Six Art Exhibitions to See Now

Six Art Exhibitions to See Now

We don’t know much about the art world schedule’s typical ebb and flow, or whether fall is usually more jam-packed with great shows than other times of year. But judging by all the stunning work that’s crossed our transom in the past week or two — and this major roundup posted over at Artsy a few weeks back — we’d venture to guess that this fall, at least, is a winner. There are so many art exhibitions we’re dying to see that we decided to put together a little roundup for you below, which really only contains the shows that have found their way into our inboxes. Had we gone out searching for more, this post would have no doubt been three times as long. Happy art-ing.

1. Sara VanDerBeek at The Approach

With Electric Prisms, Concrete Forms, the New York artist presents layered photos of sculptures that take forms common to both North and South American cultures. Along with a patterned wall she found in Brazil, work by Max Ernst, and Ecuadorean artifacts, the pieces are inspired by “textiles, both ancient and contemporary, such as the pre-Columbian textiles from Peru that Anni Albers collected and used within her teaching at Black Mountain College, and that of the motifs found on North American quilts.” (Photos courtesy of The Approach; on view through November 15; London)
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2. Phanos Kyriacou at Maccarone

The Cyprus-based artist Phanos Kyriacou collects objects from around his hometown of Nicosia — some of them salvaged from the workshops of local craftsmen — and modifies, frames, and extends them into the kinds of beautiful, sculptural oddities on view in his current show Daily Life at Maccarone. (Photos courtesy of Maccarone; on view through December 19; New York)
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3. Keith Sonnier at Maccarone

The Memphis revival has certainly been kind to Keith Sonnier, who pioneered the use of neon in art in the ’60s but is currently enjoying a major resurgence, possibly thanks in part to his works going viral on the internet. His show PORTALS features 14 brand new wall sculptures that represent “doorways to various different periods in human design — whether it be the neoclassical extension of a line into space or Romanesque arcading, each work is a luminous referent to specific architectural pathways.” (Photos courtesy of Maccarone; on view through December 19; New York)
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4. Doug Johnston at Patrick Parrish Gallery

We normally put Doug Johnston in a design context, and many of the new coiled-rope works for his What It Is show at Patrick Parrish indeed function as lamps or baskets. But he’s increasingly been moving in a more experimental direction, with his sculptural pieces becoming larger, more complex, and more strange and interesting than ever. (Photos courtesy of Patrick Parrish Gallery; on view through December 23; New York)
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5. Saloua Raouda Choucair at CRG Gallery

The first U.S. gallery show of Saloua Raouda Choucair spans more than five decades of the 99-year-old Lebanese artist’s paintings, tapestries, and sculptures, but in appearance at least, it’s a mid-century-lover’s dream. Choucair had a wide variety of influences, including Le Corbusier, science, and Arabic poetry; “she used techniques that combined the arithmetical basis of Islamic art and architecture, based on a visual ratio achieved through mathematical divisions and the repetition of shapes. She was also inspired by Sufism and its main principles, such as infinitude and duality, and applied it to her artistic concepts.” (Photos courtesy of CRG Gallery; on view through December 20; New York)
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6. Josh Jefferson at Gallery 16

Head Into the Trees, by Boston artist Josh Jefferson, actually opens this coming Friday, but we were so charmed by his playful, Instagram-approved compositions that we snuck it onto this list. Many of Jefferson’s works depict cartoonish heads, but we prefer his more abstract compositions, which his gallery says are created in an improvisational process akin to his love of experimental jazz. (Photos courtesy of Gallery 16; on view November 13 through December 31; San Francisco)
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