creating the planting vehicles strengthens the message that the interior landscape is to be taken very seriously and cared for with precision." To communicate this message is her ultimate goal, Hayes says.

Hayes crafts the magical world in round, protective, maternal shapes. By designing an environment that contains self-sustaining ecosystems as well as elements that require human nurturing (feeding fish and watering potted plants), Hayes has orchestrated an interactive event that beautifully (and literally) illustrates the possibility of ecological balance in the 21st century.

Land Mind is now on view at Lever House in midtown through January 27th.

Steve Alexander

Roundway Hill, Wiltshire, July 23rd, 2011 via Steve Alexander

Steve Alexander is one of the world’s foremost crop circle documentarians. This month he joins Skink Ink Fine Art in Williamsburg for Rural Graffiti, an exhibition of his photographic prints. Alexander shows his striking aerial photographs of crop circles from the past three summers in the UK, where a majority of these formations have occurred since the 1970s. He reveals the massive scale and flawless geometric shapes that are undetectable from the ground, providing professional records of a temporary artform to media, researchers, and the public. The gallery exhibits thirty of them, many of which are blown up past poster size.

See Rural Graffiti at Skink Ink Fine Art in Williamsburg through November 27^th.

Nicole Handel

"Symphony no. 9" via Nicole Handel

Nine year Bed-Stuy resident Nicole Handel draws form her community and whimsical imagination to create dreamy mindscapes with gouache, watercolor, and sharpie in her latest exhibition at Yes Gallery, Concrete Garden. Handel contrasts fantasy with reality, and nature with city when rainbow trout and blooming lilies float among high-rise housing projects and cars. Her fertile, volatile scenes are so saturated with color and form both abstract and figurative that it takes patience to fully absorb each painting. Pastel splatters of watercolor cover the majority of the canvas, where she also captures the delicate architectural details of city blocks. It’s difficult to discern her process when indications of technical and spontaneous techniques seem to devolve into each other. To construct such a precise vision from a precarious medium is Handel’s mysterious dance between improvisation and careful planning.

Concrete Garden is now on view at Yes Gallery in Greenpoint until November 13th.

Brian Dewan

Brian Dewan "Undertow" 2011, drawing from The Tide Waits For No Man Filmstrip, via Pierogi

In his latest exhibit at Pierogi, visual, performance, and musical artist Brian Dewan pokes at humankind’s haughtiness in our tendency to ignore potential unintended consequences of tampering with the natural world. His spoof takes the form of a filmstrip—those dry, hokey educational slideshows from the 1950s. Dewan wrote and performed his own dark and humorous narration of the effect of the moon on humans and tides. Dewan’s watercolors that line the walls of the gallery are the film’s slides, which illustrate both the tidal effects of the moon, and cartoon-faced characters skeptical at the well-founded science behind the facts. They grumble at the thought of moving their beach gear when the tides rise, and genuinely wonder why we can’t use our technology to nuke the moon in lieu of such inconvenience. Dewan skillfully avoids condescension by offsetting the severity of his message with playfully tongue-in-cheek visuals and genuinely funny lines.

See The Tide Waits for No Man in Gallery 1 at Pierogi in Williamsburg through November 13^th.

Amanda Dow Thompson

Amanda Dow Thompson, Ghost Moth installation view via Causey Contemporary

Amanda Dow Thompson’s latest show at Causey Contemporary is an examination of transience and permanence when light shines through her sculptures and creates shadows as dynamic as a prism’s rainbow. The sculptures of carved wood, cast resin and cast glass hang from the center of the gallery ceiling. The dreamy resin and glass ones look like double helixes, while the wooden ones feel like some bone hybrid of rib cage and spine, columnal and swirling, support systems that are somehow delicate themselves. Light projects through them as they slowly spin, casting blurred organic shapes. On the wall are Andrew Garn’s photographs of these shadows, cast with colored light creating a more kaleidoscopic version of the live view behind it.

Ghost Moth is now on view at Causey Contemporary in Williamsburg through November 6^th

Re/Deconstructing History

Jessica Stoller "Untitled" via Like the Spice

The latest group show at Like the Spice features five artists who challenge perceptions of our shared past by reappropriating imagery and techniques throughout (art) history. One standout is Jessica Stoller who works with traditionally decorative and innocuous porcelain lace figurines to reimagine and subvert femininity through violent imagery. Joseph Heidecker livens vintage photographs by embroidering them with colorful beads and string, especially effective where they look like muscle fibers on a weight lifter. All artists manage to successfully modernize variably antiquated materials and representations in ways we haven’t seen and wouldn’t expect, which are inspiring especially to fellow artists.

Re/Deconstructing History is now on view through November 6^th at Like the Spice in Williamsburg.

David Scher

David Scher "Bagnolo Series" 2011 via Pierogi

“Tired of being spoken to? Look at these drawings. Letters hover waiting assignment. Books are where letters clam up,” artist David Scher lyrically advertises his latest exhibition at Pierogi. Over the past year while living in Marseille, France, Scher created eleven mixed media drawings that look like they’ve been recently retrieved from a time capsule. He threads string though wrinkled, aged paper where letters and numbers dance around quickly jotted Latin phrases and puddles of watercolor that appear seamlessly intentional and like spilled coffee. All elements saturate the frame but remain staccato symbols floating about like stars waiting for a viewer to see a constellation. Or perhaps like the day’s detritus settling down to form some patchwork narrative in a whimsical dream.

