Closing January 7:  Regarding Kimber at Cheim & Read

Kimber Smith (1922-1981) had his first exhibition in New York in 1951, where his work was paired with Joan Mitchell’s. Smith’s effortless style [above] anticipates the work of influential artists such as Mary Heilmann, Richard Aldrich, and Joe Bradley

The first exhibition of his works in NYC since 2011 was held at Cheim & Read's UES gallery two years ago; the works, characterized by liberated brushstrokes, loosely rendered geometric shapes, and intense colors, look back to the spiritual abstraction of Vasily Kandinsky and ahead to the hard-etched grittiness of Jean-Michel Basquiat. His floating arrays of forms, overlaid by graffiti-like markings breezily crisscross the divide between painting and drawing. Smith organizes his radically spare canvases through slashes of color that flicker and zigzag across the surface, coalescing into shapes or splintering them apart. The disarming sparseness of many of is the pieces resonate in their emancipation from traditional formal concerns such as hierarchical compositions.

Currently on view at Cheim & Read’s Chelsea gallery is Regarding Kimber, a group exhibition presenting more than 20 works by eight artists to mark the centenary of the forward-looking Smith by exploring the impact of his practice on contemporary art. 

Curator Jay Gorney notes that Smith’s “loose and richly colored” paintings, with their “expanses of primed canvas and, occasionally, spray-painted passages,” not only “stood in marked contrast to the weightiness of Abstract Expressionism” but also “anticipated aspects of both Color Field painting and the ‘provisional painting’ of the early 2000s.”

The qualities that characterize his work — intense colors and boldly articulated shapes coupled with ethereal textures and improvisational structures — are shared by the seven contemporary artists selected for the show: Marina Adams, Matt Connors, Joe Fyfe, Joanne Greenbaum, Eric N. Mack [above], Monique Mouton, and Peter Shear. Read the review in the New York Times here.
Regarding Kimber, Cheim & Read, 547 West 25^th Street, New York, NY Info

Closing January 8: Euphoria at the Park Avenue Armory

Known by Armory audiences for his 2016 presentation of the “utterly absorbing” (ARTNews) film installation Manifesto starring Cate Blanchett, artist and filmmaker Julian Rosefeldt creates elaborately staged films that investigate the power of language and the conventions of cinema as an allegory for societal and individual behaviors. He continues this examination with the multi-channel film installation Euphoria, which explores capitalism, colonialism, and the influential effects of unlimited economic growth in society.

This immersive new work is scored with original music composed by Samy Moussa with an additional composition by Cassie Kinoshi. Presented in an arena-like setting, this Armory commission fully surrounds the viewer with life-size projections of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and acclaimed jazz drummers Terri Lyne Carrington, Peter Erskine, Yissy García, Eric Harland, and Antonio Sanchez, whose rhythmic and narrative nature mirrors the machinery of economy. Thoughts and musings from a variety of sources from economists, business magnates, writers, and celebrities 

At the press preview, Rosefeldt noted that the starting point for the project was “my own ignorance of the economy,” pointing out that he skips the finance section of the newspaper and heads straight to the culture, even while recognizing the importance of understanding the economic forces that shape our lives. Writes AX Mina in Hyperalergic, his central question in the project is a simple one, as he stated: “Why is capitalism so unresistable?”

Even those in the art world most critical of neoliberal economics are still enmeshed in it, Mina points out. Rosefeldt’s work is itself an example. Commissioned by the Armory, whose 2022 season is sponsored by megabank Citi and chronicler of capitalism Mike Bloomberg (via his philanthropic foundation), the film is shown in the Upper East Side, in one of the world’s wealthiest zip codes. This context is impossible to ignore and indeed adds to the tensions captured in the film. Technically brilliant, Euphoria is operatic speech and debate, with larger-than-life musicians, a Greek theater-style chorus performed by …. While the film has a clear beginning and end, it’s designed roughly as a seamles s two-hour loop that can be entered and consumed at any point. Photos by AX Mina for Hyperallergic   

Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67^th Street, New York, NY Info

Closing January 8: New York | 1962-1964

Q: Where did the legendary gallerist Leo Castelli discover Jasper Johns?

Q: Where did Robert Rauschenberg have his mid-career retrospective, at age 39?

Q: Where did the following artists have their first solo museum exhibitions: Kenneth Noland (1965), Larry Rivers (1965), Jean Tinguely (1965), Ad Reinhardt (1966) and Yves Klein (1967)?

If you have been a New York City art afficionado for fifty years, you will know that the Jewish Museum is the correct answer to all three questions. If not, you will be enthralled by the story of how this offspring of the Jewish Theological Seminary, housed in a mansion on the upper east side, adjacent to the Cooper Hewitt and a stone’s throw from the Guggenheim, served as the epicenter of “The New Art” for a formative decade. And how New York City became the global cultural hub for contemporary art

This exhibition explores  a pivotal three-year period in the history of art and culture in New York City, examining how artists living and working in New York responded to their rapidly changing world. Installed across two floors, the exhibition presents more than 150 works of art—all made or seen in New York between 1962-1964—including painting, sculpture, photography, and film, alongside fashion, design, dance, poetry, and ephemera. Above: Marisol (Marisol Escobar); Self-Portrait, 1961-62. Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL. Copyright © 2022 Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The design of the exhibition by Selldorf Architects features material from popular culture, including newspapers, magazines, television clips, popular music, consumer products, furniture, and fashion, as well as vernacular objects salvaged from the city.

The exhibition is accompanied by 350-page catalogue edited by Germano Celant, designed by 2x4, and co-published by the Jewish Museum and Skira Editore.

The Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Info

Closing January 15: Indecencia at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art

Over two dozen diasporic artists of Latin American descent wield props, cameras, and “indecency” as tools for collective self-determination at one of the city’s first institutions dedicated to LGBTQ+ artists. Rooted in decolonial theology, the show’s focus on performance invites an exploration of queerness, religion, and Latinx identity in all its confines and possibilities. Above: Nadia Granados, Colombianización

Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, 26 Wooster Street, New York, NY Info