Last chance, Sunday, January 7: Manet/Degas at The Met

While it was tighter than elbow to elbow yesterday, unless you know you’ll get to Paris soon, this show is a must. Two of the most adventurous artists of the 19th Century, Édouard Manet (1832–1883) and Edgar Degas (1834–1917), and ones who maintained a fierce rivalry streaked with deep respect for the art of the other, are presented here in a show that includes formative drawings [a number of which were transcriptions of important works from the Renaissance] along with some of their iconic works, which challenged and forever altered what the critical public believed to be characteristics of great works of art. Above: Manet, The Execution of Maximillian, ca. 1867-68; below: Degas, The Bellelli Family, c. 1858–1867

The paintings on view are mostly figurative paintins that lean towards the narrative, with just a few landscapes plus a single still life. Reading the wall text yields information that makes the combinations and sequences make sense, for example: it’s important to know that Degas, who didn’t bother with still life painting, acquired Manet’s still life of a glistening haunch of ham on a silver plate, and kept it well beyond its author’s early death. If the crowds are too unbearable to read, the beautifully produced catalog is another must. Get there early to get your timed tickets, then relax with a coffee in the American Wing café.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Info

Wednesday, January 10, 6-8 pm: Kyle Staver | Truth be Told at Half 

From the gallery website: Kyle Staver builds worlds. Inside, we are close to nature. The light feels familiar but just out of reach. Scenes unfold inside darkening forests and drooping wisteria. … Brush strokes gather, stretch out, zigzag, and crisscross giving shape to clouds, waves, feathers and fishnet stockings. Oil sticks jab onto stretched canvas making dots that turn into eyes. An elk, a horse, or an archer, make eye contact. Who am I in this world of dancing satyrs and barking dogs? Kyle takes us into the time of myths and memories to show us what still matters. And by asking us to trace her painted marks she holds our hand as we witness a world come into being.

Half Gallery, 235 East 4^th Street, New York, NY Info 

Friday, January 12, 6-8pm: Richard Mosse | Broken Spectre at Shainment Tribeca

This immersive video installation, filmed by Mosse in the Amazon Basin, inaugurates the gallery’s new space in the Clock Tower Building on Lafayette Street. Opening for a limited preview on the occasion of exhibiting Mosse’s critical work for the first time in New York, this special presentation is an exciting glimpse into the gallery’s greatly anticipated restoration which will be completed for a Fall 2024 opening.

Presented on a 60-foot-wide LED screen, this audiovisual installation shifts dramatically in scale and media to create a visceral and emotional connection with the world’s largest rainforest, the world’s last great reservoir of biodiversity, being devastated on multiple fronts for corporate profit.  Filmed and edited in collaboration with cinematographer Trevor Tweeten from 2018 to 2022, then scored with field recordings from the Amazonian biosphere interspersed with a foreboding musical composition by Ben Frost, these scales of destruction flicker from diptych to quadriptych, and at times, span into a solitary panoramic view. 

Jack Shainma Gallery, 46 Lafayette Street, New York NY Info

Thursday, January 11, 6-8pm: Alexis Rockman | The Toxic Sublime, at Magenta Plains

This solo exhibition of new watercolors by Alexis Rockman are conceived from unexpected perspectives, collapsing the boundary between the viewer and the world we inhabit. Examining the euphoria, psychedelia, and enchantment of experiencing nature, these works encourage the viewer to set aside fatalism in favor of an energetic defense of the environment. 

The Toxic Sublime is an expansion of Rockman’s ongoing project to use the tools of fine art to draw attention to human degradation of our natural world. However, as opposed to crafting a forward-looking dystopian warning, Rockman uses these watercolors as an opportunity to meditate on the perception of wonder and beauty inherent to our Earth. In his hands, these glimpses seem almost alien, a world onto their own.

Mageneta Plains, 149 Canal Street, New York, NY Info

Thursday, January 11, 6-8pm: | Keeping Memories at SEFA LES

This solo showing of works on paper by two artists makes a deep dive on the possibilities of color, texture, and nuanced views onto the subliminal of nature and human interactions. Karin Bruckner produces a series of abstract prints exploring ideas of memory and femininity through a process she relates to archeology. Using plates that hold the record of previous pulls and ghost impressions, the artist layers abstract vessel-like forms with organic shapes akin to to flora or water. Left: Karin Bruckner, Tenuousness 4, 2023; right: Angela A’Court, Measuring Jug, 2023

Angela A’Court’s still lifes hum with energy as bold colors and pronounced texture reveal lyrical studies of bouquets. A true colorist, the artist imagines each scene with large swaths of color that create a clarity of composition emphasizing color, form and texture.

Susan Eley Fine Art, 190 Orchard Street, New York, NY Info