Emily Mae Smith "Heretic Lace" @ Petzel Gallery In New York

In Emily Mae Smith’s solo exhibition, Heretic Lace, on view at Petzel Gallery in New York, the pensive figures in the artist’s staggering and ominous paintings, who often take the form of humanoid brooms (descendants of the sweeper in Disney’s Fantasia, 1940), are trapped, blood on hands, in the rattling cage of art historical motifs. They look out over the horizon, expressionless, faceless, against a large moon or the amber hued glow of a window, with their bristled limbs in entropic environs. Flowers slightly wilted, a woodpecker gnashing at the timber, carnivorous felines, and hordes of mice invade the grain. As startlingly beautiful as they are, the paintings in Heretic Lace take on darker, psychosexual overtones (as compared to Smith’s past forays into the syntax of pop)—a distant famine, the memory of plagues and the torment of the artist in a zeitgeist at war with itself and haunted by the memories of the past. Formalities contradict themselves like brilliant paradoxes of form and perspective. There is a twisted surrealism that begs you to sweep all your nightmares under the rug.

Emily Mae Smith “Heretic Lace” is on view at Petzel Gallery until November 12th. All artwork courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York

Read A Conversation Between Artists Torkwase Dyson & Derek Fordjour From Our FW20 Sitting Issue →

TORKWASE DYSON In your work, there are so many different movements. I’ll say acrobatics. To quote Brand Nubian a little bit, “acrobatics over beats.” 

DEREK FORDJOUR I really like the notion of the acrobatic. As you talk about the dexterity of bodies and being pushed, I think about the presence and absence of bodies in your work. This is really a big part of my attraction to your thinking and your work as it relates to mine, is the absence of the depiction of the body, but your keen awareness of bodies in space. I wanted to know from you: where is the body centered in your thinking absent from depiction of the body? Read more.

Stephen Prina: English For Foreigners (Abridged) @ Petzel In New York

English for Foreigners (abridged) isolates two sections of a project—a portfolio of lithographs and the listening station with soundtrack—for its New York première. The lithographs feature all of the illustrations from Second Book in English for Foreigners in Evening Schools by Frederick Houghton (American Book Company, 1917), a book passed down to the artist from his father. The soundtrack is comprised of covers of preexisting compositions, arranged and performed by the artist for vocal and guitar, with the assistance from a clarinetist, including an instrumental version of “Giovinezza,” or “Youth,” the anthem of the Italian Fascist Party, with the clarinet—the father’s instrument in the village band—as solo instrument; “Bella Ciao,” the Italian Resistance anthem, and “Sabato Sera,” a then-current, hit single by Bruno Filippini that was gifted to the artist by his parents in 1964 upon their return from their first trip to Italy together and the first his father made since his emigration in 1923. In addition, the artist has composed a song, the lyrics of which are guided by notes and annotations his father inscribed in his copy of Second Book in English for Foreigners in Evening Schools. English for Foreigners (abridged) is on view through October 26 at Petzel 35 E 67th Street, New York. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Dana Hoey Organizes Ladies Muay Thai Fight Night @ Petzel Gallery in New York

As part of her exhibition Dana Hoey Presents, artist Dana Hoey organized a live Ladies Muay Thai Fight Night featuring 5 amateur fights, emceed by JoAnn Falanga, which took place on Friday night in the 20’ x 20’ boxing ring installed inside Petzel Gallery. Dana Hoey Presents challenges and confronts preconceived ideas and realities of feminism, combat, violence, self defense and the martial arts.

Dana Hoey Presents is on view through August 2 at Petzel Gallery 456 W 18th St, New York, NY 10011. photographs by Rann Golamco



Strategic Vandalism: The Legacy of Asger Jorn’s Modification Paintings @ Petzel Gallery In New York

Situated in the context of the first thrift store paintings altered by Danish artist Asger Jorn, Strategic Vandalism: The Legacy of Asger Jorn’s Modifications Paintings is a group show of over 30 prominent international artists investigating multifarious appropriation methods spanning from the mid-1960s to the flourishing techniques of the 1980s, up to the present day. Strategic Vandalism: The Legacy of Asger Jorn’s Modification Paintings features works by Enrico Baj, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Vidya Gastaldon, Wade Guyton/Stephen Prina, Rachel Harrison, Ray Johnson, Jacqueline de Jong, Asger Jorn, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Per Kirkeby, Lee Krasner, Albert Oehlen, Francis Picabia, Stephen Prina, R.H. Quaytman, Arnulf Rainer, Julian Schnabel, Jim Shaw, Gedi Sibony, Alexis Smith, Daniel Spoerri, John Stezaker, Betty Tompkins, and David Wojnarowicz. Strategic Vandalism is on view through April 13 at Petzel Gallery 456 W 18th Street, New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer

