The Armory Show sits at the heart of New York’s hustle and bustle, stretching over two Piers that look across the Hudson River. For our first gallery pick of the fair, we decided to go all-American. The artists represented across all of these galleries offer a wide-range of work, mostly in the format of sculpture and painting. However, there’s nothing traditional about these artists, their work sits firmly within the contemporary landscape.
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, LA
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects’ collection of artists can only be described as heterogeneous. Although all canvas-based, their pieces differ vastly. Charles Gaines’ work is a vacuum of grey-scale using pencil and charcoal to create a juxtaposition of nature and industry, shapes reminiscent of clouds with the dark colours of smoke. This lack of colour continues in the work of Dan Levenson, using paints on linen and a monochrome palette. Both of the gallery’s female artists on display tackle femininity and gender, but in contrasting ways. Sadie Benning’s work features flat tonal primary colours in jagged spirals, whereas Kim Dingle’s smeared, unfocused paintings of scenes from her character building of ‘Wild Girls’ depict a distorted constraint of femininity.
Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco
A clear exploration into pushing the boundaries of dimensions, Jessica Silverman Gallery’s booth feels almost hallucinogenic. With a group exhibition comprising the likes of Shannon Finley, Dashiell Manley, Hayal Pozanti and Nicole Wermers, this space offers up a combination of sculpture, photography and painting. This group of artists manipulate geometric shapes and feature Silverman’s signature colours — her selections often contain these vibrant lilacs and reds alongside pastel metallics. Wermers’ sculptures have a 2D appeal, whereas Suzanne Blank Redstone, Pozanti and Finley all create surreal 3D effects on either canvas or linen, and Ian Wallace displays his geometric paintings within photographs.
In celebration of both Ryan Mrozowski and Julia Bland’s first solo exhibitions with On Stellar Rays, their Armory booth is filled with the work of these two artists only. Mrozowski’s use of repetition removes the context from banal objects such as polka-dots and oranges, and re-creates a new setting on canvas. His detailing in repeating objects en-masse forms patterns, not dissimilar to the work of William Morris, however his colours are richer in tone. Julia Bland also manifests patterns in her own way, using weaving and painting within a mix of fabrics, her work is vast in size and technical complexity. Her exploration of structures seem influenced by the natural world, resulting in geometric symbols stripped back to intricate details.
