Not to Miss this Fall in NYC

September 18, 2018

The New York art scene is in full swing this fall. From large-scale museum retrospectives to inaugural gallery shows, we’ve highlighted some of the most anticipated exhibitions of the season.

How likely is it that only I am right in this matter?, an exhibition of new and recent work by Wolfgang Tillmans is on view at all three of David Zwirner’s West 19th Street gallery spaces through October 20th (Image Courtesy of David Zwirner).

GALLERIES

Wolfgang Tillmans at David Zwirner:
How likely is it that only I am right in this matter?, an exhibition of new and recent work by Wolfgang Tillmans is on view at all three of David Zwirner’s West 19th Street gallery spaces through October 20th.  For his third solo-exhibition with the gallery, Tillmans abandons his signature floor-to-ceiling installations in favor of a more minimal, linear presentation concise in both subject matter and scope.  Each room in the show, which features photographs, video and sound, and a spoken-word piece, functions as a self-contained environment that reverberates in the others, engaging viewers in unexpected, yet continuous dialogues across the three galleries.

Installation view of Sam Falls’ solo-exhibition presented by 303 Gallery. This marks the gallery’s first show of new work by Falls since announcing their representation of the artist earlier this summer.  (Image courtesy of 303 Gallery).

Sam Falls at 303 Gallery:
This fall, 303 Gallery presents the first exhibition of new work by Sam Falls since announcing their representation of the artist earlier this summer.  For this new series of paintings, Falls traveled to the deepest corners of America’s national forests to create map-like compositions that record the flora and topography unique to each location. Working outdoors, he covers large canvases with vegetation from the sites and sprinkles them with dry pigments ranging from vibrant blues and bright yellows to more earthy hues, before leaving them exposed to the elements overnight. The condensation from the rain and dew activates the pigments in a process similar to a photogram, requiring exposure over time so that only the silhouettes of the flora remain amidst beautiful washes of color.

Gabriel Orozco, Ultraman hiding in the Jungle, 2018, is among the works featured in his solo-exhibition on view at Marian Goodman Gallery (Image Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery).

Gabriel Orozco at Marian Goodman Gallery:
Gabriel Orozco’s first exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, since moving to Asia a few years ago, is on view through October 27th.  In addition to recent paintings, the exhibition features new stone sculptures, the first of which Orozco created in Bali, Indonesia, where carving, as in cutting into stone by hand, continues to be an important form of skilled artisanal labor. While the works in this group are all composed of limestone, a local material traditionally used in Balinese temple and domestic sculptural decoration, other groups are comprised of a variety of harder materials such as red tezontle and grey recinto, native to Mexico. The introduction of material variation allows Orozco to highlight the regions he inhabits and which inhabit him. Constantly on the move, the artist establishes a dialogue between here and otherworldliness, geometry and fluidity, memory and transcendence.

Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963–2017, on display at The Met Breuer, presents the extraordinary and previously unknown sculptures of acclaimed late American artist Jack Whitten, who has long been celebrated for his work as an innovative abstract painter.

MUSEUMS

Jack Whitten at Met Breuer:
Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963–2017, on display at The Met Breuer through December 2nd, presents the extraordinary and previously unknown sculptures of acclaimed late American artist Jack Whitten (1939–2018), who has long been celebrated for his work as an innovative abstract painter. Inspired by art-historical sources rooted in Africa, the ancient Mediterranean, and the Southern United States, the sculptures on view not only address themes of place, memory, family, and migration, but also illustrates a transnational, cosmopolitan perspective. Odyssey is the first exhibition in New York City to span the entirety of Whitten’s career and the first time in 36 years that the late artist has enjoyed a monographic exhibition at a New York City museum.  

Digital photograph of Kevin Beasley’s Rebuilding of the cotton gin motor, 2016, on view this fall at the Whitney Museum of American Art (Courtesy the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. Image courtesy Carlos Vela-Prado).

Kevin Beasley at the Whitney:
Kevin Beasley’s first solo-exhibition at a New York City museum opens this fall at The Whitney Museum of American Art.  The show features his most ambitious work to date, a new installation centered on a cotton gin motor from Maplesville, Alabama in operation from 1940 to 1973.  Using the mill to generate sound as if it were a musical instrument, the New York-based artist actively creates a space for visual and aural contemplation. Through the use of soundproofing, customized microphones, and audio hardware, the installation divorces the physical motor from the noises it produces, enabling visitors to experience sight and sound as distinct. The immersive installation serves as a meditation on history, land, race, and labor.

Disappearing Acts, a retrospective showcasing the work of Bruce Nauman, is on view at the Museum of Modern Art through February 25, 2019.

Bruce Nauman at MoMA:
“Disappearing Acts,” the first comprehensive retrospective showcasing the work of Bruce Nauman in over 20 years, opens at the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 on October 21st.  Spanning the entirety of Nauman’s career, from the mid-1960’s to the present, the exhibition features works in a wide variety of media, including drawings, videos, photographs, sculptures, neon pieces, and large-scale installations.  In addition to key masterpieces by the artist, the show also presents recent, rarely exhibited works such as Nauman’s 3D video projection entitled Contrapposto Split, 2017,  Leaping Foxes, 2018, a monumental pyramid of animal sculptures suspended from the ceiling, and Contrapposto Studies, i through vii, 2015-16, a revisiting of his 1968 Walk With Contrapposto, in which he filmed himself walking awkwardly in a pose used in classical Greek sculpture.