If you still have energy after the Armory Show (not to mention the Independent, Pulse, or Volta), here’s a list of noteworthy gallery shows on view during the fairs.Sue Tompkins at Lisa Cooley, through March 27 (107 Norfolk Street)Glasgow-based Tompkins, formerly the fast-talking vocalist for Life Without Buildings, has a way with words. In this show of paintings and typewriter-generated works on paper, language is something to get messy with. Small-scaled abstract canvases break down the sense of words: What appears to be an “NV” smeared across the surface of “Swapping,” or an M-shaped gouge in “Sewn in the sunshine.” Pennies, wooden dowels, or tiny plastic mice are collaged into some works; elsewhere, Tompkins liberally applies glitter and isn’t afraid to slash the canvas, conjuring a hybrid of Chris Martin and Lucio Fontana. Don’t skip the back gallery, which showcases “The view from the long couch,” a multi-part installation incorporating typewritten text on weathered, creased paper. It’s delirious and energetic, generating a punkish concrete poetry with a knack for nonsense: “GET FLOPPED…remember the purple…Who Wants To Divde a Perpsi?” [SIC] stuff, indeed.Larry Bamburg at Simone Subal, through March 20 (131 Bowery)This artist has previously worked with unconventional art materials: animal bones, or moss-covered logs watered by automatic misting machines. Here, he experiments with a variety of pigmented soaps, carving and forming them into wonky monuments atop similarly colored tile bases. Get close and breath the work in — especially the peppermint-scented soap-sculpture meant to resemble an oversized shell. The delicate pastel palette of most of the work is offset by one all-black, abject sculpture slumped on the floor, looking a bit like an immolated mass of PVC and rubber tires. “Rage for Art (Again)” at Pierogi, through March 27 (155 Suffolk Street)The Williamsburg mainstay ventures into the L.E.S. and opens its doors with this sprawling group show. Don’t be confused by the pair of modified Wells Fargo ATM machines lurking behind the front door: It’s a piece by Andrew Ohanesian. (Yes, it will accept your debit card, if you’re daring.) Other highlights include John O’Connor’s massive graphite-and-colored pencil text piece, a story of one man’s weeklong overeating habits ornamented with corporate logos (McDonald’s, KFC, Doritos). But the most striking work is the tiniest: Patrick Jacobs’s diorama “Double Stump With Rustgill Mushrooms,” a miniature landscape with echoes of Duchamp’s “Étant donnés.”“Low” at Lyles & King, through March 13 (106 Forsyth Street)Co-curated by artists Ethan Greenbaum and Michael DeLucia, this exhibition is all about material artifice. Benjamin Phelan’s wall covering resembles a sheet of crystallized ice; Michael Henry Hayden’s paintings of doors play with the illusion of dramatic lighting. At the back of the space, Anissa Mack’s relief sculpture of a mask has a ghostly presence, gazing out past a suite of strange Peter Halley works — monochromatic, dimensional paintings, never before exhibited, that appear vacuum-sealed.Koen van den Broek at Albertz Benda, through April 9 (515 West 26th Street)This Belgian painter is a visual poet of curbs, gutters, and roads, working in a sparse, photo-influenced mode shared by his countryman Luc Tuymans. Van den Broek’s references are often filmic — one canvas is based on a still from the Wim Wenders film “Paris, Texas,” and there’s a diptych that the artist says was inspired by Quentin Tarantino’s split-screen aesthetic. The show is appropriately called “The Light We Live In.” Effects of light and its absence — from the variegated majesty of sunset to the play of shadows on asphalt — is this exhibition’s true focus.ALSO WORTH SEEING: Mark Dion’s birds, beach detritus, and bones at Tanya Bonakdar; Misha Kahn’s kitschy domestic fantasia at Friedman Benda; and a huge group show of drawings — from the likes of outsider icons Henry Darger to contemporary talents like Matthew Ronay — at Andrew Edlin’s new LES home.
↧