VISIONAIRE RECOMMENDS

VISIONAIRE RECOMMENDS

1. Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor is open at MoMA until January 18th, 2015.

Eight years in the making, the conceptual American artist Robert Gober finally has his first US-based retrospective at MoMA. Known for his eerie wax sculptures of various body parts and faucet-free sinks (one of which sold for just under $4.2 million at Christie’s in May), Gober is commenting on religion, racism, homophobia and the Aids epidemic of the late 80s/early 90s. The exhibition comprises 130 of the artist’s most known works filling 13 of the museum’s second floor galleries.

2. John Stezaker: New Silkscreens is on display at Petzel Gallery until November 8th, 2014.

With amazing contributions to both Visionaire 57 2010 and Visionaire 60 RELIGION, we’re excited to see London-based artist John Stezaker’s fourth solo exhibition at Petzel Gallery. His work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture. In his collages, Stezaker appropriates images found in books, magazines, and postcards and uses them as ‘readymades’. New Silkscreen is comprised of some of the artist’s newest “shadow” works and the US premiere of his film Blind, an immersive sequence of still images each projected for 1/24th of a second.

3. Dan Colen: Miracle Paintings is on display at Gagosian Gallery until October 18th, 2014.

As part of the New York Magazine-dubbed brat pack “Warhol’s Children,” Dan Colen—with fellow members Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow—became notorious for his outrageous and destructive nature (rumor has it that he once broke all the Martini glasses at a Visionaire party when wrongly accused of smoking pot inside). But it was his unusually high-priced works (unusual for his young age) that lead the multimedia, neo-pop artist into the arms of Larry Gagosian in 2010. After the harsh criticism of his first Gagosian-show “Poetry,” Colen ditched the chewing gum and is presenting an exhibition of large-scale oil paintings (that may or may not have been inspired by Disney’s 1940 masterpiece Fantasia).

4. Puddle, pothole, portal is on display at the SculptureCenter until January 5th, 2015.

Founded in 1928, Long Island City’s non-profit SculptureCenter is part of NYC art history. It relaunched on October 5th with a 2,000 square foot expansion by architect Andrew Berman bringing the exhibition space to a total of 6,700 square feet with a 1,500 square foot enclosed courtyard. What better way to inaugurate the new and improved center than to put on an exhibition centered on child’s play. Thinking through early 20th century cartoons, the kaleidoscopic drawings of Saul Steinberg, the innovative and self-reflexive film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and other children’s entertainment, Puddle, pothole, portal explores the coexistence of disparate elements within shared spaces.

5. LikeNewLandscape is on display at Pablo’s Birthday until October 19th, 2014.

We all remember Takeshi Murata’s incredible 3D Melter, right? Now the digital artist is part of Pablo’s Birthday’s new show LikeNewLandscape. As the title might suggest, the exhibition is based on landscapes as an inspiration for art through millennia. Curated by Front Company co-founders Mark Brown and Pip Deely, artists were invited to “further extend the idea of landscape into a new realm of experimentation- pushing the boundaries of art and creating new virtual realities” at the Lower East Side gallery founded in 2002.