NEW YORK Jack Shainman Gallery “A river runs through it” could be the subtitle for Vibha Galhotra’s recent exhibition inspired by the Yamuna River, a legendary tributary of the sacred Ganges, which is also one of the world’s most polluted waterways. Tapestry-like constructions, sculptures, an installation, and a film all continue Galhotra’s examination of the effects of globalization and development by focusing on the critical role of water in daily life, not just in the artist’s native India and hometown of Delhi, but for all of us.
Words Hurt: A Conversation with Milagro Torreblanca
Milagro Torreblanca was born in Chile but has lived in Argentina since she was little. With expertise in scenography, murals, and restoration, she creates works that challenge the viewer’s critical point of view, causing discomfort and catching the attention by surprise.
Strange Relationships: A Conversation with Richard Wentworth
Richard Wentworth’s way of seeing requires a spatial intelligence that perceives the world as a system of interlocking signs. He habitually walks the streets of London observing minutiae often missed by the untrained eye, and these observations then provide the nucleus for new ideas.
Arlene Shechet: Body-to-Body Experience
Arlene Shechet seems to be having a moment. “All At Once,” a 20-year survey of her work at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, received critical acclaim last year. “Slip” (2013), a solo show at Sikkema Jenkins in New York, also caused a stir.
Kneading the World From Scratch: A Conversation with Adrián Villar Rojas
Born in Argentina in 1980, Adrián Villar Rojas has taken the contemporary art world by storm. Working in high-profile places (from Venice, Istanbul, and Sharjah to London’s Serpentine Sackler Gallery and New York’s High Line), he transforms his sites with temporary works that lean toward extreme performance.
Melvin Edwards: Liberation and Remembrance
Melvin Edwards has been welding sculpture for more than five decades and bearing witness to the continuing history of race relations in the United States. His recent works include incisive new examples of his iconic “Lynch Fragments” series and monumental public projects installed in various locations, including Japan, Senegal, Cuba, and the U.S.
Bananas and Bamboo: Yi-chun Lo
In the hands of Taiwanese artist Yi-chun Lo, bananas and bamboo become the primary ingredients for large indoor and outdoor sculpture installations. Lo received her MFA in sculpture from Taipei’s National Taiwan University of the Arts in 2010.
Disruption: ISC Chapter Groups at Grounds for Sculpture
We’re living through a storm of disruption, time moving so quickly we can hardly catch up before the universe moves on to the next thing. Changing weather patterns, from droughts to floods, add to the chaos.
Amber Cobb
DENVER, CO Gildar Gallery Amber Cobb’s exhibition, “Solace,” immersed viewers in a sculptural dialogue of fleshy tones and dichotomously seductive and repulsive forms. Building on a practice rooted in psychological and physical attachments, Cobb probed the space between the decorative and the grotesque, filling both rooms of the gallery with 12 wall-bound sculptures, a series of small figurines, and a large, centrally located sculpture in the round. Cobb gathers and treats a range of domestic objects—blankets, bedding, bath mats, figurines, and bedroom furniture—with silicone, resin, paint, and acrylic media.
Patrick Strzelec
NEW YORK Garth Greenan GalleryPatrick Strzelec’s recent exhibition featured a mature body of work evoking a variety of profound emotions—joy, sadness, fear, recognition, and foreboding. Composed of diverse materials, including plaster, aluminum, epoxy, steel, bronze, ceramic, wood, and detritus, the sculptures collapse recognizable and illogical forms. Strzelec uses postmodern strategies—appropriation, assemblage, and simulacra—but unlike many of his contemporaries, he crafts his work with his own hands. For over two decades, he has worked in numerous studios and foundries and taught sculpture at prestigious universities.
