—WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9TH—
Opening reception for Nathaniel Robinson: “Outer Air” at Feature Inc. , 131 Allen Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 9th)
This exhibition of sculptures by Nathaniel Robinson features castings of quotidian found objects, revealing the subtle intricacies and compositional complexities of the everyday.
Opening reception for Jack Siegel at Half Gallery , 208 Forsyth Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through January 31st)
Following his 2011 collaboration with Lucien Smith in the celebrated “Invented Nostalgia” show, Los Angeles-based photographer Jack Siegel presents a series of “new constellations”: works whose spare geometrical shapes resemble color blocked deep space photography.
Opening reception for Jacob Kassay: “Untitled (disambiguation)” at The Kitchen , 512 West 19th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16th)
In this solo exhibition of wall-based works which “engage the specific spatial properties” of the gallery and building, Kassay, a young art-market star, aims to amplify the viewer’s experience of the Kitchen’s space. Sounds like something worth seeing.
Opening reception for Francisco Leiro: “Human Resources” and Ricardo Maffei at Marlborough Gallery , 40 West 57th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 9th)
The lush, meditative scenes in Maffei’s photorealistic pastel paintings contrast with the twenty or so odd wood sculptures by Francisco Leiro, which are aggressively arresting almost immediately, especially in their near life-size figurative manifestations.
—THURSDAY, JANUARY 10TH—
Opening reception for Christopher K. Ho: “Privileged White People” at Forever & Today , 141 Division Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 17th)
Pulling from his own personal experience as a young Chinese immigrant in Southern California and as a professor in private art colleges, Ho examines how the progressive values emphasized by America’s “first black president,” William Jefferson Clinton, during the 1990s continue to influence how political art is being created.
Opening reception for Robin Rhode: “Take Your Mind Off the Street” at Lehmann Maupin Gallery , 540 West 26th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 23rd)
As a part of his first exhibition in New York in over five years, South African-born and Berlin-based artist Robin Rhode presents series of photographs that capture the progressive unfolding of specific actions, often replicating movement in the style of stop motion photography. Rhode is also collaborating with a large group of elementary school students to create a site-specific work, Paries Pictus , which will be on view until March 9th at the gallery’s 201 Chrystie Street location.
Opening reception for “Black Cake” at Team Gallery , 83 Grand Street and 47 Wooster Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16th)
This group show, which is curated by Alex Gartenfield and occupies both gallery locations, features works by Sam Anderson, Ryan McGinley, and Sterling Ruby, among others, as artists examine the evolving concept of “sweetness” in contemporary society.
Opening receptions for Camila Sposati: “Earth’s Earth” and Ishmael Randall Weeks: “Quion” at Eleven Rivington , 11 Rivington Street and 195 Chrystie Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 10th)
Eleven Rivington will be commencing its 2013 schedule with two shows by South American artists. Sposati, who will be making her solo debut in the United States, presents pieces in a variety of media, all inspired by the structure of scientific processes. The second show features works by collagist and video artist Randall Weeks, who was featured in MoMA PS1’s acclaimed “Greater New York” exhibition, and runs concurrently to a solo project that is on view at The Drawing Center from January 17th to March 13th.
Opening reception for “Looking Back / The 7th White Columns Annual” at White Columns , 320 West 13th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 23rd)
As part of the seventh iteration of the “Looking Back” series at White Columns, Richard Birkett, the curator at Artists Space, has been invited to create a show based on his experience of looking at art in New York over the past year. Featuring works by Chris Kraus, Chris Marker, Bjarne Melgaard, Alice Neel, and Amy Sillman, among many, many others, this seems primed to be a stimulating and personal response to the city’s recent art happenings fit to trump many a rote year-end list.
Opening reception for Daniel Buren: “Electricity Paper Vinyl…” at Petzel Gallery , 456 West 18th Street and Bortolami Gallery , 520 West 20th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16th)
While Daniel Buren is known for showing perception altering, contrastingly colored art in both public and private spaces over the course of his 50-year-long career, for his newest exhibition—dedicated to the late conceptual artist Michael Asher—he’ll have works in both Petzel and Bortolami galleries, which will feature historical in situ works on paper and new fabric and fiber optic pieces, respectively.
