Until the Sun Goes Dark: Taylor Davis Decontructs Power

Installation view, photo courtesy of SEPTEMBER

In Until the Sun Goes Dark, Taylor Davis’s second solo show with SEPTEMBER gallery at Kinderhook, NY, the Boston-based artist takes on the question of why we exist in a violent, volatile universe. She offers no answers, but through sculpture, painting, and works on paper, elicits inquiries into the nature of brutality by researching texts ranging from 2000-year-old biblical scriptures (Job 27:13- 23, Ecclesiastics 12: 5-8 and Psalm 57: 4-5) to modern writings by Ethnographer, Edward Linnaeus Keithahn and literature by William Gass, In The Heart of the Heart of the Country. Davis does not merely execute a plan to create work but relies on systems of chance and logic. She does not force her materials to bend to her intent but defers to the inherent nature of the materials she is using. Working in a similar manner to a call-and-response practice, her final pieces sometimes challenge the viewers’ initial comprehension of what they are actually seeing.

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Jiwon Rhie: Suddenly, Images Explain Everything at La Mama Galleria

Installation view: Jiwon Rhie: Suddenly, Images Explain Everything at La Mama Galleria. Photo by flaneurshan. studio. @flaneurshan.studio

Jiwon Rhie often explores moments of deep personal depression, social misanthropy, and cultural alienation in her work. You would never know it, though, from first viewing. Walking into La Mama Galleria in the East Village, NY, visitors are greeted by the playful whirring sound of over a dozen mechanical toy dogs, each covered in exploding layers of colorful, fake flowers. The dogs walk across a blue moving pad, bumping into walls, each other, or the artificial boundaries Rhie erected. In the center of the moving pad, two quarter candy vending dispensers shake with the motion of encased and enflowered toys, which act, of course, unperturbed by their enclosures. Viewers are invited to borrow quarters from the gallery to dispense pods filled with custom keychains and temporary tattoos from the candy machines. Though only a corner of a room within a larger exhibition, Rhie’s Flower Dogs make it impossible to enter the gallery without stopping to smile, take a photo or video, and procure ones own custom keychain art.

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Mind Leaves Body at Westbeth

A large room with art on display

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Gallery partial view, main entrance

When Elisabeth Condon noticed an Open Call for a show at Westbeth, she immediately thought of artists Alyse Rosner and Susan Luss, whose process-oriented approach perfectly matched her vision for a collaborative project. They all agreed to come together, planning to let the installation unfold over four days, allowing their work to merge and shape the exhibition dynamics. Their setup process—discussing, reshaping, and improvising in the gallery—revealed more profound interconnections. The trio’s improvisational method produced an exciting viewing experience analogous to a live jazz ensemble with distinct leitmotifs.

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Myrlande Constant: Drapo at Fort Gansevoort

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Reincarnation Des Morts 110 x 111 inchex. Beads, sequins, tassels on fabric. 2022.

Fort Gansevoort Gallery in New York’s Meatpacking District has long been one of my favorite galleries. Housed in an old three-story building, they have been presenting some of the freshest and most original shows in the city. The current exhibition, Myrlande Constant: Drapo is one of their best. Constant is a Haitian artist who works in textiles, taking a traditional form called “drapo” and rocketing it into the realm of contemporary art. Drapo is based on a 19th century embroidery technique developed in France, called tambour. Fabric is stretched tautly over a wooden frame and embroidery, using sequins and beads done from the reverse side.

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Ulf Puder at Marc Straus Gallery

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Taormina, Oil on canvas,39.4 x 47.25, 2018

Marc Straus Gallery is currently presenting the paintings of Ulf Puder, a German artist whose landscape paintings are deeply evocative and strangely alluring. I was not familiar with the artist or his work, and I’ll admit, it took a beat to enter his Universe. But once in I began to see deeper into the complex issues he deals with in his paintings.

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