Art Galleries & Museums

Opening this week at Pace Gallery, is the gallery’s first New York showing of the artist Yto Barrada. “How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself” is no simple gallery show, either. Spanning three floors of Pace’s 32 East 57 Street location, Barrada’s diverse practice and body of work is fully represented in this survey. Featuring collages, a diverse range of sculptures, dyed and sewn fabric compositions, prints, and films, the exhibition is far-reaching.

“Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil” is currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art and is the first exhibition of the artist’s work in the U.S. Viewers are immediately introduced to Tarsila (1886–1973) via her cubist education. Indeed, it is important that Tarsila’s career be seen with the understanding that she benefited from extensive European modernist training and mentorship.

Opening this month at the de Young in San Francisco is “Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art.” This comprehensive survey of America’s first homegrown art movement showcases art of the machine age. Known for its clean lines and smooth surfaces, these works celebrated the industrial age and presented a distinctly American point of view. Including decorative arts in addition to painting and photography, "Cult of the Machine" gives an in-depth and scholarly view of this movement that has not seen a major exhibition in 20 years.

Yesterday the Saint Louis Art Museum unveiled a collection of ancient treasures from the sea in “Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds.” On view through September 9th, “Sunken Cities” showcases important artifacts and incredible finds recovered from two ancient Egyptian cities. Submerged for over a thousand years, Thonis-Heracleion and nearby Canopus were rediscovered by underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio and his team. Using clues from the fifth century B.C. Greek historian Herodotus and first century B.C.

Recently opened at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Do Ho Suh’s ‘Almost Home’ invites us to tour Suh’s ethereal memories. Suh is known for his delicately crafted “fabric architecture” pieces. These large-scale installations are sewn from sheer material, making them both solid, immersive objects, while also being light and transparent enough to appear fragile. In ‘Almost Home,’ Suh has recreated the hallways from several of his homes from around the world. Born in 1962 in Korea, Suh currently splits time between Seoul, New York, and London.

“I chose to use photography, with my camera as a time machine to travel back into the past.” — Hiroshi Sugimoto

Beginning this month, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York presents a dialogue about immigration in a new format. La Frontera: Encounters Along the Border uses contemporary jewelry to engage new narratives surrounding immigration and life along the US-Mexico border. The fourth stop for this exhibition, including one in Mexico, La Frontera brings together 48 artists from around the world working in a range of media. These intimate objects of adornment personalize a larger dialogue that can often be dehumanizing.

At Brian Gross Fine Art this month, two artists approaching drawing with similar interests and parameters achieve intriguingly different results. Andrea Way and Adam Fowler both craft meticulously detailed layered drawings featuring intricate repetitive patterns. A Delicate Crossing, Way’s fifth solo exhibition at Brian Gross Fine Art, consists of ten mixed media drawings of systematically layered patterns, occasionally adorned with glass beads, adding texture and radiance to her work.

Currently at Carl Hammer Gallery, Vivarium is Mary Lou Zelazny’s immersive exploration of surreal plantlife. Zelazny combines painting and collage in striking, dreamlike images of technicolor trees and zebra-striped bouquets. At first glance, what seems to be merely exuberant plein air studies and still-lives, are revealed upon closer examination to be surreal and mysterious reconfigurations. Zelazny reimagines flora, creating new and unusual botanical studies collaged from monoprints.

In Chris Schanck’s solo exhibition at Friedman Benda, furniture seems capable of taking on a life of its own. The show's title, ‘Unhomely’, warns us not to get too comfortable. The play on 'home' and 'homely' advises us to look beyond the beautiful exteriors of the objects that inhabit our homes. While Schanck’s sculptural furniture could be reassuring objects of convenience, its otherworldly forms suggest it might have its own plans once we turn our backs.