NEW YORK Sundaram Tagore Gallery A first impression of Zheng Lu’s recent exhibition, “Undercurrent,” brought to mind the term “sublime.” Set against pristine white walls, huge silvery waves seemed about to crash through space. The obvious association was to Hokusai’s 19th-century print The Great Wave off Kanagawa, but stylistically, Zheng’s waves have more in common with Northern Song black ink painting, adapted in Japan as Sumi-e, whose sharply delineated brushwork has been compared to samurai sword strokes by the prominent Asian scholar Sherman E. Lee.
January/February 2018
Tove Storch
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery Danish sculptor Tove Storch app roaches sculpture as a way of thinking about materials and looking at space. Arguably, so do all sculptors, but Storch harks back to Minimalists and post-Minimalists such as Donald Judd, Richard Serra, and Jackie Winsor in her refusal to allow thoughts about anything else to intrude on her work. The content of Storch’s work is, quite simply, space and stuff, presented within the theater of the gallery.
Yaacov Dorchin
TEL AVIV Gordon Gallery Stella Maris, a colossal, open-ended ship’s hull made of discarded, rusted iron components from an industrial turbine, stood at the entrance to a recent exhibition by veteran Israeli sculptor Yaacov Dorchin. A confrontational work in terms of size, bulk, and apparent symbolism, Stella Maris offers a clue to its meaning on the base, which incorporates an iron Star of David.
Rhonda Zwillinger
ROTTERDAM Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rhonda Zwillinger’s recent exhibition was unexpectedly rattling. Ten hours after the experience, I could still feel the accompanying soundtrack. The show opened a door that I found myself not wanting to cross because the situation was so troubling. Though the work progressed from tragedy toward acceptance (my wishful thinking?), it offered a disturbing story that deserves attention. Zwillinger, who was active in New York City’s East Village scene in the mid-1970s and ’80s, received widespread attention for sculptures and installations covered with beads and faux precious stones.
