Christopher Williams at David Zwirner Gallery, through December 20 (529 West 19th Street)Fresh on the heels of his excellent MoMA retrospective, the American-born, German-based conceptual photographer presents new images of cars, chickens, suitcases, and other unexpected items. (Here’s an interview we did with the artist a few months back, as well as a summary of an invigoratingly strange walk-through Williams did for this exhibition’s opening.)Gabriele Beveridge at Elizabeth Dee, through December 20 (545 West 20th Street)This is the artist as both shaman and shopkeeper: Sculptural installations built from store fixtures and incorporating geodes, cheap-looking crystal balls, gold chains, and various portions of mannequin anatomy. Beveridge wears her influences a bit on her sleeve (Josephine Meckseper, Carol Bove, a touch of David Altmejd) but puts her own spin on those precursors; it’ll be interesting to see where she goes next.Josh Faught at Lisa Cooley, through December 21 (107 Norfolk Street)Figurative sculptures of a sort, although the only actual trace of real people is in the names stitched into these textile-based works. Faught freezes personalities in material form: “Greg” becomes a ragtag, sewn-together assemblage at whose base rests a vomitous puddle of resin, a tin of plastic cookies, and a coffee mug advertising the beloved Cathy cartoon strip. These pieces — both hung on the walls and free-standing on the floor — form a community in the space.Sigmar Polke at Fergus McCaffrey, Paul Kasmin, and Nahmad Contemporary, through December 20, December 23, and January 15 (514 West 26th Street; 297 10th Avenue; 908 Madison Ave, 3rd Floor)Another frenzy of exhibitions timed in the wake of a major MoMA retrospective, this trifecta of shows looks at various parts of the eccentric Polke’s oeuvre. Fergus McCaffrey has a wealth of Xerox manipulations, including a room-like chamber in which one serial set of images has been turned into wallpaper. (Fun D.I.Y. homework assignment: Take the exhibition card from the front desk; find a copy machine; wiggle the card around whilst copying it; produce instant bootleg “Photocopierarbeiten.”) Around the corner at Kasmin there’s a selection of photos and drawings from the ’60s and ’70s, all pulled from the Carl Vogel Collection. Abstract images of feet, lights, and cleaning tools are interspersed with a few prescient selfies from the early ’70s. The drawings are also a delight, especially a 13-part portfolio from 1970-1, a series of cartoons about the act of making and looking at art. Uptown at Nahmad, the gallery presents textile paintings, further evidence of Polke’s ceaseless creative restlessness.Tamara Gonzales at Klaus von Nichtssagend, through December 8 (54 Ludlow Street)Gonzales’s paintings at first appear to be made of stitched together fabrics, a la peers like Lauren Luloff. Closer inspection reveals the illusion: They’re all spraypaint on canvas, using various types of fabric stencils; as a result they’re somewhere between Michelle Grabner’s recent works at James Cohan, Christopher Wool’s floral-pattern silkscreens, and Polke’s fabric paintings. A totem-like spraypaint-on-wood wall sculpture throws a nice curveball into the mix.Also worth seeing: Michael Scoggins’s enormous hand-drawn notes at Freight+Volume, through December 13; the last hurrah of Independent Projects, which closes November 15; Robert Moskowitz’s minimalism of crosses and tea pots at Kerry Schuss; Artie Vierkant’s unnerving, zombie-like human animation at UNTITLED, through December 14.
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