Present Bodies: Papermaking at Dieu Donné
Opening Wednesday, December 4 at BRIC, 7 pm. On view through February 2.
Though it’s not quite as big a part of our lives as it used to be, paper is still ubiquitous. It creates our books, our restaurant menus, our never-ending piles of junk mail, and of course, our art. Starting Wednesday, our humble paper will get the star treatment at an exhibit at BRIC, showcasing artists who not only make art on paper but make the very paper displaying their art. The show features eight artists who participated in a recent residency at hand papermaking organization Dieu Donné. They all use their craft to explore marginalized bodies, taking both their identities and the medium their art exists on into their own hands.
By / Buy Me
Opening Friday, December 6 at Susan Inglett Gallery. On view through January 25.
If the average person knows art as one thing, it’s likely “expensive.” Galleries and museums look at you icily if you breathe too close to a painting, and art auctions facilitate the exchange of millions of dollars for artworks that will then go to sit in a collector’s room for eternity. An upcoming exhibition at Chelsea’s Susan Inglett Gallery focuses on everything that isn’t that—that is, artists who attempt to take their marketing and selling into their own hands, rather than letting countless middlemen take over. It’s a storied tradition, and the artist roster reflects that: there’s Yayoi Kusama, The Guerrilla Girls, Bruce Nauman, Takashi Murakami, Jenny Holzer, Marcel Duchamp, and even the Lower East Side’s own Reverend Jen.
This is your captain speaking
Opening Saturday, December 7 at Gymnasium, 6 pm to 9 pm. On view through January 11.
Williamsburg art space Gymnasium’s latest exhibit feels off. Photos are blurry or too small, portraits of people have noses that are tilted or eyes so close together it’s biologically impossible. A sculpture looks interestingly layered and textured, but that’s because its crafted from a literal hornet’s nest. Of course, all this uncanniness is on purpose. It’s the doing of Thomas Blair and Louis Osmosis, two young artists who are drawn to the strange, the flawed, and the malfunctioning, whether that’s an ultra low-res photo blown up and framed or graphite drawings of balding men, seen only from the backs of their heads.