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Photograph: Lance Brewer; courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery; © Josephine Meckseper Josephine Meckseper
Andrea Rosen Gallery, through Jan 18
Meckseper has always cast a cold, critical eye on the imperial-financial machinations of our globalist society, mainly by examining the ways in which commodities are marketed and displayed. But for her debut with Rosen, the artist veers into the intersection of early modern art with some of the more unpleasant events of the 20th century, such as the rise of Nazism. There’s also a bit of autobiography, as one of the show’s elements refers to the artist’s hometown, Worpswede, Germany, the location of an artist colony dating back to the 19th century. The Bauhaus and Brancusi are also namechecked in this installation, in which past meets present.
Photograph: Courtesy Miguel Abreu Gallery Eileen Quinlan, “Curtains”
Miguel Abreu Gallery, through Dec 8
For her latest photos, Quinlan turns to black-and-white silver prints (some of them rephotographed versions of images taken years ago), with subjects, including portraits, that are atypical of her work. More typical is her emphasis on the meta, manifested here by the evident degradation of the film negatives, which in some instances were scored with steel wool or permitted to shed emulsion during the developing process. Ghostly and expressionistic, this series represents a departure from Quinlan’s usually cerebral formalism.
Photograph: Courtesy Asya Geisberg Gallery GuDmundur Thoroddsen, “Hobby and Work”
Asya Geisberg Gallery, through Dec 21
This Icelandic artist made quite an impression in his last New York show, with his totemic carved-wooden busts of bearded men that, in both style and content, evoked Norse gods or badass Viking raiders. A few more can be seen in his current show, which also includes works on paper, depicting similar characters in full figure doing manly things: shooting guns, shooting hoops, brewing beer and taking a dump.
Photograph: David N. Regen; © Rosemarie Trockel; Courtesy Gladstone Gallery; New York and Brussels Rosemarie Trockel
Gladstone Gallery; through Dec 21
Whatever else Trockel’s work has been about over the course of 30-plus years—and it has touched on many themes, from feminism to natural history—it has ultimately been concerned with the idea of art as an alchemical practice, a lesson learned from Joseph Beuys, who exerted a formative influence on many German artists of Trockel’s generation. The notion of one thing substantiated into another figures heavily in the works here, which include striped formalist paintings made of woolen yarn, and a joined pair of distressed-leather couches created from cast plastic and steel.
Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and Green Sophie von Hellermann
Greene Naftali, through Jan 4
Lyrical, surreal forms rendered in simple, dreamlike strokes on unprimed canvas are a hallmark of the work by this German figurative painter, who lives and works in London. The approach behind her latest canvases—illustrating common animal-related expressions, such as the “elephant in the room”—seems direct enough, but it yields the luminous, otherworldly results typical of this artist.
Top five shows: Nov 28–Dec 4, 2013
The best of the week in art.
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