Jorge Pardo Presents "Eccentric Reflexivity 1988-1994" @ Petzel In New York

Eccentric Reflexivity 1988–1994 is a solo show of works by artist, sculptor and architect Jorge Pardo. In essence, Eccentric Reflexivity 1988–1994 is a non-nostalgic remembrance, appreciation, and documentation of the process of becoming an artist, featuring works imagined, created and produced during a specific period in Jorge Pardo’s life while and just after he was a student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. The exhibition explores and investigates Pardo’s playful aesthetic, while offering sly anti-Duchampean commentary on what can transform everyday objects, or ready-mades—many imbued with symbolic, art historical and autobiographical references—into art. Eccentric Reflexivity 1988-1994 is on view through April 20, 2019 at Petzel 35 East 67th Street, New York. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Adam McEwen Presents Works From A New Series @ Petzel Gallery In New York

These new series at Petzel represents an evolution for McEwen, expanding his practice into more prosaic, but also more challenging, territory. The works unpack and activate McEwen’s signature graphite sculptures, which are here mounted on rough plywood faced with aluminum and coated with an image of the subjects of the sculptures themselves. The exhibition is on view through February 16 at Petzel Gallery 456 W 18th Street,
New York.

Corinne Wasmuht's "Alnitak" Explores Digital-Image Aesthetics @ Petzel Gallery In New York

Petzel Gallery presents a solo exhibition by Berlin based artist Corinne Wasmuht. This will be her fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. One cannot address Wasmuht’s work without considering the seemingly full palette of digital-image aesthetics in her paintings: simulations of space, distortions, and displacements—even right down to the effect of a backlit computer screen. Generating the ideas for her pictures in the form of digital collages and computer sketches, Wasmuht’s initial source material derives from an array of abstracted and overlapping photographic imagery that she sources from a combination of the Internet and her own personal photographic archive. This material is then worked up into extremely complex, often very large-scale, panorama-like pictures depicting futuristic science-fictional landscapes of airport terminals, shopping centers, people in pedestrian zones, or, as Wasmuht refers to them more broadly, “structures,” which belong to our collective, global, everyday life. Corinne Wasmuht "Alnitak" will be on view until December 19th, 2015 at Petzel Gallery, 456 W 18th Street, New York. Photographs by Adam Lehrer. 

Adam McEwen "Traditional Contemporary" @ Petzel Gallery In New York

Petzel Gallery presents Traditional Contemporary, a grouping of new works by New York-based artist Adam McEwen. Comprised of large-scale drawings on paper and wall-mounted sculptures, Traditional Contemporary echoes themes previously explored by McEwen to create a disquieting opposition of the familiar momentarily made unfamiliar. Adam McEwen "Traditional Contemporary"  will be on view December 19, 2015 at Petzel Gallery, 456 W 18th Street, New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer

Last Week To Check Out Dana Schutz's "Fight in an Elevator" @ Petzel Gallery In New York

This is your last chance to check out Fight in an Elevator at Petzel Gallery—a solo exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Dana Schutz. As Fight in an Elevator, the title of Dana Schutz’s second exhibition at Petzel Gallery suggests, Schutz’s figures are placed within compressed interiors where they are forced to struggle against the boundaries of their painted environments and up onto the physical edge of the canvas. Her characters find themselves helpless in the mouth of a lion, exchanging blows in a mirrored elevator, or somnambulating down a narrow staircase. These highly structured spaces, which are both intensely public and utterly private, point to how Schutz tackles the subject of interiority—rather than offering a voyeuristic view, her frontal facing subjects stare directly back at the viewer, seemingly with the desire to extend outside of themselves. Fight in an Elevator will be on view until October 24, 2015 at Petzel Gallery, 456 W. 18th Street, in New York. photographs by Tenlie Mourning

One More Week To See Willem de Rooij's Exhibition @ Petzel

Dutch artist Willem de Rooij has been producing hand woven, abstract tapestries since 2009. For Rye Wonk, an exhibition that will be on view for only one more week at Petzel Gallery in New York, he will present a series of new weavings, where the interplay of warp and weft, the weave, the tension, the materiality and thickness of the threads, their colors and textures, are all of crucial importance. The exhibition also features some of Rooij's unique flower sculptures. Rye Wonk will be on view until May 2, 2015 at Petzel Gallery, 456 W 18th Street, New York. 

Joyce Pensato 'Castaway' @ Petzel Gallery in New York

Petzel Gallery presents Castaway, a solo exhibition by New York based artist Joyce Pensato. This is her fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. For this exhibition, Pensato will present a new series of paintings and drawings, as well as premiere digital c-prints of her studio taken by the artist and predominantly comprised of collages on her studio walls. Castaway will be on view until March 28 at Petzel Gallery.