Opening reception for Luc Tuymans: “The Summer is Over” at David Zwirner , 519 West 19th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 9th)
Though postponed by the problematic Hurricane Sandy, the tenth show of Luc Tuymans’s work at David Zwirner happily coincides with the release of a comprehensive catalog of all the exhibitions the Belgian painter has staged at the gallery space. Among personal photographs and installation views, the catalog will also feature interviews conducted between the fabulous writer Lynne Tillman and a variety of art world figures, including Helen Molesworth and Madeleine Grynsztejn, the co-curators of Tuyman’s recent retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Opening reception for David Shrigley: “Signs” at Anton Kern Gallery , 532 West 20th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16th)
Surrounding a large, black gong sculpture in the center of the gallery, Glasgow-based artist and funny guy David Shrigley has positioned a variety of flags, scrolls, signs, and banners, each an extension of the artist’s newest venture into semiotics. Playing off the idea of the commonly accepted role of signage in society, Shrigley adds a dash of his own text-centric humor, which will surely be good for a laugh or three.
Opening panel and reception for “Eyebeam Resurfaces: The Future of the Digital Archive” at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center , 540 West 21st Street, 7 – 9 p.m., $25 suggested donation
Chelsea’s inimitable Eyebeam Art + Technology Center pulls back the curtain on its archival recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Curators Lindsay Howard and Jonathan Minard have also arranged a multi-channel installation of some of the organization’s rare and exciting material in advance of an insightful night of digital preservation discussion. Fans of old and new media art won’t want to miss this.
Opening reception for Giorgio Griffa: “Fragments 1968 – 2012” at Casey Kaplan , 525 West 21st Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through March 2nd)
Gathering work from over 40 years of the Italian artist’s career, this exhibition—Griffa’s first in the United States since 1973—presents a group of unstretched and unpredictable canvases that expose the inherent materiality essential to the painter’s practice.
Opening reception for Charlotte Dumas: “Anima” at Julie Saul Gallery , 535 West 22nd Street, 6th Floor, 6 – 8 p.m. (through March 9th)
In her third solo show at Julie Saul Gallery photographer Charlotte Dumas, who “explores the bond between mankind and animals,” spotlights the burial horses of Arlington National Cemetery, capturing the stately steeds in intimate moments of relaxation.
Opening reception for Esteban Vicente at Ameringer McEnery Yohe , 525 West 22nd Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 9th)
It would be easy to marvel over these luminous, floral-inspired paintings by first generation New York School Abstract Expressionist Esteban Vicente, if not also for the fact that the artist finished the most recent ones at age 96. What have you done lately?
Opening reception for David Hilliard: “The Tale is True” at Yancey Richardson Gallery , 535 West 22nd Street, 3rd Floor, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16th)
Photographer David Hilliard explores old themes in this new series of multi-panel panoramas, focusing specifically on his relationship to his father and family as they struggle with the effects of time and age.
Opening reception for Niko Muoma: “And Time is No Longer an Obstacle” at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery , 505 West 24th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16th)
The first solo exhibition in the United States of work by Niko Luoma finds the Helsinki School artist continuing his calculated manipulation of single photographic negatives, exposing them to hundreds or even thousands lines of lights. Luoma’s most recent series, Ligeti (2012), transforms his previously rectilinear compositions into more organic forms.
Opening reception for Nancy Spero: “From Victimage to Liberation: Works from the 1980s & 1990s” at Galerie Lelong , 528 West 26th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16th)
This collection of rarely seen collages by noted feminist and anti-war activist Nancy Spero—the first solo presentation of her work since her death in 2009—shows female figures in a atmosphere of optimism, actively advancing across long vertically and horizontally composed sheets of paper.
Opening receptions for Wang Xieda: “Subject Verb Object” and Sol LeWitt: “Cut Torn Ripped Folded” at James Cohan Gallery , 533 West 26th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 9th)
The subtle nuances of written language are taken to an extreme by Shanghai-based artist Wang Xieda whose cast bronze sculptures are directly inspired by Chinese calligraphy. A solo exhibition of his work, the artist’s first in the United States, will be shown in conjunction with a show of rare early works on paper by Sol LeWitt, featuring little known drawings from 1967 to 1979 that embody the artist’s performative “instructions.”
“Breaking the Plane” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles , 250 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, 7 p.m., $12
Presented by the Los Angeles Film Forum at MOCA in response to the “Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949—1962” exhibition, which is on view at the museum until January 14th, this collection of radical films from 1959 through 1967 by artists like Stan Brackhage, Ken Jacobs, and Carolee Schneeman, among others, illustrates how, like postwar painters, artists working in film sought to transgress the limited “acceptable” worldviews of their time.
