Art This Week: Vases, Radio Waves, Self-Reflection

Transmitting Waves
Opening Wednesday, September 12 at Richard Taittinger Gallery, 6 pm to 9 pm. On view through November 10.

There’s something inexplicably entrancing about the colors that pervade vintage printed matter, such as ads or movie posters. The colors tend to look impossibly vivid, or at least they do to my eyes. I get a similar feeling when viewing the work of the late artist Nassos Daphnis, who also developed a color theory stating each primary color, plus white and black, “occupies a number of planes on a scale of 1 to 100.” It’s no surprise, then, that the man stuck with these five shades in his art-making as well. This show at Richard Taittinger Gallery is a “reimagining” of a 1983 show at Leo Castelli Gallery, a place Daphnis exhibited at often, though it also includes works that haven’t been shown before. If you’re into fine lines, bold colors, geometric precision, and a minimal-yet-vivid take on radio waves and the like, this is the show for you.

Static Motion
Opening Wednesday, September 12 at The Bee in the Lion, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through December 14.

If you’ve never heard of Manhattan art space The Bee in the Lion, you’re not alone: it’s a private space being opened to the public specifically for this show of paintings by Carly Silverman. Each image takes its cue from a photo taken by street style documentarian The Sartorialist, but rather than merely trying to replicate these shots of metropolitan women and their clothes, Silverman takes advantage of what one can do with paints. Her process involves blurring layers upon layers of paint by wiping a cloth through them as they’re drying, creating a pleasantly blurry world that resembles some sort of dreamland, prioritizing color and shape over facial expression.

Study For Self Reflection
Opening Thursday, September 13 at Hauser & Wirth, 6 pm to 8 pm. On view through October 27.

“Look at your life, look at your choices.” Once uttered in the 2010 viral video entitled Sassy Gay Friend: Romeo and Juliet, this phrase is also essentially what British artist Mark Wallinger is saying to institutions of authority (and possibly, you) in his new show, Study For Self Reflection. From mirrored sculptures inspired by London’s police headquarters and its “omniscient eye of law enforcement” to silver “Mirror Paintings” that resemble the shininess of a lake’s surface, Wallinger is all about ways of seeing the world and one’s self in new ways, whether this be an eye-opening discovery of surveillance or some simple self-reflection.

Daily Vase
Opening Saturday, September 15 at Greenpoint Hill, 7 pm to 9 pm. On view through October 14.

Not everyone owns a vase. When I got flowers recently, I put them in this weird long St. Germain liqueur-branded container an old subletter left in my apartment years ago. But for those who have their home life together more than I do, it’s presumably nice to have a good-looking vase laying around. Ceramicist Alison Owen knows this well, as the vase is the central facet to her aptly-named solo exhibition, Daily Vase. She’s created some form of vase every day in 2018, interpreting the prompt creatively—some works are vases on canvas, while others are more traditional sculptures. The sheer variety of work focused on one single subject will surely make you think more about vases than you ever have before.