Art21 New York Close Up

Weekly Roundup

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Lynda Benglis. “Scarab,” 1990. Stainless steel mesh, aluminum. 52 x 75 x 16 in.

In this week’s roundup, Lynda Benglis manipulates metal, Julie Mehretu and Matthew Ritchie explore diagrams, Shahzia Sikander flows poetic, and more.

  • Lynda Benglis‘s work is on view at the Locks Gallery (Philadelphia, PA). Everything Flows features, among other works, the artist’s Pleat pieces. For these, Benglis manipulated fragments of folded mesh and sprayed them with liquid metal. The results are “buoyantly, ebulliently, kinetically fluid-like giant, festively crinkled, artlessly tied bows undergoing their various twists, turns and knots,” writes art historian Anna Chave in her accompanying essay. The exhibition closes June 15.
  • Matthew Ritchie has organized a group show for Andrea Rosen Gallery (New York, NY). The Temptation of the Diagram explores the diagram as an essential mode of artistic practice, and expands on themes that Ritchie studied during his residency at the Getty Research Institute (2012) and recently at Columbia University. Works by Julie Mehretu are included in the show, which closes April 27.
  • Shahzia Sikander was commissioned by curator Yuko Hasegawa to create site specific work for the 2013 Sharjah Biennial (United Arab Emirates). Poetry is a key theme across Sikander’s contributions, including a moving image installation and public performance. The Biennal closes May 13.
  • Focus: Barry McGee, now on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Forth Worth, TX), focuses on McGee‘s development since the early 1990s. Organized by curator Andrea Karnes, she will be in conversation with McGee on April 23 at 7pm. The event is free and open to the public. The exhibition closes June 2.
  • Cindy Sherman‘s retrospective exhibition has traveled to the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, TX). Cindy Sherman traces the artist’s career from the mid-1970s to the present, and features 160 photographs from her various bodies of work. The exhibition closes June 9.
  • Cindy Sherman, William Wegman, and Kalup Linzy all have work on view in the two-part exhibition Serious Laughs: Art, Politics, Humor at the Ulster Performing Arts Center (Kingston, NY). By transforming the theater into a gallery space, the UPAC calls attention to their “role as the arts anchor of the City of Kingston.” The first installment of the exhibition is already on display at the Kingston Public Library. The second installment opens at the UPAC on April 20 and runs through May 12.
  • Trenton Doyle Hancock will lecture at the San Francisco Art Institute (San Francisco, CA) on April 15 at 7:30pm. Hancock will address his transformation of traditional elements such as color, language, and pattern into characters and subplots. The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited and advance registration is recommended.
  • Maya Lin recently gave a talk at the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH). In anticipation of her presentation, the Wexner released a new video about Lin’s important project Groundswell (1993). Watch below.