—FRIDAY, JANUARY 11TH—
Opening reception for “The White Album” at Louis B. James Gallery , 143b Orchard Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 22nd)
Though the press information for “The White Album,” organized by David Fierman and Amie Scally, is fittingly opaque, its list of participating artists, which features names like David Hammons, Nate Lowman, and Carrie Moyer—along with the accompanying film program organized by Michael Chaiken and Victoria Keddie—is more than intriguing enough to merit a look-see.
Opening reception for “Grasso, Grimonprez, Koh: Three Installations” at Sean Kelly , 475 Tenth Avenue, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 9th)
The works of Laurent Grasso, Johan Grimonprez, and Terence Koh may seem inharmonious at first glance, however the pieces on view at Sean Kelly’s new location meld well together both formally and conceptually. The ten-foot high letters that make up Grasso’s Infinite Light , are also the same shade used to simulate nightfall on daytime film sets. Koh’s one person at a time , two diametrically posed cast wax figures of the artist, rests while Grimonprez presents a video piece about searching for doppelgangers of the director Alfred Hitchcock.
Opening reception for Enoc Perez: “The Good Days” at Acquavella Galleries , 18 East 79th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 9th)
These new paintings and sculptures by Enoc Perez are inspired by both Modern era Caribbean hotels and vintage swizzle sticks. What more is there to say?
Opening reception for Isabelle Hayeur: “Death In Absentia” and Andrea Way at Pierogi , 177 North 9th Street, Brooklyn, 7 – 9 p.m. (through February 10th)
Along with showing Andrea Way’s sizeable yet richly detailed works on paper and hosting “Skyward,” a large-scale video installation by Kevin Cooley at their satellite gallery blocks away, Pierogi is presenting an exhibition of works by Canadian artist Isabelle Hayeur as part of their participation in the second round of a Brooklyn-Montréal art exchange. The four-day long exchange takes place at eight leading galleries around Brooklyn and involves over three dozen artists from the two cities. You can find the complete listing of this weekend’s events here .
Opening reception for Holly Roberts: “As the Crow Flies” at Catherine Edelman Gallery , 300 West Superior Street, Chicago, 5 – 8 p.m. (through March 2nd)
Unbound by conventional approaches to painting and photography, Holly Roberts combines elements of collage to create bizarre animal figures on the surfaces of painted over photos, creating a dialogue between man and nature, as well as between the media.
—SATURDAY, JANUARY 12TH—
Opening receptions for Environmental Services: “What is Yours is Mine” and Carolyn Salas: “Hang Up” at Dodge Gallery , 15 Rivington Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 17th)
In an effort to become both financially stable and working artist, David Weathersby hires himself out as a general handyman under the name Environmental Services, doing a variety of odd jobs while making art from the assorted materials of his tasks. For What is Yours is Mine , Weathersby helped clean out the studios of several Dodge Gallery artists and, apart from learning about the artists and their practice, created sculptures from all their unwanted refuse. His exhibition will be joined by three large sculptures from Carolyn Salas, one of which divides most of the inner gallery.
Opening receptions for Christopher Knowles and Nick Relph at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise , 620 Greenwich Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 23rd)
Two artists notorious for their creative uses of primary colors; Christopher Knowles, best known for his intricate, geometrically-patterned “typings” and Nick Relph, a pseudo-documentarian, Venice Biennale Golden Lion winner, and one of the “first new kids of the post-YBA moment.”
Opening reception for “On Creating Reality, by Andy Kaufman” at Maccarone , 630 Greenwich Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16)
This extensive collection of artifacts from the life of American actor and entertainer Andy Kaufman, ranging from correspondence and costumes to his childhood record collection, will be sure to enthrall both aficionados and neophytes of his work. Eschewing wall text, the gallery has instead arranged for a rotating series of Kaufman’s friends, family, and colleagues to be on hand during the exhibition to interact and talk with visitors.
Opening reception for Thomas Barrow: “Works: 1974 – 2010” at Derek Eller Gallery , 615 West 27th Street, 3 – 5 p.m. (through February 9th, 2013)
This exhibition traces the last four decades of work from experimental photographer Thomas Barrow, beginning with his reactionary work in the mid-70s and continuing on through his exploration of the photograph as more than simply a two dimensional image.
