Do you feel out of touch with the art world, do not want to spend hours upon hours in massive museums that never seem to end, and want a quick guide of what’s hot, interesting, and will stimulate your senses?
Say no more!
We have got the guide to get you back in touch with all that is artsy in NYC.
Make a day of it! Whether you are with friends or a potential date you might want to impress with everything you are about to learn in this short article.
We shall start out with the Chelsea gallery district, then move onto Soho/LES, and end our tour in Tribeca: ready, set, go!
1. I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, Robert Mann Gallery (closes August 18th)
Our first stop could perhaps be the most fun of them all. It's the ‘I scream, you scream’ exhibit at the Robert Mann Gallery, a playful exhibit about the social and visual culture of ice cream.
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The intent of this show is to showcase how photographers have captured the playfulness and pleasure inherent to the experience of eating ice cream. This show also manages to capture through pictures the sweet, warm, and fun essence of summer.
2. REASON, Gagosian gallery (closes August 11th)
This month, the Gagosian gallery in Chelsea is presenting ‘Reason’ by world renowned artist and scientist Carsten Holler. In case you haven’t seen his striking work to death on your Instagram feed, you have got to check it out before it closes on August 11th.
In this exhibit, you will find large scale mushroom sculptures, which visitors are encouraged to interact with. This gallery also features a giant stabile with moving parts titled ‘Flying mushrooms’, which will literally slowly orbit through the air when you push the lowest part of this piece’s stabile.
This art show is meant to make you question your understanding of nature, and more specifically, of everything you think you know about mushrooms: how they are meant to look, feel, move, taste or even the way that they are meant to be positioned in nature (which I can bet was not flying up into the sky).
So come and be amazed by the arresting beauty of these vibrant pieces, and perhaps be puzzled by the underlying intellectual intent of this exhibit.
3. SYNÆSTHESIA, Gallery 151 (closes September 1st)
Ashley G. Garne’s ‘Synæsthesia’’ exhibit at Gallery 151 will for sure be one of the most memorable ones you have been to yet.
This multi-sensory installation features audio composition by the world renowned artist ALURA and a six part video series of ‘synthesized dyes, influenced by color psychology, with symbolic flora.’
This exhibit was designed for visitors to experience the ‘synæsthesia phenomenon’ (traditionally thought to be a synaptic overlapping of the senses i.e. hearing color or associating sound with scent) first hand.
The doors of this show will not be open forever (it ends September 1st!), which is all the more reason for you to come and become immersed in this multi-sensorial experience. An experience that shall stimulate your mind through the combination of its entrancing music and striking moving images and might perhaps make you ‘entertain different states of consciousness.’
4. VISCERAL, PROVOCATIVE, IN THE FLESH, Eden Fine Art (closes December 31st)
Artwork by: Jona Leriche
Jona Leriche’s ‘Visceral, provocative, in the flesh’ exhibit of photography at Eden Fine Art departs from the artist’s desire to ‘inject the rawness of nature’ into his very controlled and perfect looking photographs.
This means that his pictures are not only intended to overwhelm you with their contrasting colors and bizarre characters but also to make you re-evaluate:
what can be considered to be beautiful
what is natural and/or artificial and whether the subjects depicted on his photos are less artificial and more connected with nature than any of us
if humans can still be considered to be part of nature
how connected physically and anatomically we are to nature
how today’s current world which seems to be affected by ‘mere appearance, social media posturing and superficiality’ has changed us as humans
5. WOMEN SEEING WOMEN, Staley Wise Gallery (closes August 31st)
Photographer: Juanita Tovar / Artwork by: Bieke Depoorter
This exhibit celebrates the work of twelve female photographers whose work delves into the world of fashion and documentary photography. This show’s stunning photographs not only intend to showcase the complexity of the female experience but to support female artists’ increasing efforts to retake the agency of female representation.
This exhibit will therefore encourage you to see the world through these artists’ eyes as they depict a diverse range of subjects such as: the world of fashion, sexuality, war, religion, and childhood.
An insider tip when visiting this place would be to make you you check the back of this gallery. Here you can find the iconic pictures that Bert Stern took of Marilyn Monroe where the raw nature of her sensuality can be seen in full force.
6. MAGNUM MANIFESTO, International Center of Photography (closes September 3rd)
Photographer: Juanita Tovar / Artwork by: Bruce Davidson
This summer the ICP is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Magnum Photos collective by displaying the photographic work of 75 masters. This exhibit’s main intention is to provide a poignant and new perspective on ‘the contribution of these photographers to our collective visual memory.’
Magnum Manifesto showcases the political and social topics that have been relevant for the last seventy years. It does so in a way that makes you become immersed in the historic events and human emotions of the most diverse range of people for most of the 20th century.
So come and connect with the history of violence, oppression, laughter, and joy and learn about people’s stories, struggles, victories, and visions of the world, and history for the last seventy years.
7. SHARING COUNTRY, Olsen Gruin Gallery (closes August 10th)
Photographer: Angelly de Jesus / Artwork by: Tommy Watson
The Olsen Gruin Gallery’s ‘Sharing Country’ exhibit is offering its visitors with once in a lifetime opportunity to see first hand the ravishing beauty of modern aboriginal art. All the pieces shown on this show are brought to you from some of the most remote desert communities of the South Pacific. This exhibit closes on August 10th so you better not miss it!
The intention of this exhibit is not only to mesmerize you with the sheer beauty of the almost lucious combination of colors displayed in these pieces but to show you the richness and diversity of Southern Pacific aboriginal cultures.
The pieces displayed in this exhibit contain geographical representations of the wild landscapes that these communities live in. These paintings are interestingly so also visual representation of aboriginal history, dialects, and differences among their tribes.
This exhibit will therefore push you to think again about the very different ways in which landscapes can be visually portrayed and about how history can also be narrated without the use of language.
8. CONFLICT OF INTEREST, Hal Bromm Gallery (closes September 1st)
Photographer: Angelly de Jesus / Artwork by: Stephen Hall
Stephen Hall’s ‘Conflict of Interest’ exhibit at the Hal Bromm Gallery will make you feel an intoxicating mix of jubilation and vertigo.
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Hall’s work will engage you with the lush intensity, ‘slick style, and intense precision’ of his brushstrokes. More importantly so, these pieces will make you think about and question your stance on some of the most important issues facing our modern time: terrorism, the destruction of the environment, racism, and the pervasive invasion of civilians’ right to privacy.
9. SUMMER SHOW, Hal Bromm Gallery (closes September 15th)
Artwork by: Vincent Pomilio
Lastly, the Hal Bromm gallery is featuring an exhibit of abstract painting, which should very quickly catch you up with the latest developments of some of the most important contemporary abstract painters in the world.
The vibrant beauty of the colors used in combination with the wild arrangement and exploration of geometry found on these pieces should end this tour on a high note, or so we hope.
[Feature Image Courtesy Vincent Pomilio]