ST IVES, CORNWALL, U.K. Tate St Ives The day I visited Tate St Ives to see “Strange Attractors” (on view through September 26, 2021), nature seemed perfectly aligned with Haegue Yang’s vision—charcoal clouds scowled across the sky as Atlantic rollers thundered deafeningly onto the beach below.
Shinichi Sawada
NEW YORK Venus Over Manhattan Shinichi Sawada’s dynamic, wood-fired ceramic sculptures teem with energy. In this show—the first U.S. presentation of works by the self-taught, 38-year-old artist, who is based in Shiga, Japan—a few dozen figures arranged on two long tables form a modern-day bestiary of creatures drawn from Japanese mythology and reality.
Alexandre da Cunha
NAPLES, ITALY Thomas Dane Gallery Alexandre da Cunha works in the tradition of the readymade, creating elegant sculptures from cheap and disposable everyday objects (such as mops) that he selects as much for their formal qualities as for their references to labor.
Betye Saar
NEW YORK The Morgan Library & Museum Each finished work in the exhibition is accompanied by pages from Saar’s working sketchbooks—these pairings open a fascinating window onto Saar’s process, illuminating what she calls “the mysterious transformation of object into art.”
Isabelle Albuquerque
LOS ANGELES Nicodim Gallery All fantasy, all good theater, requires some suspension of disbelief, a surrender to the moment. Total acceptance of what lies before us is what gives works of art their undeniable power. Isabelle Albuquerque’s work induces that suspension of disbelief, conjuring meaning from metaphor, innuendo, and metamorphosis.
“Figures on a Ground: Perspectives on Minimal Art”
BRUSSELS Fondation CAB Though the matter-of-fact tone of the title correlates with Minimalism’s cool presence, this survey thwarted such stolid frankness by presenting content as unanticipated as it was exemplary.
Richard Hunt
CHICAGO The Art Institute of Chicago Richard Hunt’s career trajectory reads like a modern-day version of a Baroque-era prodigy’s story. In 1957, while he was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the Museum of Modern Art purchased one of his works. Soon after, his sculptures were on display at the Whitney, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Yane Calovski
HELSINKI Kohta Pinpointing the intentions behind “Personal Object,” Skopje-based Yane Calovski’s arresting exhibition of heterogeneous works ranging widely across materials and possible subjects, proved challenging. The difficulties became immediately evident in Embroidery (2020), a striking and expansive painted wood sculpture.
Humaira Abid
SEATTLE Greg Kucera Gallery While “Searching for Home” featured installations of carved wooden objects like baby pacifiers, shoes, suitcases, and guns, “Sacred Games,” Abid’s recent show, concentrated on discrete, mostly wall-mounted sculptures and miniature paintings covering a wider variety of subjects; these works intensified the sense of material construction as a vehicle for significant content, including the oppression of Muslim women and the culpability of world religions.
Tmima
GLEN COVE, NEW YORK The Museum of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County In “The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Survivor’s Daughter” (on view through June 1, 2021), Tmima presents 30 emotionally shattering, mixed-media sculptures in which small, distorted figures populate ruined, apocalyptic landscapes.