Opening reception for Michael Waugh: “Offenses Against One’s Self” at Winkleman Gallery , 621 West 27th Street, 3 – 5 p.m. (through February 9th)
In collaboration with Schroder Romero, Winkleman Gallery will present a solo exhibition of new work by New York-based artist Michael Waugh, whose “micrographic” portraits and landscapes are composed of lines of very finely written text. The show also features sculpture and a video of Waugh reciting during a marathon eight-hour performance-reading, which he will restage on February 1st from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Opening reception for Agathe Snow: “Smile/Slime” at Galerie Hussenot , 5 Bis Rue des Haudriettes, Paris, 6 – 9 p.m. (through March 12th)
This exhibition features work by New York-based artist Agathe Snow, who, through a series of wall reliefs, aims to compress the multiplicities inherent in personal experience into a singular perspective and question notions of “flatness” in art and life.
Opening receptions for Julia Haft-Candell: “Terrains” and Josh Peters: “JOSH PETERS” at ACME , 6150 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 9th)
In the exhibition of new work by painter Josh Peters finds the artist moving away from his previous method elaborating on imagery from film stills and instead focusing on elements of randomness in his practice and maintaining a balance between “preserving the freshness of the first touches, yet ‘finishing’ the painting” through other means. Also on view is a group of six new sculptures by Julia Haft-Candell whose gangly and meticulously crafted forms recall insects’ exoskeletons or elaborate lab equipment.
Opening reception for Bernard Piffaretti: “Report” at Cherry and Martin , 2712 South La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16th)
As part of the first solo exhibition of his work in the United States in ten years, French artist Bernard Piffaretti presents a series of paintings revolving around a theme of duplicity. His halved pieces are divided by a center line where the right-side is a colorful composition of streaks of color with its opposite a close but inexact copy. These parallel panels are the focus of the artist’s discussion with fellow painter Matt Connors (who recently had a show at MoMA PS1), the text of which accompanies the Cherry and Martin exhibition.
Opening reception for Mario Ybarra Jr.: “Double Feature” at Honor Fraser , 2622 South La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 16th)
Turning from found objects to film for his most recent series of work, Ybarra has created a series of self-portraits based on iconic Hollywood classics, in this case, sci-fi and horror films produced by Universal Studios in the early to mid 20th century. The exhibition is also accompanied by a werewolf-inspired video screening.
Opening reception for Lisa Sigal: “Riverbed” and Steffani Jemison: “Same Time” at LA><ART , 2640 South La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 23rd)
This intriguing exhibition pairs two New York-based artists; Lisa Sigal, a 2008 Whitney Biennial participant, and a painter/sculptor who toes the line between both genres and Steffani Jemison, a multimedia artist with work currently included in Fore at the Studio Museum in Harlem, whose practice focuses on issues of language and literacy in African American culture.
—SUNDAY, JANUARY 13TH—
Opening reception for Maya Bloch: “here you are” at Thierry Goldberg Gallery , 103 Norfolk Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 17th)
By sparking her creative process by slowly obfuscating tracings of found images, Bloch is able to freely associate in the midst of her process, a tactic readily apparent in viewing her paintings, which blur the boundaries between representation and abstraction.
—MONDAY, JANUARY 14TH—
Opening of Nairy Baghramian: “RETAINER” at SculptureCenter , 44-19 Purves Street, Long Island City, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. (through March 25th)
In an ambitious architectural turn, sculptor Nairy Baghramian has created a large silicon and chrome-based work for the SculptureCenter’s main exhibition space. Partially created by hand and partially industrially fabricated, the piece probes the possibility of sculpture’s aesthetic and functional possibilities.
“Cur-ATE: Italian Art and Gastronomy” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art , 5905 Wilshire Avenue, Los Angeles, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m., $90 members; $100 non-members
While their standing collection is a veritable feast for the eyes, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has decided to include something for viewers’ stomachs as well, pairing gallery tours with three-course meals thematically inspired by the art of the evening.
—TUESDAY, JANUARY 15TH—
Opening reception for Anj Smith: “The Flowering of Phantoms” at Hauser & Wirth , 32 East 69th Street, 6 – 8 p.m. (through February 23rd)
Spring boarding off of classical memento mori symbols, London-based painter Anj Smith’s portraits suggest new meanings and interpretations for these tokens; their decaying symbolism blossoming into something entirely unintended.
