#westofdirty

[west-of-dirty]

Erwin Wurm Ethics demonstrated in geometrical order Lehmann Maupin Gallery

Always fun and humourous show by Erwin Wurm. A lot of meditation on how to use your furniture for distinctive uses, like conversation, TV, meditation, all in an unorthdox way. Love this stuff. Check it out through May 26, 2017

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Maryilyn Minter Pretty/Dirty Brooklyn Museum

Awesome show that is a career survey of her work. She found her voice quickly  and took her realistic painting style and adapted it to feminism and sexualism that brought out a strong reation from the public when it first appeared (a lot porn). The large scale paintings from the 2000′s are the star of the show here. Check it out through May7, 2017

[west-of-dirty]

Random International - On the Body

Pace Gallery - 24th Street

I went to a presentation and talk by Random International collaborators Hanes Koch and Floran Ortkrass Friday night. The evening began with a dancer interacting with the exhibition called Fifteen Points. Fifteen Points heavily references the work of Niko Troje, founder of Biomotion Lab at Queen’s University in Ontario Troje's research found that fifteen points are all it takes, for our brains to arrange and suggest the figure’s gender, weight, and even mood.

While all of this was interesting to a science nerd like myself what I found very exciting was their upcoming exhibitions in London and a full scale 15 points in Menlo Park. “It’s appropriate to take Fifteen Points with us to Silicon Valley. While they work on their technology, we feel it’s important to bring some of our London and Berlin thoughtfulness and scrappiness,” Koch says tongue-in-cheek. Click here to see 15 Points in action.

[west-of-dirty]

Alex Torres - “Sun Light”

Unix Gallery

Unix Gallery has a new show by Cuban artist, Alex Torres. "Sun Light" is his second exhibition with Unix. This body of work is a slight departure from his last show in that the subjects are friends and family instead of cultural icons. I have to say this is why I gave the show a second look. There's intimacy with these portraits I didn't get from the last show. Torres's layering and basket weaving technique in each piece partners well with the complexity of his relationship to his subjects. Well, worth the trip to 24th street.

Find out more with this video

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Osgemos - The Silence of the Music

Lehman Maupin

The silence of the Music is the Brazilian artist duo OSGEMEOS’ first New York solo show with the gallery. Twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo turn each room into a mixed media installation.

The show combines folk art and pop culture as well as music. Music being a primary theme can be seen in their “B-Boy” room where boom box paintings and canvases with embedded speakers that play tracks linked to the images on the canvases while an interactive sculpture plays LP records.

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Alonsa Guevara - Anna Zorina Gallery

Chilean jungle girl Alonsa Guevara spent her childhood growing up in the Ecuadoran jungle getting malaria, fending off scorpions and snakes.

Seven years of living in the Ecuadorian jungle without television or any other electronic distractions left Alonsa to focus on the jungle as a source of inspiration. That inspiration can be seen in her paintings of fruit covered portraits of friends and family as well as intricate paintings of real and imaginary fruits. When I asked Alonsa's brother if it was weird to pose nude with fruit all over his body, he laughed and said: "no, it's for my sister."

Take a look inside Alonsa's studio here.

[west-of-dirty]

NYCHOS - IKON

Jonathan Levine Gallery

Nychos is a street artist, illustrator and painter whose signature style blends themes of morbid with the colorful. Inspired by comics, heavy metal, graffiti and his upbringing in a traditional Viennese hunting family, his work reveals the skeletal and internal structure of cartoon-like characters. With impeccable attention to detail, Nychos implements methods of “dissection, cross-section, meltdown and translucence” to juxtapose the beauty and grotesque nature of the body.

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John Akomfrah - Lisson Gallery

British artist John Akomfrah is both a filmmaker and photographer.

Akomfrah’s work he engages the viewer in a conversation about the way we experience history. Is history a truth about human memory?