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Photograph: Courtesy Ricco/Maresca Gallery “Martin Thompson: Positive/Negative”
Ricco/Maresca Gallery, through Jan 18
This self-taught artist and mathematician from New Zealand creates mind-bogglingly intricate felt-tip pen drawings on graph paper that resemble the pixelated results of an Amish quilt mating with an old-school video game such as Pac-Man or Space Invaders. Each piece is made according to a numerical formula that Thompson follows as he precisely fills in each square. When he makes a mistake, which he sometimes does, he excises the offending part of the composition with a scalpel, replacing it with a Scotch-taped piece of corrected paper that exactly fits over the elided area—creating, in the bargain, a textural effect. Suffering from a mental disorder that makes it difficult for him to interact with people, Thompson views making art as a coping mechanism for dealing with the world.
Photograph: © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation; courtesy; Sean Kelly; New York Robert Mapplethorpe, “Saints and Sinners”
Sean Kelly Gallery, through Jan 25
On view are 54 photos by Mapplethorpe, some rarely exhibited, hung in pairs to illustrate the titular theme.
Photograph: Courtesy of Cheim & Read Sean Scully, “Night and Day”
Cheim & Read, through Jan 11
For his debut with the gallery, the master abstractionist presents new paintings featuring his signature geometric compositions (broken into blocks, stripes or bars), softened by feathery touches of the brush. The color schemes for these canvases were inspired by the landscapes surrounding the places in which they were created.
Photograph: Oregon Historical Society; Portland “The American West in Bronze”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, through Apr 13
Americans were far less sensitive in the 19th century than they are today, so they scarcely let the grass grow beneath their feet before they began to celebrate the taming of the West. And of course, works of art in all mediums were created as part of that effort (until long after the frontier was closed, in fact). The Met rounds up some examples in sculpture, many of cowboys and Native Americans, and the results are both charming and cringe-inducing, depending on your point of view.
Photograph: © 2013 Dorothea Rockburne / Artists Rights Society (ARS); New York “Dorothea Rockburne: Drawing Which Makes Itself”
Museum of Modern Art, through Jan 20
On view are works on paper by this New York painter, associated with the generation of artists who furthered minimalist aesthetics during the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were noted for using various predetermined formulae—mathematical rules, in Rockburne’s case—to create geometric abstractions.
Top five shows: Jan 2–8, 2014
The best of the week in art.
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