In Tribeca, four exhibitions of works by contemporary artists explore the power of representation in paintings, sculptures and installations. They challenge our assumptions about beauty and who is excluded from traditional narratives, as Ugo Rondinone, Michael Rakowitz, Jesse Mokrin and Roberto Lugo offer new perspectives on iconographies and how we interact with them.
Ugo Rondinone, the mask and the masked
La Galerie du Journal, until September 21
Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone presents eight stone sculptures. The rocks hang like ancient masks, a perception reinforced by the presence of pinholes located where the eyes would be. At first rudimentary and minimal in shape, the stones quickly exhibit multidimensionality as the pinholes expand or shrink (depending on how you scan the room). They form a cycle – eight masks like the eight lunar phases – and a clock, a movement which contrasts with their individual immobility and clutter.
Their physicality channels philosophical reflections on early forms of work, but also distinctions one might draw between prehistoric and other forms of art, as well as the attributes one attributes to sophistication. Are these stone sculptures ritual, totemic or decorative? They capture the elusiveness of icons and the expanse of an indefinite human face. As non-living beings, they paradoxically guide us as landmarks and ancestors. When does a mask hide and when does it reveal?
Michael Rakowitz, The monument, the monster and the model
Jane Lombard Gallery, until October 21
Michael Rakowitz untangles historical overlaps and unravels legacies of violence in his latest show in New York. His investigation seems simple at first: what is in a monument? Hierarchies, nation building and cultural and aesthetic choices that honor certain personalities, of course. But quoting Robert Musil, Rakowitz dwells on the evocative suggestion that “there is nothing more invisible than a monument.” A monument is a material but it is also an embodiment of erasure and domination in ways that the contemporary eye does not always discern, unless they are well-known symbols of supremacy white.
With research help from Annie Raccuglia, Nick Raffel, and Derek Sutfin, Rakowitz digs into the not-so-noble and quirky stories behind select monuments that illustrate the notion of loot and transformation. For example, a statue of Columbus was removed from a Chicago park in the late 19th century to be melted down and recast under the name of President William McKinley, who helped dissolve the sovereign status of several native tribes (the statue still exists today). Rakowitz presents other examples across different periods and places.
The highlight of the exhibition is the meeting between the archival work and the conceptual proposal. “I started to see monuments as monsters,” says the artist said in Open art journal. The creature-like sculpture American Golem questions the complex aesthetics of monuments and its presence obstructs the return to more acceptable narratives. To create it, Rakowitz gathered materials spanning a fireplace and graffitied each constituent piece to mark its origin. Confronted with such provenance – an assemblage of stolen, plundered and unethically appropriated materials benefiting from slave labor and indigenous resources – we are left with a shifting perspective.
Jesse Mockrin, The Venus effect
James Cohan, until October 21
Mockrin playfully challenges our visual fantasy of Venus, the goddess of love. Through Venus, the masters represented the feminine ideal: voluptuous, seductive, irresistible. It is a concept, a projection and a body. Mockrin pastiches famous paintings from the Western canon and includes its own 21st century twists. For example, Works and deceptions (2023) gives off a scene similar to That of Édouard Manet Olympia (1863). A naked woman sits on a bed while an attendant in the background carries items to her. In Olympia, a black servant brings her a bouquet. In Works and deceptions, a white servant brings her a dress, as she rushes to leave her bed and the gaze of those who feasted on her displayed her nudity. Both stare at us, breaking the fourth wall and the distance that separates them as subjects from us as lurking spectators.
Her paintings are vignettes of the historical view of women. Mockrin presents diptychs and references to old European masters. The details invested in his subject’s hand and fingers elevate the works. Stylistically, Mockrin softens his paint application. Venus’ skin is flawless, seamless, plastic and almost photoshopped. She becomes a strange figure, her silhouette almost strangely unreal. Venus must please aesthetically; its function is to meet our needs. The mirror she wears is not a mark of vanity but rather a reflection of our unrealistic quest to achieve an unattainable ideal of beauty.
Roberto Lugo, The golden ghetto
R & Company, until October 27
Roberto Lugo’s first solo exhibition in New York is full of energy and echoes the ceramicist-activist’s distinctive voice. His Afro-Latino heritage and upbringing in North Philadelphia are foregrounded and co-opted in conversation with other artistic contexts. For example, Lugo reinterprets James McNeill Whistler’s Peacock Room at the National Museum of Asian Art in a monumental wall installation, Pigeon Cradle. There, objects depict Puerto Rican scenes, motifs and animals in vibrant hues, on glazed stoneware and porcelain.
The show takes a stunning turn in its “Orange and Black” series, in which Lugo imaginatively expresses a personal narrative through classically inspired amphorae. The title of the series refers to Greek black-figure pottery painting, which peaked between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE. Lugo’s large amphorae are divided into tiered segments like comic strips. His black figures tell different stories. In School to Prison Pipeline (2022), we see children becoming adults in bottom-up reading. Students carrying backpacks to racialized detainees line up with their trays of food. The day we fought the WTO (White takes over), 2022, incorporates visual elements linked to hip-hop culture and his childhood neighborhood. On the handles of the amphora: an afro comb, a knife and fire hydrants. Some of these symbols evoke pain, others simple forms of joy for children who had little else to play with. “This is a very personal exhibition for me, the first time I share mainly stories from my life,” he said. said in a Q&A with an artist, adding: “I communicate in a more direct and literal way, whereas before it was about my role as a potter and remembering others. » The result is fascinating.