See David Scher Between the Acts: the Bagnolo Suite in Gallery 2 at Pierogi in Williamsburg until November 13^th.

Leandro Erlich

Leandro Erlich, "Elevator Pitch" 2011 via Sean Kelly

Argentine-born Leandro Erlich’s latest exhibition Two Different Tomorrows is named for the confusion that arose while the artist was traveling in Asia, making his “tomorrow” a different day from the gallery’s. His sculptural installation at Sean Kelly uses elevators as its central symbol for space and time warping. In Erlich’s words an elevator is “a functional object, but one in which life seems to be suspended parenthetically.”

In the center of one of the gallery rooms stands an elevator stuck between floors, an ode to a state of limbo. Peer down and see a newspaper crossword tossed on the floor, as if forgotten by captives upon rescue. Another room contains open elevator banks that become a mind-bending maze. The only working elevator in the exhibition opens and closes its doors to show a video of actual elevator passengers filmed in Tokyo.

An elevator shaft is turned on its horizontal axis and viewers are invited to walk inside through the dark concrete cave toward an elevator car. The light at the end of the tunnel comes from the main gallery, where viewers emerge once again questioning their sense of space and direction.

Two Different Tomorrows is now on view at Sean Kelly Gallery through October 22^nd

Do Ho Suh

Do Ho Suh "Fallen Star 1/5" 2008-11, via Lehmann Maupin

Seoul born Do Ho Suh expresses cultural displacement and a mental dual citizenship through a preoccupation with architecture and memory of space, especially in the home. The exquisite detail of his replicas and miniatures is irresistible in his latest exhibit Home Within Home at Lehmann Maupin.

Suh first came to America in 1991 to attend RISD. He wrote a story that describes his journey as the result of a tornado lifting and carrying his home in Korea across the Pacific Ocean and crashing it into the side of his new home in Rhode Island. The highlight of the show is a scaled model of Suh’s personal fable. The brick home in Providence is split, displayed in cross section and includes every last coffee table book and window treatment.

Suh has also created exoskeletons of objects in his current New York home—a bathroom sink, circuit breaker, door knobs—made of what appears to be a nylon polyester blend. Monochromatic and framed in tight bundles, these 3D objects appear like insect specimens on the gallery walls.

Home Within Home is now on view at Lehmann Maupin in Chelsea until October 22^nd.

Richard Serra

Richard Serra "Cycle," 2011 via Gagosian Gallery

Groundbreaking minimalist artist Richard Serra’s latest sculptures are perhaps the highlight of Chelsea’s fall art season. “Junction” and “Cycle” are walls of thirteen-foot high weatherproof steel, sandblasted to a range of rusty oranges and browns. Enter and wander through tight tunnels that lean in then suddenly peel away and spill out into broad spirals. This cinematic experience feels like discovering and getting lost in a desert cave, both delightful and somewhat intimidating. Serra provides plenty of replay value as there are several ways to make your way through this maze of metal ribbons. Inevitable and sudden encounters with fellow viewers force a rare, shared experience.

Junction/Cycle is now on view at Gagosian Gallery (24^th St.) in Chelsea until November 26^th.

Vik Muniz

Vik Muniz, "After the Bath, after Edgar Degas," 2011 via Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

In his latest series Pictures of Magazines 2, Brooklyn-based Vik Muniz continues his practice of photographing his own found object mosaic works. Muniz is the subject of last year’s Academy Award-nominated documentary Waste Land. The film chronicles the artist’s return to his native Brazil where he finds inspiration for his next project on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Muniz befriends catadores (pickers of recyclable materials) at Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill, and hires them as artist assistants to arrange garbage into giant portraits of fellow catadores.

At Sikkema Jenkins & Co, Muniz instead recreates iconic imagery out of torn magazine pages and the result is surprisingly painterly. Each tear replaces the gesture of a brushstroke as the topography mimics globs of paint. Thousands of decontextualized media scraps become a visual miscellany suggesting a constant stream of updates. When arranged into the likeness of a single work, once labored over by a single artist, Muniz seems to point out a discrepancy of focus and value over time.

Pictures of Magazines 2 is now on view at Sikkema Jenkins & Co in Chelsea until October 15^th.

Lisa Yuskavage

Lisa Yuskavage "Afternoon Feeding" 2011, via David Zwirner

In a contemporary art environment that shies away from figurative representation, Philadelphia-born Lisa Yuskavage boldly paints female nudes and has created her own cast of signature plush, erotic, brooding, youthful characters. In her latest exhibition at David Zwirner, Yuskavage has enlarged her usual scale to dimensions a viewer must walk across to see in full, a development that likely goes hand in hand with her more prevalent use of vast landscape.

A toxic yellow-green smoggy glow envelopes her fertile figures, who coyly display and contemplate themselves as cartoonish but dangerous Lolitas. But these are not simply portraits. Yuskavage’s works contain entire cinematic scenes filled with art historical references. Her process as of late usually begins with free association that reveals itself to be symbolic. Yuskavage then grabs hold of this glimmer and enhances it into a flash.

The highlight of the exhibition is Yuskavage’s first triptych, which began as a single panel and evolved organically into a more than 25-foot-long piece. A very personal interview with the artist in this season’s issue of BOMB Magazine details her artistic journey so far, including pivotal advice that emboldened her to bring her own provocative personality to her paintings. Read the transcript here.

Lisa Yuskavage is now on view at David Zwirner in Chelsea until November 5^th.

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.