"Heliotrope," showcasing new work by Pard Morrison, is now at San Francisco’s Brian Gross Fine Art. This is Morrison’s fourth solo show at the venue. Featuring three monolithic, freestanding sculptures, multi-colored paintings and a number of smaller wall-mounted sculpture, Heliotrope is a study in brightly colored geometric patterns.
Art News
An innovative photography exhibition at New York’s Waterhouse & Dodds Gallery, Kim Keever: Water Colors showcases the artist’s first series of completely abstract explorations of color in motion. Keever’s earlier photographs involved intricately constructed miniature landscapes that he photographed submerged in a 200-gallon water tank. Lit with colored lights and using dispersed pigment for cloud effects, Keever created dramatic foreign landscapes. Intrigued by the dispersal patterns, Keever began focusing solely on photographing the colors moving through water.
A powerful new exhibition at New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery, Ravelled Threads brings together work by ten African artists utilizing fabric in different ways. Cloth has cultural and spiritual significance throughout Africa, with a long history of use in storytelling, historical record keeping, political activism, and cultural expression.
Opening at Friedman Benda this week, the London-based artist Jonathan Trayte invites you into an alternate universe of bizarre but friendly furnishings. In his first US solo exhibition, Fruiting Habits, Trayte creates a world of his own, filled with idiosyncratic functional objects with multiple uses. With a background in fine arts as well as in food service and as a foundry worker, Trayte brings a sense of humor and a playful interest in texture to this collection. Objects range from tables and chairs to beds, lamps, and poofs, each with their own unique personality and charm.
Paul Kasmin Gallery is opening a summer group show this week fit for the solstice. On June 21st, SEED debuts. As its title implies, themes of fertility, the body, sexuality, and the natural world abound. Curated by Yvonne Force, the 29 artists in the show work with variations of these themes in a range of media and styles.
Now at the Long-Sharp Gallery, Tarik Currimbhoy’s first solo exhibition, Sway, fascinates viewers with over a dozen kinetic sculptures, ranging from 9" in diameter to 3' tall. Crafted from stainless steel and bronze with mathematical precision, the sculptures draw on Currimbhoy’s experience as a designer and architect. Expertly fashioned, their sleek, geometric shapes balance or rock in response to gravity and compression. They look striking both at rest and in motion.
In a new exhibition and accompanying book, Double Vision: The Photography of George Rodriguez, offers a retrospective that covers the dual histories of Los Angeles. George Rodriguez, who has been capturing quintessential American images since taking a photography class to fulfill a high school elective requirement in 1954, has been documenting LA life from the gritty streets to the glitz of Hollywood for over four decades.
Now at Denver’s Robischon Gallery, Amy Ellingson has a thought-provoking solo exhibition. Ellingson’s title, “Sweetbitter Beast” refers to ancient Greek poet Sappho's Fragment 130, translated by Willis Barnstone.
“Eros loosener of limbs once again trembles me, a sweetbitter beast irrepressibly sweeping in.”
Opening this month at Kavi Gupta in Chicago is a new exhibition of works from Mission School painter Clare Rojas. Egret includes a range of works, representative of Rojas’ diverse practice, which has encompassed printmaking, painting, murals, and sculpture. Included in this exhibition are 100 small abstract sketches in gouache, created by Rojas as part of her daily practice. There are also nine large oil paintings and several sculptural works. In the past, Rojas’ work reflected her interest in folk art and folklore.
A fixture in modern art since 1954, Alex Katz’s radically cropped portraits and bold landscapes foreshadowed Pop Art. His wide brush strokes and meticulous composition combine abstraction and representation, with a style faintly reminiscent of woodblock prints. Approaching his 90th birthday, Katz began applying to unmistakable style to landscapes, diverging from the portraiture he’s known for. The resulting exhibition, Grass and Trees, explores three motifs: grasses, roads and trees.
