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.

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.

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.

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

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

Hamburgers

"Kim Kardashian" 2011, via Shinji Murakami

In south Williamsburg you can enjoy Japanese comfort food at the same place you check out the latest from emerging artists. Now at Supercore, see Shinji Murakami’s physical manifestation of his love for 8-bit video games. His 3D sculptures of McDonald’s-inspired meals are visible from the sidewalk, placed on cafeteria trays along the front window. A map of a Super Mario-esque Central Park and other colorful, nostalgic resin panels line the bar. Kim Kardashian zoomed into 169 pink pixels looks especially striking and Internet-y with a backdrop of tiled cats that wallpaper the café. His work is fun and worth a look.

Hamburgers is now on view at Supercore in Williamsburg until August 31^st.

Cordially Yours

Liam Wylie, Untitled (2010) via Liam Wylie

To enter a gallery and engage in a warm chat with the curator is unusual. But when Enrico Gomez detailed the concept of the current show at Camel Art Space, this refreshing welcome suddenly made sense.

All too familiar with closing phrases of letters requesting consideration for exhibition, the artists who run Camel decided to help water these budding portfolios of potential. The aptly named Cordially Yours is a show made up of cold submissions from emerging artists, democratically selected by the staff after careful consideration of each portfolio submitted the past year. They each made a list of favorites, then voted on the best from each other’s lists based solely on the work itself rather than names, resumes or personalities.

Cosmic sculptures and collages from Ontario’s Liam Wylie stole the show. But the whole of this global collection of seven emerging talents is worth a look.

Cordially Yours is on view until August 14th at Camel Art Space in Williamsburg.