SAN FRANCISCO The McLoughlin Gallery Wood, stone, and metal may have been supplanted by newer materials (e.g., chocolate, tofu, and frozen blood), but some artists enjoy both the technical and aesthetic challenges of traditional, “noble” materials. David Middlebrook, who emerged on the Bay Area gallery scene only relatively recently—with a 2010 retrospective at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara and now this solo show—has had a long career making public sculpture and teaching (at San Jose State University), so he’s well versed in both technique and theory.
Greg Payce
TORONTO Gardiner Museum The work of Greg Payce may be framed within and by the medium of ceramics, but unlike, say, the work of a ceramic sculptor like Peter Voulkos, Payce’s aesthetic has less to do with a focus on the merits of the medium itself and virtually everything to do with exploring the inversion of the figure-ground relationship.
Gary Webb
LINCOLN, MASSACHUSETTS deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum Slick, colorful, playful, and without a cohesive aesthetic, Gary Webb’s work has yet to settle on a recognizable style—he’s having too much fun. A carnival atmosphere pervaded his recent show, “Gary Webb: Mr. Jeans,” with nursery-school hues and shapes bending, arching, and trying to fly off in all directions.
Carlito Carvalhosa
NEW YORK Sonnabend Gallery Carlito Carvalhosa was born in São Paulo, studied at the University of São Paulo’s Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, and lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. His unorthodox and visionary fabrications suggest an acute knowledge of architecture and spatial interaction, while his handling of light and space is concurrently an act of camouflage and disclosure.
Kevin Francis Gray
NEW YORK Haunch of Venison The pursuit of figurative sculpture today occurs not without a sense of déjà vu; like figurative painting, representational sculpture is hard put to break out of tradition to reach an exploratory, even experimental, sense of the medium. But Kevin Francis Gray’s recent work shows us that a questioning, innovative sensibility can still expand the range of figurative art.
Chiharu Shiota
NEW YORK Haunch of Venison Chiharu Shiota’s sculptures and installations use basic materials—glass windows, black thread, found objects such as a violin or a child’s dress—in highly innovative ways. Born in Japan, now based in Berlin, Shiota makes use of an international language of contemporary art, one which serves to poetically enclose information about objects whose history can be felt if not touched.
Richard Van Buren
NEW YORK Gary Snyder Gallery Two mid-size rooms barely contained the luminous effect generated by Richard Van Buren’s new wall and floor sculptures. Spaciously displayed, the sinuous, winding forms all delighted the eye like brightly colored jewels and enticed with highly ornate surfaces coated in an array of delicate hues studded with shells.
John Chamberlain
NEW YORK Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Freestanding sculptures and wall pieces by John Chamberlain filled the Guggenheim Museum’s four floors last spring, offering viewers a posthumous survey of the artist’s crumpled steel and crushed metal sculptures from the past 40 years. His unique approach to sculpture began in 1957, when he took material from an antique car belonging to Larry Rivers and drove over it, as he told Julie Sylvester in a 1991 interview published in a Pace Gallery catalogue.
Nancy Selvage
BOSTON Boston Sculptors Gallery The retinal dazzle of Op Art came and went decades ago—as with many fads, it caught the eye, and then there seemed little more to say. But here it is again, mobile and in three dimensions, in the metal work of Nancy Selvage. This time, it appears to have many more possibilities.
Laura Santini
MONTREAL McCord Museum Laura Santini’s recent installation, sited within an exhibition of Innu art, consisted of a polar bear made from oyster shells collected at Montreal seafood restaurants. The project began modestly enough as Santini brought home a bag or two from each restaurant visit.
