(image via Flowers Gallery NY / Facebook)
yes no maybe
Opening Tuesday, July 17 at Flowers Gallery, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through August 24.
Thanks to social media, the word “algorithm” is no longer something only mentioned in math class. I’d say for better or for worse, but we all know that people typically invoke talks of The Algorithm when they are complaining about the latest way it’s seeming to screw them over. A new group exhibition at Chelsea’s Flowers Gallery, which takes its title from the mathematical theory of probability, asks five artists to create works using their own algorithmic processes. This may sound intimidating until you realize an algorithm isn’t much more than a purposeful pattern that repeats over time, which is something done in art often. The artists of yes no maybe (all prolific and regarded in their respective fields) take their algorithmic inspiration from topics as varied as geometric microscopic organisms, Berlin’s Tempelhof airport, jazz music, and hypercubes. At the opening, there will be a panel discussion with Beryl Korot, Manfred Mohr and Judith Stenneken, moderated by Zabet Patterson, a professor and writer who focuses on how contemporary art and computing interact.
Lara Nasser, Lump, 2018, oil on panel, 10 x 8 inches (image via Meredith Rosen Gallery)
Half Ass
Opening Friday, July 20 at Meredith Rosen Gallery, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through August 18.
It’s quite a claim to paint yourself as Jesus, but that’s just a small slice of what artist Lara Nasser does in Half Ass, her latest solo exhibition at the relatively new art space Meredith Rosen Gallery. Nasser doesn’t just do this once, but multiple times in multiple mediums, including a 3D printed sculpture. That’s not all there is to see at Half Ass; there’s also work inspired by amateur Muslim porn, Islam, and Lebanese TV, plus a fortune telling interactive video installation and a life-size dummy “trapped in his own site-specific neuroses.” Through all of this, Nasser seeks to raise questions surrounding male authority figures, personal agency, cultural differences, and more.
(image via Pioneer Works / Facebook)
Stamped
Opening Friday, July 20 at Pioneer Works, 7 pm to 9 pm. On view through August 26.
What’s the deal with blonde hair, anyway? Is it really more fun, or is it all a carefully constructed façade? These are the questions raised in Claudia Rankine and John Lucas’s Stamped, a collaboration between the writer and photographer that explores the presence of blondness throughout several facets of culture and society, including its role in potentially supporting the notion of whiteness as particularly desirable. The duo zeroes in on dyed blonde hair specifically, placing photos of faux-fair-haired individuals on postage stamps (hence the exhibition name), paired with a video installation by Lucas centered on (what else?) hair. Stamped opens in conjunction with Matthew Morrocco’s solo exhibition Orchid: RGB, a queer photography show centered around “a nameless, genderless figure posing in various landscapes of abstract RGB color fields.”